Primary school Auties: into 2020! - thread 4

[LightTripper]

This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of autistic children in Early Years and KS1. Most of us are parents of children in Reception or Year 1, but all welcome!

Here are the links to the previous threads:

Thread 1: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3080753-DS-with-ASD-starting-school-Sept-2018-I-am-feeling-overwhelmed

Thread 2: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3451020-Reception-auties-2018-19-thread-2

Thread 3: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3628263-Auties-transition-to-Year-1-thread-3

danni I know. I’m like a prepper for school closure!

Sounds good, you’ve given me some ideas. Cosmic yoga looks good though I’ve never tried ds with it. I was planning to try and get him out for half an hour in the mornings.

The pots of sugar drawings sound very cute. I’d take it as a win - it’s all FMS.

We’ve also singled up for Disney +

Signed

Ho all. Still self isolating, home schooling now, and working from home!! I can recommend mathlink cubes and peppa pig wipe clean books, DS is finally picking up the pen and writing letters!!! Still v hit and miss and I cant praise him too much or he gets cross but I'm so happy he is finally writing a little bit! Got a phonics game too and telling the time clock, got a vague schedule but who knows!! All DS led otherwise it won't work. We all wrote some house rules earlier too! DS keeps asking about why we have to be careful with food, why no school etc, but it's so hard to answer as he knows when I'm skirting over an issue! DH's work are being horrible and doing spot checks on video calling people to see if they're at their decks so I'm doing all the childcare and working a bit at night and phew it is tough!! We are going to stay at home now. All work closed. So mad, really. Have you all heard of the body coach doing pe lessons at 8am on his YouTube channel? Might give that a go!

Pe thing is 9am sorry.

Good morning, long time since I posted again. Wanted to wish everyone good luck with our new roles as home educators.

DD has only been in 7 days this half term, first she had a hospital appointment, then tonsillitis and then a dry cough which I thought was related to the tonsillitis. Until I got it too last week! So day 9 of at isolation here.

We're starting our new routine on Monday, schedule have sent a load of work and I've got done new garden toys.

Are any of your DCs in for the last day today?

Little do you think it’s CV or something else? I hope you’re both ok. Ds has been off all week and won’t be in today.

Lottie 9am is a bit early for a PE lesson in this house I think. Good luck with the new schedule.

They are going to miss so much. Ds loves doing dance and gymnastics at school plus hundreds of other things I’m sure.

Ds knows about ‘the cold’. He kept asking why when we were trying to explain that we weren’t going to be able to go out much at all. He says he hates it and wants to make a rewind machine. We are going to deliberately not talk about the situation in front of him, not put the news on and generally try to remain upbeat. I don’t want his childhood to be more defined by this than it has to be and definitely don’t want him getting more worried about it.

open Hope your DS find a way to enjoy dancing and gymnastics at home. It's sad that they are going to miss so much.
DD's school sent a social story to explain the 'cold', going to print it today and read it with her. Not sure if it's CV or not, we haven't got temperatures but also haven't got any cold symptoms like runny noses it sneezes so it's possible. Just cough, aches and chills.

Hello everyone,

Few things we have found good,
Kahn academy which is a games app for educational games.

Reading eggs ds has come on leaps and bounds with reading eggs.

Twinkl is my go to for everything. I make games using it, displays and worksheets. They have power points and games too. It covers from preschool till year 11 and also has sen sections and work thats be changed for different issues. We pay 7.99 a month for it but at the moment using UKTWINKLHELP(in caps). Gets you a ultimate subscription for a month free.

We got half an hour of work done this afternoon. Nearly 4 hours without the iPad and he finally caved... phonics, reading, maths, mazes and some cutting and folding.

Normally I get him to do some work at the weekends at home but I think we’ll just try to encourage him to read from books at the weekend and include extra motor skills activities.

We got our home learning packs today, not a great deal of stuff. Most of it they will try to put online however ds won’t use the site, he’s refused since the beginning of reception so that will be interesting. The teachers are supposed to be providing feedback on Fridays. I will email to tell them what I’m proposing to do and that if we do any of their stuff it will be a bonus. Some of it is online games but I assume they will put up worksheets too which we can probably print off and do.

So far they haven’t called me about him having an EHCP. I expect they will at some point.

Felt v emotional picking DS up from school today. They had given them all a lovely day with forest school. DS has been v upset though - says he will miss school (which in some ways makes me v happy).

I was really impressed by DS's understanding of the coronavirus and the questions he was asking. He then pointed to a chair and said is the coronavirus going to sit there?

