On finding a school place

This year I  have decided to put my son into school as I had been home educating him since his brief spell in preschool. Now was the time for the once anxious boy, now out of his shell to venture into the big wide world and burn off some of his energy. My nerves and my house can no longer take it but he needs to added input for his speech and language among other things. Little Bird is ready to play with paints and glue, to be in a stricter routine of playtime and lunchtimes with learning activities structured around him and this has become impossible at home as well....I'm mum and he can mess me around quite a bit. We need a break from each other, different adult in his life to have influence and provide encouragement. He needed the extra time at home but now he is simply too bored and needs more than I can provide Monday to Friday. I felt like I was giving up for a while but then I realised it was simply a case of things changing and our natural development as mother and son. I feel better now that I'm being a good mum and recognising that now my little boy needs more. 

At the moment I am in waiting situation with the LEA, despite him having a full statement it seems there are lots of meetings to be had, hoops to jump through and lots of red tape. It's strange how getting him into school seems so much harder that not sending him in the first place when the LEA were keen to talk. Now, it's delay after delay and meeting after meeting, panel after panel....time wasting. The issue is really that there are no school places left, unless somebody moves at the last minute or changes their mind. Where will he go? I perhaps will know later this week but it is frustrating and a bit of a worry. I'm staying positive and then I can start to buy everything he needs which will be really exciting as he's never had all those school type things before.

5 things we need for school:

1. A school bag for all LB's books, spare clothes, drink, pencil case and the passing to and fro of notes between the teacher and I. Probably a rucksack with a nice pattern on it like cute dinosaurs or animals that is easy to wipe clean and comfortable straps for his shoulders. 

2. One of the most important items for any school child are name labels for EVERYTHING! From his coat to his bag and lunch box, they will all have some colourful labels with a little picture beside them. They will help LB know which things are his, 

3. We will also need some stationery items for school, a jolly pencil case filled with pencils, coloured pens, crayons and a ruler. For home a new calendar to keep track of school events and a notebook/diary for my bag - after all with parent's evenings and future Nativity plays to watch I will need to make sure I can quickly make a note. 

4. I can remember my school lunch box as a child, it was turquoise and had little cherubic-like characters on it, plus stickers on the back - such was the craze in the 1980's. For LB I'd like to find a cheap and cheerful lunch bag that will last a couple of terms since they get quite grotty there is not point spending a lot as I will replace it every few terms. I would quite like to find a space themed set for him complete with drinks bottle. Then I will have to look to Pinterest and try and be one of those super Bento making parents!

5. 
5. Finally a PE bag for those shorts, t-shirt and pumps. I was not a sporty child and shied away from PE lessons but perhaps my son will enjoy sports day and the egg and spoon race - I bet he won't though he's too much like me. However, we shall see and he'll certainly have a smart bag to take his things in. 

Then of course there will be the new uniform, although until I find out which school he will be going to I have no idea what it will look like. Hopefully next week I will have some news......

*Collaborative post

Farm jigsaw and sticker book review

 A certain little boy loves farms and Old Macdonald had a farm sends him skipping around the room. To encourage his concentration skills I decided our morning activity would be to look at a Farm Jigsaw and Sticker Book by My Little World.

March celebrations #BalloonTime

 Balloons make a party. Beautiful, colourful cheery balloons. My son loves them and so do I. The perfect decoration whether it be in corners of rooms, above doors, as table centres or fancy balloon arches. However, it has to be said than helium balloons are the best, they float, there's life in them and rather than just hanging there limp, they are bobbing around and are a lot more fun.

February has made me sad

So this month has been hard, very hard. My son has been in and out of hospital with stomach pains which in turn has led to some very severe meltdowns. In fact it has been going on since January. He is exhausted and so are we.

Benefits of pet fish for autistic children

This week has been a tough one for my son and I will tell the story at a later date but what I will say is that his anxiety levels are extremely high and now we are seeking to try and reduce his stress levels and are looking at ways to do this.

He loves watching fish in aquariums so it has got me thinking about the benefits of aquariums for autistic children from my point of view in my experience with my own son's sensory needs.

