Boo at the Zoo

We went trick-or-treating at the zoo yesterday which I have to say was absolute chaos, but the kids had fun.  The lines were horrible.  And the crowds bothered the kids' sensory problems to some degree.  My eldest kept yelling randomly at things like the goose that was on the path that startled him and the wind that bothered him but it was so loud there, I don't think anyone noticed.  My daughter was all quiet and shy and I had to grab candy for her a lot.  Little guy on the other hand loved it and got a huge kick out of putting stuff in his bucket and walking around looking at the animals.  Overall it was a busy tiring but fun day.  They didn't get much candy and the advertisements they gave us got really annoying not to mention the crowds, so I doubt we will be going back next year.  However, they did enjoy it so....

Homeschool Halloween Party

Well today we had our homeschool halloween party.  Basically we played games, did lots of crafts and had cupcakes.  For lunch I made Jack-o-lantern grilled cheese which is pretty much self explanatory but here's a picture.

Unfortunately the "sensory" kids didn't like it at all but my eldest did try it which is better than he would have done a year ago.  My daughter wouldn't even try it.  So they had one of their "safe" foods, bologna.  I love doing fun kid things with the food, but my kids aren't too receptive to people making their food look different even if it is a food that they like.  Tomorrow we are going to be making monster mouths out of marshmallows and apples.  Hopefully that will go better with them wanting to eat it.

Craft wise we made pipe cleaner spiders which I had to help them a lot with.  Apparently it was a little over their head.  And they colored haunted houses and stuck monster stickers all over it for decoration.

My eldest wanted the day off from doing actual school and I told him he could if he did extra work tomorrow but then he got so goofy and silly like he always does when he is anticipating something that he was driving me crazy bouncing around the house.  I decided to talk him back into doing some work and he actually got a lot done on the computer especially in math, but he loves math so that was easy to talk him into.   My little man is adding and subtracting money with decimals right now and multiplying two digit by two digit numbers.  Gotta brag on him a little bit, he's such a smart little dude.  

Oreo Spiders

For snack today, we made oreo spiders.  This is by no means a novel idea in the world of preschool cooking projects but I thought I would post it anyway.  We took halloween oreos and I had the kids stick pretzel sticks in the creme to make legs.  We then used decorating gel to stick m&m eyes on the spiders.  The kids needed some help if their spiders started to fall apart but for the most part, they did the "cooking" themselves.  Here's a picture of the finished product.

This is my little girl's spider.  She has sensory issues and is weird about novel foods, so she refused to eat hers.   She rarely eats our cooking projects.  But she made one and fed it to Daddy.  I gave her a plain oreo instead.  Both my older two children have always been weird about making food projects and eating them.  This is the first year my eldest boy has really gotten into this kind of thing and he really seems to be enjoying it now.  Just FYI to make this project milk free for little guy, we just omit the m&ms and use sweet tarts for eyes.  The oreos and pretzels are milk free.

I Love You

Even though my little one is now 18 months old, he was recently evaluated to have the speech of a nine month old.  It is hard especially after having two early talkers to have a little guy who can't say I love you, and can't even give real kisses yet.  Sign language however has been a life saver and if you have a child who is showing signs of developmental and speech delays, I suggest starting signing as early as possible.  We started when little guy was about 12 months old and still wasn't really babbling much yet.  I just looked up signs online and printed off pictures.  We are up to about 15 signs now, and the newest one is my favorite.  I just recently taught him the sign for I love you and he loves to sign it back to me at bedtime.  It just melts my heart.  Even though he doesn't quite get it right and it looks more like he is just pointing, it is so great to have that little moment with him.  And he gets so excited about it too!  He just loves it when he makes a sign and you know what he is trying to say.  He also recently learned the sign for cookie which of course is his favorite.  :)  He also likes the sign for shoes because it means we are going bye bye.  I am thinking about ordering some sign language dvds for him if he doesn't pick up some more words soon.  He has been attempting words but they don't really sound close to what they are supposed to be yet.  Like every word sounds like a variation of dada or babap.  Thank goodness for signs so we can figure out what on earth he wants lol.

The Strawberry

Now my youngest has a little problem with biting.  Not just biting other people mind you but biting everything.  When he gets mad or frustrated, he takes it out on the closest thing.  Unfortunately that is usually himself.  He has bitten his own arm to the point of leaving bruises and has chewed sores on his little fingers.  We talked to the occupational therapist yesterday and she gave him a chewy tube which is just a rubbery thing to bite on, and she recommended a vibrating teething toy which you can get at walmart.  So off go to walmart to search for this toy.  After scouring the baby section, I find this thing that looks like a strawberry.  It cost six dollars which a thought was a little steep for a teether and it was huge for a teether.  I am not sure a six month old could get their mouth over it, but my little dude has a pretty good size set of chompers so I thought I would give it a go.  If it will save my little guy's arms from bruises it will be well worth the six bucks and I will probably spring for a few more for spares.  

Anyways, I bring the thing home and show little guy what it does and he was hugely impressed.  It vibrates when you bite on it and is supposed to soothe teething pain.  We were hoping it would give him some needed sensory input in his mouth.  He even slept with the thing last night and has been dragging it everywhere.  He did seem to bite less today, but that could be a coincidence and weird thing is he started hitting his head on the floor again.  Which I had just told the therapists he had stopped doing that.  Hmmm...little guy is a puzzler sometimes.  We haven't tried out the chewy tube yet since he was so impressed with the vibrating strawberry but I intend on keeping it in the diaper bag for when we are out.

Hokey Pokey

We were reading a book for preschool and it mentioned the hokey pokey which the girls of course thought was a hilarious name for a dance.  So I of course had to show them how to do the Hokey Pokey which made for a good break from the norm.  And that lead to all sorts of movement games like Simon Says, Ring around the Rosie and follow the leader.  It overall made for an interesting fun day and the bonus was they weren't dragging a bunch of toys all over the place or fighting.  It made me really want to try to remember more of those games we all played when we were little that kids just don't play anymore to teach to my kids.  Unfortunately my memory isn't the greatest, so comment if you read this and have any ideas!

Sensory issues with online learning

Well, we just started using Time4Learning.com which is an online curriculum with interactive tutorials and games.  I will post an actual review after we have used it for a while since today is our first day.  Anyways, my eldest has always had "issues" with the song "Happy Birthday" literally his whole life.  When he was little we had to whisper the song at birthday parties or listen to him scream bloody murder.  This was actually one of our first clues that he might have autism.  Now for about two years now, he has been able to tolerate the singing at parties and even has started to sing along within the past year.

Now here comes this interactive tutorial about President's Day....The tutorial starts off by loudly singing guess what?  "Happy Birthday" to the presidents.  Having that song sung unexpectedly threw my big guy into a meltdown.  He turned the laptop around and yelled at it in tears.  Thankfully none of the other music or animation on the site has bothered him thus far, and he did calm down after it was over and I gave him a hug and turned down the volume.  We will see how it goes from here on out.  He seems to enjoy the other parts of the program.  It's just a reminder that he might be getting better at managing certain issues related to his diagnosis, but they are still there lingering in the background waiting to catch him off guard.  It is also a reminder to take your child's sensory issues into consideration when choosing a program or curriculum.  Bright characters and colors might look fun but may be too much for your child to process all at once.  However, I do think this program looks awesome, and he does seem to like most of it.  We also may be able to adapt using the mute button on such occasions in the future.