August 19-25, 2012

What a great week this week!  It started off a little rough, but we're totally ending on a high note.

Henry

Let's see.  Henry got a nice package in the mail this week.  A while ago, I was able to take advantage of a deal on the Scholastic website to buy a selection of 50 books for a dollar a piece.  They arrived this week and, as you can see, Henry eagerly sorted through them all.  Funnily enough, he had just finished watching Short Circuit when the box arrived.  When I opened it up and took book after book out, he did his best Johnny Five impersonation: "Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiinput!  More input!"

 

 We're moving right along with school.  This week, Henry did:

• Saxon Math 1: Lessons 24-27 (writing the number 22, identifying a rectangle and its number of sides and angles; writing the number 23, writing number sentences for some, some more stories; writing the number 24, identifying the attributes of pattern blocks; writing the number 25, identifying lighter and heavier using a balance)
• The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading: Lessons 79-81 (review of the soft sounds of C and G, s stands for the /z/ sound, adding s to the ends of words), plus we've started a review of some of the older lessons to make sure he gets plenty of practice with those skills.
• Zaner-Bloser Handwriting Kindergarten: Pages 75-82 (Ss, Bb, Pp, U/S/B/P review, uppercase alphabet)

We started up Sunday school again this week.  Henry, Oliver, and Jane all listened to the lesson on the Holy Trinity and did the corresponding crafts.

Oliver

Oliver is doing great with his therapy.  The bloom was off the rose when we started on Monday, but he's really adjusting well.  He had a pretty bad drop-off one day, but he got over it very quickly and they even got a nice picture of him enjoying circle time.  It certainly made me feel a lot better to see him having fun.

I've started keeping a little notebook to record the skills Oliver demonstrates at home.  This week, Oliver:

• Matched all of his colors beanbags to the right colors on Starfall.com.  Meaning, he selected each beanbag, then pointed to the corresponding color on the screen.  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, and white!
• Said "wait" after hearing it spoken and seeing the sign for the word on his Signing Time DVD
• Used the "pretzel" sign with minimal assistance and used the "ball" sign independently
• Matched the letters A, E, J, P, and I on his alphabet puzzle (and probably would have done more if Jane hadn't jumped in)
• Made the "a-e-i-o-u" long vowel sounds while watching his mouth in the mirror.  This is something he'd have Matt and me do over and over again while he stared at our mouths.  This is the first time he did it himself.

We also had Oliver's IEP meeting this week.  Although we're not using the school services, we have to have an IEP in place for our EFMP placment and ECHO coverage for ABA.  The school representatives I met with were so nice and helpful.  I really appreciated all of the information I got from them.  They made it very clear that they are there to help us in any way that we choose to use them, whether it's actually enrolling Oliver in the class full time or just using them for additional speech therapy.  We're going to keep our options open. 


Jane

Oh, my little spitfire.

She wants to do school.  Anytime Henry is at the table, she's begging for "wuk."  Right now, she's doing plenty of coloring, looking at her letters on Starfall, and learning lots of signs.  She loves Signing Time. 

Loves it. 

Since we're spending a lot more time in the car lately (taking Oliver back and forth to therapy), I've decided to do a little carschooling for Jane.  I'm going to use the Signing Time DVDs (Volume 1 and Volume 2), Leapfrog: Letter Factory, and the Classical Baby box set (Dance, Art, and Music).  Henry still likes to watch these (and he gets a kick out of signing too!).


Peter

 Speaks for itself!  He's just a big, happy boy.  Love him.