Image source: boy and fish tank Shutterstock

I see Christmas

 Instead of a Christmas Eve box, we had an Advent present bag. I thought that having some Christmassy gifts a bit more spread out would help LB manage and also begin to understand all about Christmas and everything that goes along side it from wrapping paper and bows to snowmen and angels. So in our Christmas  bag we had:
Advent calender of course, a cute German one from eBay
Frozen on DVD as we still hadn't seen it
The Snowman audio book - Sainsburys
A Christmas place mat - Wilkinsons
Christmas books to look at vocabulary - Quality Save
Reindeer bed socks - Matalan
2 Christmas onesies - Sainsburys and Matalan
A cute Rudolph polo shirt - Matalan
Christmas bobble hat - Matalan
Slippers - B&M's
Stickers as they are really good sensory ones - Lidl
Gingerbread man socks
Triple CD of Christmas music -  Quality Save
 We found some really good bargains with items from budget shops, used money off vouchers and picked up items from the supermarket on offer. I was really pleased with our items and absolutely thrilled with LB's response. He was so interested in everything and had such a beaming smile. He's so easily pleased, I really love that about him. He'd be happy with anything and I now know that he realises about presents. He says the word when he sees boxes tied with ribbons, like in books so I hope he gets that squishy ones in wrapping paper, wrapped badly by mum/Santa are also presents :) When I walk into the house with bags LB runs over to peep inside as there is usually something for him ;) Cheeky chops! He loves his hat and likes wearing it even in the house and being a little old man with his home comforts, he likes wearing his slippers. LB still adores music, asking for it to be out on as soon as he goes into his bedroom and sees his CD player. The onesies seem to have been helping him to sleep a little better and I'm trying the bed socks as a way of helping him stay snuggly through the night and get a good night's sleep. 
He looks so smart in his new Rudolph top, looking a proper little boy these days and less toddler like. 5 next month! I can hardly believe it.
So he's understanding the concept of presents and taking great enjoyment in receiving them but what is the icing on the big old Christmas cake for me is that he recognises Christmas. Despite thinking that Santa is Grandad, which is so cute 'I see grand', he also says ' I see Christmas' whenever he sees a Christmassy scene - tinsel fringed windows, grottos, snowy scenes - 'I see Christmas!' That for me is the best Christmas present of all.  It has been nice to compare to last year and see how much he has progressed. This time last year he was still in a buggy and now he walks everywhere although I have to keep tight hold of him beside the roads as he can get quite giddy. 

Back joining in with Small Steps at Ethan's Escapades - it's been a long time!

Our wishlist to Santa at Debenhams

Melissa & Doug Self-Correcting Number Puzzles // Halilit Sea Life Floating Bath Puzzle // Halilit Floating Blocks Bath Toy // B. B. Bazillion Buckets // Keel Christmas penguin 20cm //  Tomy Aquafun Octopals Gift Tube // The Very Hungry Caterpillar Hungry Caterpillar Apple Playset // Motormax Motormax 3 inch diecast 20 car set // Melissa & Doug Castle Wooden Figure 

Set

There was a special boy who had been very, very good

He'd been so kind and loving as every little boy should.

All year long he had worked very hard

On his speech and understanding and with his PECS* cards.

New words they came a plenty from animals to everyday items

And sitting down with mummy to do activities that are exciting.

The toys we wish for from Santa will help us on our way

From learning about numbers, matching colours as we play.

Games that make bath time fun and puzzles that can float

And pretending we are knights in a castle with a moat.

Finally at bedtime we can have a little cuddle

With a perfect little penguin who likes to have a snuggle

Thank you so much Santa, you make us smile every year

So we've left you a glass of milk and some carrots for the reindeer.

We hope you have a safe journey on your present delivering flight

And that Christmas magic, love and happiness is received by all with true delight.

(*PECS by the way are the cards that Little Bird uses to help him communicate - picture exchange system)

This is my entry into the Debenhams wishlist to Santa competition. 

Musical gifts

My little boy loves music. It is a key part of his learning and I like to buy him music related items for Christmas and his birthday. Browsing through the Musicroom website I found so many items that I knew he would love but using the Gift Finder app really helped me to find suitable presents for him.

Using the dials you can narrow your search down for a gift for a music lover by altering the dials to reflect the type of product you are looking for - whether it be a particular type of instrument or a stocking filler, the price bracket and if it is for an adult or a child. The app is intuitive and if you are searching a particular type of instrument it opens up another category of beginner and intermediate. Ideal if you need ideas for a perfect musical gift but just don't know quite what to get.

With such a huge selection of gifts variable, I used to app to find some super pressies for my little man. The first item that the app brought up was actually as if it had read my mind from a few weeks ago. I had seen a video of these wonderful percussion instruments, brightly coloured and perfect for Primary aged children - Wak-A-Tubes. An amazing idea for him as we can both plays these together encouraging his turn taking and co-ordination skills.

