And on we go into "Autumber"!

We have been carrying on with little to report. Vee has had a week off school due to illness and we didn't do a lot of work really although she did go in one day briefly for 30 minutes to meet her p4 buddy. She also made some cards for her lovely nursery 'friends' (the nursery nurse and early years practitioners) as she has been missing them and talking about them. 

The week prior to Vee being unwell we were carrying on with pencil skills, she is really inconsistent with this. The wriiting board has helped with the stability of her grip but some letters she just doesn't get the rule of how to write and others (like 'r') she can do no bother at all. 

To help with this I'm still going over age 3-5 recommended writing skills books and using some of the worksheets her keyworker at her nursery gave me before she left. I want her to continue to getmore comfortable with a pencil in her hand and confident that she can do this: 

I am keeping maths work very basic. We still use hanging up laundry with pegs as a counting exercise as well as a way of helping her pincer grip and wrist strength. I found this Carol Vorderman series Maths book and with help she did really well. Again it's really for pre-school age, in Scotland. 

We did do one worksheet given to us by the class teacher once Vee was on the mend and although she needed help to cut it out she enjoyed sorting into small, medium and large. 

To keep up with school we are continuing using the dinosaur apps and we are chatting about the change of season to Autumn (or as Vee calls it "autumber" which made me laugh outloud) and today we found a lovely conker on the way home from school at lunchtime so we took it home and gave it a wash. I think it has become a pet! 

Week Three.

A new week and some new tasks to get to grips with. School sent children home with their magnetic boards to help learn phonetics (a new letter added daily) and Vee just doesn't take in information in a conventional way so we need to get some assessment of her learning style done formally (she isn't a phonetic learner either). That may be tricky...

We don't do a lot on a Monday afternoon, she is often quite shell shocked almost and incredibly tired. So we did the magnetic board and she then chose to play some games on the computer. Her style of holding the mouse is unique but it works for her and gets the job done! I can leave the room for a few minutes and nothing bad happens, we did have a few missing files in the first week though!

After she had some computer time we had another play on one of the dinosaur apps and she then went off to play with her favourite toys and to relax. 



On Tuesday there was more work on the magnetic board and we practised more base skills for learning handwriting. A few weeks ago I found this wonderful book in Waterstones, I can recommend the Collins range, great for the core skills require to hold a pencil and maintain control. 

 This sort of movement is quite tricky and I was really impressed at the control Vee had once she was focused.

I ordered and received a writing slope this week. Vee's hypermobility and hypotonia (coupled with an interesting pencil grasp) mean it's hard for her to retain control and maintain her writing consistently. We use pencils with a ribbed circular grip to cushion the pressure on her supporting middle finger. 

The Posturite writing slope was really expensive but for us it is worth it as our other two children benefit from using one and use one at their school desk. This thing will never break so we'll be using it for years. Up until now I had been using an A4 ring binder which is sufficient. 

 To round off the week we visited the library on Thursday, we had a chat about the lovely Marigold's on our way in too. Her class go to the library on a Thursday afternoon and as ours is only 10 minutes walk it is a lovely way to end the week (Edinburgh operates a half day on a Friday so no home learning on a Friday afternoon). 

 Vee helped to scan the books she chose using the 'self help' machine after choosing and playing with the library toys!

Week One & Two.

Just to be clear, I'm 'flexi schooling' Queen Vee. We came to this decision mostly because she has siblings in the local school and she had the idea that school is what happens when you are 5! We felt it is a good compromise for now. Her additional needs prevent her being there full days - our catchment school is a heaving mainstream with c670 pupils, plus with the politics of ASL I am not taking chances. I still haven't ruled out home education all of the time or more specialist education for Vee but am happy to trial part time formal education for now.

Early on week one her class went on a trip to the museum first thing so Vee got to have a whole day learning at home. She hates the museum, it's a sensory nightmare for her and actually she has no interest in being there. This coupled with her being unable to walk that distance, deal with being in the building and focussing then the walk back, it was just not right for her.

We started the day later than school time after taking her siblings to school and started with some handwriting. Vee has low muscle tone and a poor pencil grip (hypermobility and hypotonia)  so whilst school will be keeping momentum going at the rate of her peers at home I am working on the basics of moving a pencil about a page and following an instruction. We worked on following a dotted straight line and then some wiggly lines.

Vee's class teacher gave us the 'T' sheet to work on at home, which was good for colouring in and naturally she got the sound and action immediately!

We then moved on to doing some work on dinosaurs, given that's what her class were learning about that day. I already had a vocal and matching app (Dinosaurs World) that my kids have been using for years and so we did that first.

 Then I found this app (Planet Dino) which has puzzles, matching and sequencing games. Vee found it "too loud" but did enjoy with the volume off!

The children in class were learning about numbers 1- 10 so we worked with pegs as I was hanging up washing. This game doubled as good therapy work for Vee's wrist strength too as she pegged up some of the items for me. She was a very willing helper and eager pupil this week.

We continued working on all the above tasks and including work sheets brought home from school I feel we had a very productive and busy week. As we finish week 2 of this journey.


 I feel very happy about this decision and about how motivated Vee is with me as well as with her formal class teacher.