Inside the mind of an Aspergers child

Today N, me and the doggies drove down to Grandma's in the Forest. Grandma loves seeing the dogs and always has lots of treats for them.

Grandma has lots of treats for N too, and one them was a packet of Maltesers. N opened them up and said it reminded her of something that happened in the past.

Grandma or Great Grandma (she can't remember which) bought her a small packet of Maltesers and told her not to eat them all at once. N opened the packet and ate them (after all it was only a small packet). Grandma or Great Grandma then told her off for eating them all at once.

N asked me today "How could anyone eat them all at once?"

I explained that whoever had given her the sweets had not meant 'don't put them all in your mouth together' as she had assumed but don't eat them all in one sitting - perhaps save some for later.

Since N has been diagnosed, I have been doing a lot of reading, trying to understand what has been 'going on in her head' over the last 9 years. There is so much that we just take for granted, we know what people mean. N did not really know what was meant by 'don't eat them all at once' and as far as she was concerned she had not done anything wrong.

I wonder what would have happened if N had told me that story a few months ago, before we really knew anything about Asperger Syndrome. What would have been my reply?

financial challenge

Well it has been 15 days since I set the 10 day financial challenge.

I am ashamed to say that on the 9th day I spent £2.44 on Ebay. It was a DVD N really wanted and was much cheaper than we have seen elsewhere, so I gave in!

Today in town we had a quick browse in the charity shops and I spotted this...

Its clearly old, but never used. Maybe it was an unwanted gift kept in a cupboard somewhere. A quick look online told me its a 1980's game.

N and I have just played it and we had such fun. We laughed and laughed. I hope to play later on with Hubby when he is home from cricket!!

It was well worth the £2!

Dough modelling, ginger biscuits, tangrams and sudoku

As the local school holidays have started N has been out on her scooter meeting up with everyone in the afternoons and early evening. In between scootering we have been...

Making salt dough for modelling. Due to N's sensory issues the messy part inbetween using the spoon to mix and actually having the dough ready to model has to be done by me, but once it is in an unmessy dough N is well away.

 N decided to use a sponge to put her acrylic paint on to make the kebab really look like meat. Cool idea.

 Here are our almost finished models.

• a pond with stones around and a fish in the middle
• a flower
• a kebab
• a face
• a plate of sausage, mash and giant peas
• a plate of jacket potato and salad
• a star

N made ginger biscuits and shared them out with her friends and neighbours.

Today I spent some time looking for tangrams to work on in maths with N. I found some great pdf files to print off of tangrams and example shapes to make with them. (Its supposed to be from ancient china and you always have to use all of the 7 shapes to make the tangrams) N wasn't enthused. She said she would rather be doing sums - as there didn't really seem to be a point to tangrams!! So much for finding something different to do!

She asked if I could teach her sudoku. I found some great online games for children to introduce them to it. When she comes in from scootering we shall give it a go!

Big Kids

We had the 'Big Kids' over for a BBQ yesterday, and through N's coughing fits they managed to have this much fun.......

Board Games

Life can be miserable when you are feeling poorly. N has a really bad cough at the moment and didn't get off to sleep properly until 5.00am, it was made worse by the fact that she had her first wobbly molar tooth which was causing blood in her mouth.

We have been trying to cheer her up with some board games;

 Brainbox cards, these are great - you get 10 seconds to remember facts from a card and the next player asks you one question (determined by the roll of a dice) its quick and easy to play and the games can last as long as you want. They have different topics in different boxes too. (We have animals and history)

Then we played Cluedo - one of N's favourites, mainly because we have the edition with character figures. N beat me 4 games to 2, and I didn't let her win!.....

 Rev. Green in the hall with the candlestick

 Mrs Peacock in the Lounge with the rope

 Prof.Plum in the Kitchen with Dagger

 Prof. Plum in the dining room with the rope

 Mrs Peacock in the ballroom with the lead pipe

Prof.Plum in the kitchen with the lead pipe.

Call me weird but I think there are some interesting recurring items there, considering the cards were thoroughly shuffled. Maybe I can work that probability in to a maths lesson next week. :)

Unintentionally all about animals

We didn't intend it to be, but yesterday was all about animals.

In the morning N painted the other side of the chicken....

 Wrote a story about chickens.....

 illustrated her story

 We went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park to walk the dogs in the afternoon......

 We saw the baby prairie dogs, baby camel, the new giraffes, new lambs and baby goats, new bantams, so much had changed since we have last been. The dogs love it there; so many smells and sounds. Ralph uses about 3 days worth of energy through excitement.

While I was cooking tea, N played Countries Eureka on the electronic talking globe.

In the evening we went to a birthday party at the next door neighbours, and had a lovely time :)

Rainy Day

Today has been full of rain which has given us the chance to do all of this...

Chromatography - the process of separating chemicals / mixtures, we used felt tip pens and filter paper

 measuring out the dots, so they are all roughly the same distance from the tip of the paper

 clipping them to the glass - N enjoyed picking out 5 different coloured paper clips!!

 The finished results - some more successful than others....

 due to the fact that some of the pens N used were not water soluble or were permanent markers (lets call these the test spots)

 Pepper has not slept in her own bed since she was poisoned as she is obviously associating the bed with feeling poorly. N had the idea of sitting in Peppers bed to show her it was safe!

