Starbase Update: Operation Cockpit Stardate 4.9.09

Today when we picked Sly and a friend up from Starbase, Jman went exploring through some of the facilities. He went into the flight simulators classroom, hoping to get into the computers, I'm sure. After being shooed away from those by Habeeb, Jman decided to check out the jet cockpit in the center of the room. Brother Sly started to shoo him away from that too, but the Director of Starbase was there and asked Sly if he saw any "Do Not Touch" signs on the cockpit. The answer of course was No, and the Director said it's a good thing to explore your environment! So Sly backed off and Jman climbed into the pilot's seat!

The Director was very patient and encouraging with Jman. He was doing a great job of trying to provide Jman opportunities without being too pushy or going too fast. He offered Jman his old flight helmet to put on, and Jman was interested in that. The funny part was that it was actually a little small--Jman has a big head (just like his daddy!). But with some help Jman got the helmet on. Then the Director was going to show him how to lower the dark visor. Habeeb wasn't too sure Jman would like that, but I said he probably would. He does like to steal our sunglasses and wear them sometimes. So, the Director went ahead and showed Jman how to lower the visor. Jman liked it, but then was a little overwhelmed and wanted the helmet off. No problem--off it came and Jman was allowed to just sit in the cockpit and push buttons again. No pressure.

However, it was probably less than a minute and Jman decided he wanted the helmet back again. He was ready for more! It's amazing how when you slow things down and relax and let the kid feel safe, they'll be ready faster for more. Slower is faster, less is more! Back went on the helmet (again with help, because it really didn't fit), and down went the visor. Jman was cool stuff! Pilot Jman then resumed exploring the cockpit, dressed in style! After a few more minutes, he decided the helmet really was uncomfortable and took it back off. Oh, if only they'd had one for a bigger head!

During this time of going slow and following Jman's pacing, the Director was also offering additional info and answering questions that Sly and his friend were asking, and sharing stories of his own from his Air Force days. This was not only great for Sly and K but also contributed to Jman's being relaxed. He knew that we were right there for him, but that we weren't focused solely on him. Again, he had his own 'mental space' to study and process what he was experiencing.

The most encouraging thing about the whole experience was just how the Director respected and interacted with Jman. It's really rare, unfortunately, to find someone who can naturally scaffold and respectfully interact with someone with autism. Don't get me wrong--there's lots and lots and lots of folks out there who mean well! But it's a rare thing to find someone who both means well and DOES well! It was a real joy to see Jman made to feel welcome and comfortable, supported and encouraged, and allowed to be himself without just ignoring him or leaving him alone to himself. It was a fabulous experience for ME in addition to Jman, and it gave me a great insight into how awesome Starbase is on the people level. (Btw, this was the same guy barking out instructions and managing the class of kids during the rocket launch like a DI from boot camp! What a beautiful thing to encounter someone that knows just how to guide and how to adjust depending on the people and the scenario! That's just not something you run into everyday!)

the "Long" and "Short" of it

One or two Saturdays each month, Lowes and Home Depot have workshops for kids to build little pre-fab projects for free. They give the kids shop aprons and safety goggles and the kids earn patches and certificates when they complete the little building project (which requires little more than hammering a handful of nails, and sanding or maybe putting on stickers). It's, of course, an excellent marketing scheme to get mom and dad in to the stores to spend money! But it's also an excellent opportunity for moms or dads to do something fun and educational with their little kids. It would be a terrific opportunity for Jman, except he just cannot handle the crazy noise level. Between the noisy kids and all the banging hammering from all the kids, and the generally terrible acoustics of such warehouse style buildings, he just can't deal with the environment. So, when we remember to go, we just ask if we can have one of the project kits to bring home and do later. They have always said yes.

So, today I pulled out the February project from one of Jman's workboxes. It was a kit to make a little wooden jewelry box for Valentine's Day. It took a little while to get Jman's interest really going. I began by just holding and commenting on the hammer, then holding and commenting on the bag of supplies. No interest yet. So, I opened the bag and set it on the table and again waited. Then I began pulling pieces out one at a time, studying them and commenting on them. After a few pieces, Jman pulled out the bag with the 2 piece red heart. He worked very hard to get that troublesome little bag open and the parts out. I had to consciously STOP MYSELF from trying to help him. He didn't need HELP. He just needed TIME. So I waited. And it was HARD. I didn't pull out any more pieces until he was DONE getting the heart pieces out, and then I commented on the heart being 'like a puzzle.' Finally, he was ready to move on to the next piece, and I began pulling things out again.

Eventually we had all the pieces out, including the instructions. And almost as slowly we began putting it together. One of the first challenges was deciding which length of nail to use at any given time. There were 3/4" nails and 1/2" nails included with the kit. Then it occurred to me that we had an excellent opportunity here to work on language! "Long" vs "short!" So, rather than gathering the right nails, I picked up one of each and told Jman we needed a LONG nail. It again took a while before I had his full attention, but once I did, he correctly selected the long nail and even SAID "long." Very cool!