Through the Gift Finder and looking through the site I found lots of goodies for Christmas from a keyboard, to a Djembe drum and a Frog Guiro like one he had loved at pre-school. Music is such a big part of our life, it's a way through to my son and a way to connect so is on our home education curriculum. Music is a daily calming influence and I want to encourage his interest in it.

The Stocking Filler gifts are great  - games, chocolates, kitchenwares, socks......all with a musical theme. Such unique and interesting presents for loved ones. Serious music items too for the professional - instruments and sheet music so whether you have a beginner or an experienced musician to buy for, you will find plenty to choose from.
Music gift inspiration

Do you have any budding musicians in your family and what items would you buy them?

We were invited to trial the service out, all words and opinions are my own.

Autumn fun at the farm

Maize maze exploring, corn and feet squelching in mud. First time we had ever been in one and it was a lot of fun. LB loved the rustling of the tall spires of corn and it felt a little spooky, horror film-like. Wondering what was going to be around the corner or hiding amongst the ears of corn. It is certainly an autumn treat that is becoming more popular every year.

Goodbye October and a wonderful Halloween

 We immersed ourselves in pumpkins and lined them up for decoration, continuing their ripening process to burnt autumn orange. Our terrier watched over them and the odd one suffered a fall and rolled across the front room when he got too over enthusiastic about the local posty delivering our letters. Local shops put on great displays, I was very impressed. I haven't got the new trend of pumpkin sculpting yet, I'm just a traditional carver with triangle eyes, noses and jagged mouths.   We tried to do as many Halloween activities as possible from carving and decorating pumpkins, colouring in haunted houses, baking spooky cupcakes and gazing at the full moon.  Many seasonal scented candles were lit, we had a Halloween party at home and one at LB's autism group where he wore his cute Jack O'lantern t-shirt and starry Boden trousers. The house was stuffed full of decorations and on Halloween night we put our sack faced scarecrow on the drive, a line of tea lights in jam jars and some pumpkins to welcome the trick or treaters.   Gourds nestled in the window boxes and our Halloween fairy lights twinkled attracting a steady stream of children dressed as ghosts and witches, with parents waiting just to the side. We went out for a walk ourselves and left a note with some sweeties to take. When we got back, just a few had been taken which made me feel all fuzzy that we live in a nice area.   I'm a little sad that Halloween is over, I feel like there is so much more spooking and scaring to do. Although the run up to Christmas is perfect for a scary fireside story. I've just read  Bellman & Black, a gothic tale that touched upon and next on the list is The Bone Clocks and The Ghosts of Heaven.

Time for some warming food to be made, fires to be lit and hopefully taking LB to a firework display this weekend. It's gone a little colder this week after such a warm October so I am looking forward to all the hats and scarves being worn again.

Have a great November xx

Autumn tidying at the allotment

The allotment is now a weekend visit, no more evening trips as the night is ever drawing in earlier and earlier. No more evenings sat on the tool trunk listening to the blackbirds or nodding heads at fellow allotment holders digging across the raspberries and bean poles. No more gazing at the hot air balloon that puffed its way across the allotment sky and gave rise to the most ridiculous chase across town to see where it landed..... Weekends can be a rush. After the autism club, the family visits, the shopping and the household work, there is barely enough time to visit the allotment. Plus the thought of all the digging over and moving bag upon bag of weeds to the council tip does not enthuse us. The lack of produce on the plot is a disappointment, no promise of beans or pumpkin patches to send me rushing there - we need to pull our allotment socks up next year.  But still, we go and we dig and there is pleasure to be taken from looking at what our more prepared plot neighbours have grown and tended to; the huge orange Cinderella pumpkins and flourishing runner beans and I know that next year will be our year. DB is keen now to clear the plot and start the fixing jobs - the vine arch that is in a heap, building raised beds and sorting the shed out. This winter I am going to plan. No more growing crops I do not like and lots more heritage vegetables with their different colours and characterful appearance. Hopefully next year there will also be a pumpkin patch full of wonderful varieties - squashes such as Turks Turban and the blue skinned Crown Prince.   Despite our apathy, this feeling has not transferred to Little Bird whose excitement starts as soon as we turn by the town church and cross over the humped back railway bridge. Little legs kick with excitement into the back of my car seat and when we pull up, shiny navy Wellington boots jump out and away down the grassy paths. He's still feeling the joy with the blackbird, both chirping in their own fashion and bobbing along past nettles and clumps of nasturtiums.
The allotment is a good reminder of how far LB has come and how much he has grown. Not a toddler now but a boy who can manage to have fun here and not run off too much, to listen and come back when we call and not stray off onto other plots. I am filled with hope; he will tend to his own little patch and dig with a little trowel, lug a watering can across the plot and learn about the soil and the creatures that inhabit it. I will be his teacher.  We secretly had an admiring look around the other allotment plots, the tidy ones with people still there busying away and lots of the ground still full of crops like beans and autumn fruiting raspberries, even sweet peas merrily climbing metal poles. Bountiful harvest gifts. Perfect and pretty, hard to believe that it is autumn as the sun shone. Pumpkins found nestling under weeds and vines led to triumphant shouts from me - 'come see, come see'  These curious fruits, the smell so divine. Some smooth, some warty. I found one on my own plot, I'd thought it was going to be a summer squash but the skin had slowly turned from green to orange and there he sat. Beaming, waiting to be picked.
Pie, syrup, juice, curry, cheesecake, roasted, spiced, blended into soup. Endless possibilities for the best allotment treasure you can find. 

