Thursday, June 11, 2009

#11 What's up for summer?

What sort of things do you do during summer to keep your child with autism progressing?

For us, summer is broken up by Extended School Year through the public school. Jack has qualified for the last three years because of his need for routine. Every break through the year leads to a week or so of readjusting to the routine of school. This year, summer school is the month of July from 12-2 on Monday through Thursday. Jack also has regular speech/OT/PT at Children's Hospital on Friday mornings.

For fun, he's going to go to vacation Bible school at our church one week, take a few classes/camps at the YMCA, and attend Junior Ranger Camp at our local state park for a week. A babysitter will attend all these activities with him, to provide the additional support and focus Jack needs.

We're doing a bit of summer homeschooling for both boys. Jack needs any opportunity to focus on undesired tasks he can get, so we're doing worksheets and writing and reading practice. He learns best with whole language (the schools focus on phonics), so I'm using leveled readers (checked out from the library), custom flash cards, and lots of praise. He also needs to practice handwriting (always a struggle) and counting. To motivate the boys, I created a star chart. For every twenty stars, they get a trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Lord, I despise that place, but it's really motivating them as planned.

For PT, we're going to our neighborhood pool as often as possible. Jack loves swimming--especially the "jumping into the water, climbing back out, and jumping in again" routine, which is great for building core strength.

Finally, we're taking on the summer reading club at our local library. I love the library, not only for the books but for the adventure of going each week and finding something new for the boys. They love it, it's free, and it's fun.

What are you doing this summer?

1 comment:

tinamarie said...

Tony will be going to summer school 2 days a week. He loses so much during the summer if he doesn't. He did not really qualify to go as his grades are fine but Hi s teacher and us feel it is better for him to go and this way he canstart working on his 8th grade work. He goes to a charter school now so there cirriculum is a bit different but he is doing so much better there. It is a very small school of 25 kids and it is part of the school district. He has adjusted to it very well.
We will be going to the cabin and he loves fishing out there.