We used several long nails before needing a short one. I tried simply asking for a short nail, and that didn't work for him. So I went back to holding one of each and asking for the short nail. Now, you'd think he'd just KNOW that it must be the one that wasn't long, but I'm not entirely sure that he really did. Maybe it was just an attentional issue, but I decided to spotlight sh-sh-short for him anyway and contrast it with looooong. After that, he had it down and could correctly get a long or a short nail each time for the rest of the project. Isn't it just amazing how a buiding project can turn into a language lesson?

I actually considering trying to take some pictures once we were about half way through the project, but things were going so well that I really didn't want to mess it up by tossing in the 'performance' challenge. So very often if Jman knows (or thinks) that you're trying to get him to perform 'stupid human tricks' he will rebel and disengage. I didn't want to potentially jeopardize the excellent togetherness we were having for the sake of a few more pix for the blog. But after all was said and done and he'd moved on to some free time, I found him and asked for him to pose for a picture with his box and the hammer. And here he is! That's a happy smile!

Curly Cues and Thank You's

Jman's 10th birthday was last month. Today we finally got to work on some thank you notes for him. They're nothing fancy, but this is big time good stuff none the less! I printed up the cards for him with a picture to help him remember his birthday and understand the project. The same little boy that didn't want to write or copy at all this morning was a willing participant for this. I got a real kick out of his curly cues! Here he did his name fancy on the first card. On his second he did the recipients' names fancy. We'll do a couple more later in the day. Go, Jman!

Starbase Update: Captain's Log 4.8.09

Due to technical difficulties and operator error, all the image data from today's launch operation is overexposed. However, the images are still sufficient for conveying the general atmostphere of the events.

Sly was one of approximately 20 homeschoolers included with the base school's elementary 5th graders in today's rocket launches. Ordinarily DoD Starbase is for a limited number of public school students in 5th grade from the surrounding counties. However due to state testing requirements, there was an open week at Starbase and the director elected to offer the week to the base students and even the homeschoolers on base. Pretty darn awesome!

Here, Sly is pressurizing his rocket in preparation for launch. The rockets were made in part from soda bottles and paper towel tubes. They were launched from PVC launch pads using water and air pressure for propulsion.

Here Sly has 'taken a knee' and is awaiting the group countdown to launch. Four students launched rockets at one time. Sly participated in Space Camp a year ago, Aviation Challenge a couple weeks ago, and now Starbase. He says that Starbase is way cool because they are covering a lot more science than Space Camp did, which covered a lot about the history of the space exploration. I heard that the students at Starbase covered 6 weeks worth of physics education standards yesterday. At that rate, they're basically covering a school year's worth of physics in a week! And the kids are 'getting' it too, as was evidenced by their enthusiastic participation in today's launch event and by the kids' narrating to us parents explanations of what they learned at Starbase during the day. Today, I was told by one of the kids, was Newton's three Laws of Motion.

Here Sly is recovering his rocket after a successful launch. Some of the kids' rockets came down pretty hard and bent or broke on landing. This happens often (no parachutes for these rockets!), and the kids were warned that their they would break. Sly was happy to discover that his rocket was one that survived, a fact especially sweet since his rocket at Space Camp last year was one of the few that didn't survive!

If you too want to build a water rocket and launcher, I have good news for you. Sly and his grandpa actually did this as a fun project a couple years ago. There are MANY sets of directions on the internet for such contraptions. Here's just one from a quick search on yahoo. Remember if you decide to do this: Safety First!!!

This is a dog.

A quick update on Jman's language work before we head out the door to watch Sly's rocket launch at Starbase.

Trying to find a happy medium between 'working' on language and having a little fun at the same time, today we pulled out a cut n fold Kumon project. It's a picture of a dog with a bone. Then when you fold it, the dog has the bone crammed into his mouth. It's pretty cute. It's an expansion of a Kumon cut n fold we played with last week of a panda playing peek a boo. Jman enjoyed the panda last week, and he was enjoying the dog today.

While we were playing around with the dog, Jman was trying to copy the dog's mouth--first wide open, then chomped closed with cheeks puffed out, which of course led to some raspberries and cheek popping. I began modeling some of the simple language we could use with the dog. Jman was interested and 'listening with one ear' while making his faces. Sometimes he'd whisper echo what I had said.

Then we worked on some basic sentences. I wrote them on a sheet of paper, and we/he read them out loud. Honestly, just that much is still quite challenging for Jman. Even when he knows what to say, he's very hesitant to actually say it. But that's a whole other post. Anyway, we/he did read the sentences out loud.

This is a dog.
He has a bone.
The dog eats the bone.
Yum!

Yes, not very creative, but Jman actually WAS interested, and the fact that there was a bit of a story to it I think helped. My biggest goof (other than using TOO many sentences and language concepts in general) was that I used the pronoun 'he.' I should have re-used the antecedent "The dog" instead, since we're not to the point of working pronouns yet. That comes developmentally later.