Morning victories

Mornings are great in our home. We get up when we want to get up. So if Little Bird has had a difficult night of being unable to sleep, we can just surface from the warmth of the covers when he is ready. The benefits of home educating - our biggest morning victory.

Mornings are taken at LB's pace - for he needs a little time to get himself together after such broken sleep. Time for the words to come. I'm not sure if this is an autism thing but he really does need some time in the morning to be able to put his words together. Time to power up.

But then he is off! And what a victory this is, being able to ask for what he wants, for he only started to talk last year.
'I want toast'
'I want iPad'.........

And so the day starts. I have my cup of coffee looking out of the window at everyone busying past in the drizzle or the cold whilst we are warm and chilled out inside our home. Even the dogs have a lazy morning. Of course I'm then making breakfast and getting the day's activities together but it's a lovely pace for my little boy to keep him calm and happy.

This post is an entry for #MorningWin Linky Challenge sponsored by belVita Breakfast. Learn more at http://bit.ly/belVitaUK

POP Goes Your Name - Personalised CD Review

Little Bird loves music. It was one of his first words and as you may know he has a severe speech delay so the fact that he said it so early on in his speech and language journey, shows to me its importance. He has to have music on as soon as he wakes up, as background music whilst learning during the day and at night to go to sleep.

I'm not sure if this all has anything to do with his autism but its extremely interesting just how much music is part of our daily lives and serves as a comfort to LB. It is also a fantastic way to engage him and get into his world. 

I was extremely interested to discover a new CD of personalised music - which I'll come onto as it is an amazing concept. It is called POP Goes Your Name and it is a CD consisting of 12 children's songs with your little one's name in each of the songs. Amazing hey!

POP Goes Your Name is the unique concept of a musical husband and wife, Lucy and Richard Patterson and began from the songs they sang to their son and put onto a CD for him. Family and friends also loved the songs and requested personalised versions too so the musical pair set about recording the CD for the 800 most popular names! You can check to see if your child's name is available here. 

I love personalised items, they make such lovely gifts and the professional presentation of this CD is so pretty in a turquoise box that it would make a sweet present for a little boy or girl. Ideal for a postal gift as it will not weigh a lot alongside a birthday card (or with Christmas approaching - eek!)

The CD features catchy songs that are from different genres from rock to melodies to country & western - a great mix of styles all containing your child's name. Lucy and Richard being music teachers have really put together a fantastic CD collaborating with other musicians. You can listen to samples of POP Goes Your Name on their website.

We loved Noisy Farm, Alphabet Song and my favourite was Rock it Out. I did wonder how LB would react to his name as it is something he rarely says, such is autism but it has actually made him start to say his name more when I sing the songs to him and leave a gap for him to say the missing word. We have a very clear defined name and I wonder if it's because the CD has his name in it on every song. I find that LB learns a lot through music, the language seems to be understood better when sang, maybe it is the rhythm of the music that suits his learning style.

source:percussion instruments Shutterstock

We work music sessions into our home education timetable and will use the CD regularly as part of that. We played it the other day and used percussion instruments  as it played. I help LB play in time with a drum or a triangle hand over hand and he really enjoyed that. 

He also loves his pre-bedtime boogie. As soon as he gets out of the bath, the music is on and he has a little jiggle to his tunes :) Then some days just a little strum of his guitar...... The CD has been part of our daily routine this week and has helped us connect despite him feeling a bit under the weather. Music is truly wonderful for my autism superstar. 