 30 minutes later and voila - Pepper asleep in her bed, which she hasn't done for a week - well done N

 personalised maths problems - connected to N, her friends, family and pets

 experimenting with my Dad's old engraving tool which we acquired last weekend

 painting the chicken that N designed at Cogges yesterday, and started to saw out of wood (twas finished with the workshop leader's jigsaw)

 Playing with the dogs

Sharing books together

But most of all - LAUGHING

Financial Challenge first 4 days

Mmm it proved harder than I thought as about half an hour after the original post I realised I needed to send off an SAE for an Education City subscription card. I had already paid the subscription but didn't have two second class stamps. It was definitely a No-No to go to the shops and buy them. Luckily Hubby came to the rescue with some spare stamps.

Saturday and Sunday - no temptations.

Monday at the hospital - my eyes lit up when I saw a second hand book sale 50p each to raise money for the hospital. I was just about to say 'I'm just going to have a look at those books' when I realised I was not allowed. I did pose the suggestion that my Hubby could pay (as he is not taking part in the challenge), to which he quickly replied - NO! After the hospital we went out for lunch as a bit of a treat after our emotional morning - but hey I'm classifying that under the food section!

Tuesday - this morning I woke up and realised that the Avon lady is calling tomorrow and I need to pay for 3 things that my Mum has ordered. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I hope I can get around it, as even though it is coming out of my purse - I didn't order it and it is not for me. Is that allowed?!! N has a friend to play at home today, so we shouldn't need to go anywhere near anything that costs money :)

Tomorrow - Wednesday - We have our next Cogges Farm Museum session. Another free day out phew!

Hospital Visit and Human Hoopla

Monday morning is Daddy time and what else could that possibly mean other than Human Hoopla?!!

N had an assessment today at the local hospital, and they confirmed that N has High Functioning Austism - Aspergers Syndrome. N felt able to talk freely about how she feels and reacts to things. We were very relieved that they were able to give an immediate diagnosis and we would not have to endure numerous visits to specialists. Now all  thats left for us to do is carry on as we have been doing!
N says 'Having Aspergers Syndrome doesn't change who I am, it just explains why'.

Financial Challenge

Anyone home educating knows it is not easy financially, and there comes a time when you have to zip up your purse and say NO MORE!

Therefore I have set myself a challenge that unless I am paying for food or diesel I am not spending any money for 10 days. Can I do it?  Even I seriously doubt it but I have set myself a challenge and must stick to it. No more walking past charity shops and seeing something that would be great for an art project or a book that we need.

Everything we do for the next 10 days must be totally FREE or using up all the stuff we have bought previously. Which is a lot - Home edders can't walk past a bargain that someone else is casting off. I must be banned from car boot sales! The phrase 'I think we can use that for something - lets buy it' must not pass my lips, even if it is only 50p.

I am hoping for success - and if so why can't I do that for 10 days every month? (well lets just see how we go shall we.....)

Watch out for further posts to see how we progress.

Witney Town Museum & Back Garden Fun

Today we went along to Witney Town Museum. We have never been before, it is a sweet little place. We were hoping to find something we could use for our Georgian project, we quickly realised the museum mainly displays pieces from the Victorian era. Upstairs there is a rather fab 1950's kitchen though!

After dinner this evening we started to make some shell decorations for the garden. N enjoyed choosing the shells from her collection. She didn't want to wrap the wire though...... here is one we made....

I enjoyed it so much I made another!

N hula hooped. Then she decided she wanted to try and teach Ralph to jump through a hoop....

I think that one is going to take some work!

Do we look like the kind of dogs who would........

 In one week
Chew pencils
Chew through a rubber
Chew a clay creation (N was even more bitter as it was a creation of Ralph)
ALMOST rip the telephone wire from the wall
Rip the heads off my lillies
Rip a hole in the zip up greenhouse
Eat dead slugs??????
Unfortunately for Pepper she did eat dead slugs. Thanks to Ralph who came running into the kitchen to dob her in, I managed to catch her and send her to her bed for being naughty. After about an hour she started behaving odly and having tremors. We took her to the vets who told us she had been poisoned (by the pet friendly slug pellets I had inside my zipped up greenhouse) They needed to put her under anasthetic to wash out her stomach. Poor Pepper's heart could not cope under the anasthetic and they had to quickly bring her back around without washing her out and hope that she would pull though on her own. I think the thought of breakfast was enough to perk her up and we were able to bring her back home today. Her appetite undented!

We have been.......

•  Making hama bead creations
• Having sleepovers
• Learning about how the Georgian era started and about George I and Robert Walpole
• Watching episodes of Pride & Prejudice

•  Having a picnic at Shotover and having a lovely walk with the dogs afterwards
• Cleaning up our 'butterfly attracter' that we bought from a National Trust place years ago

•  Brightening it up with markers!!

•  buying a ladybird house

•  hanging up the newly decorated butterfly attracter
• going to card club with Nanny

•  Learning how to emboss

•  Being very pleased with first embossing attempts!
• Singing songs with the Nintendo Wii
• Reading books together

• Helping to tidy up the garden at Cogges Museum ready for the opening to the public on Sunday
• Philosophy session at Cogges discussing which is longer our past or our future??

Our first tomato and the black monster in the garden is gone

We have our first tomato, I had to take a photograph as it will probably be our only one (we are unlucky with growing tomatoes) and a bird or mouse will probably eat this one soon!!!!

 We finally convinced N it was time to take the big black net down from around the trampoline, it was ripped and perishing and  nasty. The garden looks brighter without it, and these two had fun......