That's ds school closed now.

When I took him in this morning the head said if I'm finding things too difficult as long as I call school with 24 hours notice she can get his support in for him and he can attend so that's good to know. Although how embarrassing if I do have to phone but it's good to have that offer there if I'm desperate, but his 1-1 did say she knows it's hard with ds and the offer is there to be used. I doubt I'll phone them though ill just get on with it as I usually do.

Dh works a lot and even now his work is still so bloody busy so he's no use to me at all with ds.

Also his 1-1 came to meet me early at pick up without ds so she could speak to me for a few mins and she asked if it was ok for her to take my number so she could call / text and she would be happy to come to our house during the time off (she only lives a couple of streets away) to bring some extra work to keep him busy and she's going to print and laminate some more at home for him. She also bought him an Easter egg to take home today. She's so lovely.

Wonder what Boris is going to say today? We do actually have coronavirus confirmed in our town now.

Ds 1-1 said she would post anything through the letter box as she wouldn't want to upset ds' routine. I told her to knock ds would love to see her!

One time when he was in nursery the manager came to drop some forms off for us and ds took her hand and took her upstairs to his room and she sat and played in his bedroom for half hour! He still talks about when she came to play in his bedroom.

danni that is so lovely. Take the offer if you need to, do not feel embarrassed because you absolutely shouldn’t. You are doing them a favour in not sending him.

We live near a big teaching hospital, they are treating cases there.

I only mean because it frees up resource for them.

Looks like ds’ school will have around 30 children out of 180 from Monday.

Hope that you're all keeping well.

I think DS's school were expecting 120/420. Feeling rather disorganised as I didn't realise that DS's teacher had already added lots of materials to the website. I sense that we'll be having lots of movement breaks. We went on a lovely walk yesterday - came across a couple of families out but everyone was keeping their distance well.

I'm hoping that I will feel a bit better once I know what's happening re adoption.

Well we did PE with Joe this morning but as yet no work has been done... We also have our first pieces of work from ds’ teacher for English & maths.

dimples I hope you hear soon 🤞

The PE with Joe was great! DS enjoyed it too. I think that will be a regular thing. Our nanny also found some YouTube yoga that DD really enjoyed ... I will find out which one and post it.

Hope everyone is still doing OK and that you hear about the adoption soon dimples - and *danni how lovely of your 1:1 and head too. I second not feeling bad if you end up taking them up on it. They wouldn't have offered if they weren't in a position to be able to provide that support, and it's very intense doing it all by yourself, especially with your DH working such long hours.

DS sat down and said he was just going to watch me doing PE with Joe! Other than that we had a better day than I hoped. One of our neighbours messaged to say that seeing us dancing with umbrellas in the garden had brightened her day - we were meant to be working on ball skills but DS has taken control of the curriculum

So sweet dimples. Great you are entertaining your neighbours at this time.

Lock down then. No change to what we’ve been doing for the last 10 days but it feels a little different.

I hope everyone is safe and well and has enough food.

No work done here yet. He just will not do as he’s told

Open same. Nothing at all done.

He's been in the garden most of the day terrorising my neighbours throwing things over the fence a metal train hit next doors back window etc etc I'm going to knock when he's in bed and apologise and retrieve said train. He's been eating chalk, and yesterday he tried to cut his own tounge off with a pair of scissors and ate a prit stick.

Having a hard time of it. 😂

I'm thinking of ringing gp and asking if he can prescribe me some antidepressants? Not worthy of an appointment at a time like this but I think I need something! I've been depressed a while but its been one of those things I've just got on with.

Wondering if it will lessen the effect ds behaviour is having on my mental health (as awful as that sounds - hope you understand what I mean)

danni not sure if they could prescribe anti-depressants without seeing you but it’s worth a call to see what they can do to help. Impress upon them that you are at the beginning of an extended period with no respite.

Do you know the neighbours well? Not sure you should go round there tbh as they may be self-isolating?

We finally did some work at 3. Not a great day, we had a couple of incidents of hitting over different issues.

Sorry you're having a tough time danni and that ds is not doing his work open.

I know some places are doing online consultations, so may be worth calling your GP surgery danni. I've never taken them but I know other parents of SEN kids who have. Apparently they do help to take the edge off a bit but it can be very hit and miss getting the type of medication and dosage right.

We're ok here. We haven't attempted to do anything. We have done the PE with Joe and ds seemed to really enjoy it this morning, so we'll try and keep that up.

Disney + has kept us going today, along with a 2 hour bath in the middle of the day.

I think it will just be a day by day thing.