The CD was enjoyed by myself and Little Bird and we will carry on playing it as part of our activities. 

Disclosure: We were sent a CD for the purpose of the review and all words are my own honest opinion. 

Twinkl Review - from our SEN/Home Educating point of view

We are now home educating Little Bird. We couldn't find the right school in time for September and all sorts of other reasons. I think the pathway is a little clearer now and we'll maybe start looking at schools again but in the meantime we are very much home educating. We don't have a structured timetable and go with the flow depending upon the mood that LB is in and aim to do lots of fun things every day to help him learn.

It can be hard to know where to start sometimes. Little Bird has autism so his learning style takes a lot of work to understand, I can't lie - it is complex. Over the summer I had a bit of a head start using the Twinkl website which provides oodles of printables, activities and guidance. It has been a great help to me in order to get started on our home education journey.

Twinkl Resources is the trusted home and one stop shop for thousands of lovely, unique, printable teaching resources for Early Years, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, teachers, home educators, parents, childminders, nurseries and more.
They have an SEN section with everything from visual timetables to behaviour management. One of the first sections I went to was the Autism Spectrum Disorders page and got the full resource pack in one handy download which took only a few minutes.

This contained truly amazing printables that we can work on. From simple tasks like sensory activities such as the Playdough Mats which are great for us at the moment as LB has a love of the stuff, squelching it and squeezing it. We will use the mats to enhance our learning, starting with the Playdough faces so he can practice rolling up sausages to make a smile and rolling  a ball for eyes - great for his fine motor skills and the Playdough Mats make it that more interesting.  Then there are lots of matching games and further down the line for us, simple Numeracy and Literacy.

What I love about Twinkl is that the layout and the grouping together of activities is very easy to understand and navigate. You can easily find what you are looking for and also find the right level for your child straight away. Also, if like me you are home educating it acts as a good starting point and if you are following the National Curriculum it is a good guide to follow. Even if you are not following the NC, it is still a fab site for information and activities for your children. It will be invaluable to us whilst home educating. 

The illustrations of the activities are colourful and clear with a style that is consistent across the site. The instructions are straightforward on both how to download and then print the resources. All you need is a printer and a laminator - invaluable items for me with printing off lots of visual timetables and communication cards for LB. 

There are three subscription levels offered:

Free membership that allows access to the majority of resources; 

Gold membership which is the high quality, low cost option at £24.99 a year

Platinum membership which allows access to all resources and is priced at £39.99 per year

The Twinkl Forum is a further wealth of information covering all subjects and levels as well as topics relevant for teachers, parents and others in education. This was a really interesting area to browse through and I picked up some ideas for planning the day at Early Years Level and read an interesting SEN thread. Hopefully in time the forum will be utilised a lot more and have more contributions as it would be a place I frequently look too for help. 

Twinkl Create is a new section of the website where you can create your own resources from a selection of templates that you then whatever you need for the classroom or at home - perhaps labels for files or for drawers. You can select pretty borders and picture to tailor them to your own style. For instance, LB loves animals so I'd like to make some labels for our puzzles, games and activity baskets with his favourite animals on them to brighten up our home education area at home. It also gives another talking point with LB and I like to increase these speech and language opportunities throughout the day. 

I was thrilled to find a Home Education area under the Parents section and here I found some ideas of Lesson Plans such as a very relevant Autumn lesson plan ideas for EYFS. Now it can be really hard at home to think of some ideas some days so the lesson plan is great and provides activities across the curriculum. They even contain handy links to printable activities on the Twinkl website. I found an Autumn Display Poster that is perfect for LB as we are very much all about the pointing, naming and practising vocabulary. You will get so much help from Twinkl, it is an absolute life saver. 

Twinkl are open to suggestions and I can see that under each activity is a section where you can put forward ideas and improvements to which Twinkl quickly acknowledge. I like that, it feels very much like you are part of a community.

The SEN section has most definitely been our first stop. The Autism Spectrum Mind Map is superb and helps you to understand autism and what you can do with your child on the spectrum. Likewise are the visual timetables which we having been putting to good use in our daily work at home. 

The Story Sacks are amazing and give a pack of activities, it would be great to see more stories in time as they really are excellent. 

From a home educating SEN point of view they are fantastic and when LB goes to school we will carry on using the resources at home. They are fun whilst also being educational and I can see how they help teachers in the classroom too. Top marks from us and I feel the price is very reasonable too. 

** Disclosure: I received a Twinkle Platinum Membership for the purpose of the review and it is my own honest view of the service**