Later, I wrote the corresponding questions above the sentence answers:
What is this?
What does he have? (again, should have used "the dog")
What does the dog do?
And I didn't write a question for yum.

I carry a little mantra in my head for working on language in a multimodal way (seeing, hearing, speaking, writing) is "read, recite, copy, compose, dictate, narrate." It's a modified wording of the points described by Tammy here. Jman isn't ready to do all those things with me YET, but he can read, and he can recite, and he can copy, so long as he's WILLING. So, those are the three we're targeting right now. And, of course, conversing throughout the day ('narrate' because it rhymes with 'dictate').

However, Jman did NOT want to copy today--he wanted me to do all the writing. However, I wanted HIM to write, not because I'm anal and refused to compromise, but because the act of handwriting will help cement things in his head. There's nothing like using multiple parts of the brain at the same time to help you learn and remember something.

Here's where scaffolding came in. He wouldn't copy the sentence "This is a dog." But as soon as I made little dots for the first letter of the sentence where I wanted him to write, he grinned and traced 'T.' Then he looked at me and said, "Dots!" Okay, fine--dots it is! I gave him dots to trace, and he wrote "This is a dog." Unfortunately, he for some reason was unhappy with his 'dog' and freaked out and erased it. It took a bit to calm him down and have him re-finish, but eventually he did. And that was a great stopping point, as is this. He/we can work on copying the other sentences over the next couple days. The trick in working with Jman is balancing helping him work and learn language, and not being overbearing and discouraging and compromising his trust in me to lead him. It's a fine line, sometimes, with the autism.

Now, off to the rocket launch!

onion skin Easter eggs

This is the really COOL way we've made Easter eggs since I was, oh, about Sly's age. My mom read about it in some newspaper, and we decided to try it, and the eggs were SO cool that's the only way we've done them since. An added bonus is that they are all natural, so you don't have to worry about the artificial colors leaching through the shell and making your kids all wacky. And it makes for a great RDI activity too!

Here's how you do it: First, gather your materials. You'll need UNCOOKED white eggs, a bunch of red and yellow onion skins, some twist ties, and some fabric you don't want.
A few hints: 1--If you use egglands best eggs, the red 'EB' stays visible, so you might want to choose plain, unstamped white eggs. 2--Don't worry about buying the onions. All you want is the loose dry skins that come off the onions easily. You can just pick up the ones loose in the onion bin and bag them. The cashier will look at you funny, and you'll find yourself explaining what you're doing, and then they'll send you on your merry way. 3--For fabric, we use old T shirts or old sheets. You could also use cheese cloth, but we try to buy nothing but the eggs. :)
Cut your fabric into squares big enough to wrap around an egg with enough left over to fasten the square on with a twist tie.

Wrap your plain white uncooked egg with dried onion skins. You might want to do some all with red skins, some all with yellow, some with both, some leaving white spots, some making criss crosses, whatever strikes your fancy.

Keep the onion skins on the egg by wrapping the covered egg up with a square of fabric and twist tying it shut. Then place all your wrapped eggs in a big pot of water, just like you're going to boil eggs, because that's just what you're going to do! Add a little vinegar to help set the color, turn on the burner, and boil your eggs! Yes, it'll make your house smell like onions and vinegar for a little while, but it doesn't last.

After your eggs have had time to cook, take them off the stove, pour off the hot water, and let the eggs cool before handling them. Running cold water over them will of couse speed the process. Then simply unwrap your eggs, and voila! You have the coolest Easter eggs ever! They look like marbelized eggs, or like dinosaur eggs! No two will be the same! These are some that we made last night. We'll probably make more to take to our friends this week, and if so, I'll try to remember to take pix and post us in action.

Ignition Sequence Start

Today is the first day of a week of DoD Starbase for Sly. Check it out! It's kind of like a traveling Space Camp for kids (5th/6th grade). This year the base homeschool group is participating as well as the base school kids. It'll be interesting to hear what Sly thinks of it. He did real Space Camp with some of the kids from his homeschool group last year, and just a couple weeks ago did Aviation Challenge with the homeschool group again. Most of the kids at Aviation Challenge were retreads from Space Camp last year, so they had an especially good time together!

There will be more than one retread at Starbase as well, but only the ones in the right 'age range' since they've got to sort of match the regular school kids. At Aviation Challenge the homeschool group ranged in age from 9 to 16, a pretty huge spread, you might think. I was talking to the kids' camp counselor at the end of the week and she said she'd been a little worried when she heard the age range at first, but that it actually worked out great. I laughed and said, "That's because homeschoolers don't know that they are only supposed to play with kids their own age or in their grade at school!" Yeah, if you ever wonder about socialization issues and homeschoolers, rest assured--homeschoolers do just fine, and often better! :)