Saturday, April 23, 2011

3rd...

Very excited to start 3rd grade! Hunter has a wonderful teacher, and is now only needing minimal support from the Special Ed Teacher and aide. He no longer needs OT & PT, only on a consult basis and his time in the Gen Ed classroom is increased to 95%! An amazing thing happened in the middle of his 3rd grade year, there was a note that came home for the talent show. Hunter like I have said, always loved to sing, but he had never done it by himself, in front of anyone let alone his entire school. Hunter on his own decided to do a song from High School Musical, called "You are the Music in Me" which was a duet, but Hunter came up with his own solo version. I can't even begin to tell you how overwhelmed with happiness I was when I saw him up there for the first time on stage, all by himself, and so comfortable, like he had being doing this his entire life. He entertained the entire school, all of his teachers from Early Childhood, Special Ed and all of his General Ed teachers were watching him. All of the office staff, Principals & Specialists were watching him. There were many tears from many people that day. It is one of those days you don't ever forget! It was the start of Hunter wanting to become an entertainer! :)

2nd...

Grade 2 started off a bit rocky. Because of a mix up with his assigned teacher, we had to meet with the Principal so he did not get to go to school on the first day. That is hard for any child, but especially for a child with Autism. He still asks about it today. He was devastated and did not understand why...I felt horrible!!! Hunter's love of music is enormous. One of the positives that year, the Music teacher noticed that Hunter had a sweet little voice and asked him to be in his Choir class, he was so excited and absolutely loved it. They did a performance for an At Risk school and Hunter loved performing there. Unfortunately, that was the last year that Mr. "S" would be the Music teacher - he decided he needed to move to an At Risk school to help children in need...he was truly missed and there has not been a Choir program since which was unfortunate for Hunter because Choir gave Hunter a feeling that he was part of something special!

1st...

We really felt like this was the year we wanted to retain him, it was our best chance to do it. We figured it would not effect him if we did it when he was so young, but Hunter knew he was 'graduating' from Kindergarten and moving on to 1st grade. The school again fought us and told us he would do awesome. I had no doubts about how well he would do academically, he was definitely above grade level, but sometimes socially/emotionally is more important and they did not want to listen to that! Hunter sat in on a first grade class and they were sitting on the floor, learning how to look up words in a dictionary. Hunter thought that was so cool, he loved dictionaries (still does)! Then they played a game called 'SPARKLE' - when you stand in a circle and spell out vocabulary words by taking turns with the letters and if you mess up, you sit down. Hunter was one of the 3 left standing, and remember this was a 1st grade class a few weeks away from being 2nd graders and he was one of the youngest in Kindergarten. When I met with this teacher to ask her how he did, she was amazed - she  would become his 1st grade teacher within a month (Hunter's school is year round) and he adored her right away...there was no turning back. Hunter was placed in 1st grade, spending 90% of his day in the General Ed classroom with an Aide that was nearby. The other 10% was spent in O.T, P.T and Speech, he also qualified for Adapted P.E since he had many gross motor challenges and really low muscle tone. There were alot of new things he got to do as cool 1st grader - this was the year they would start Specials; Music, Art, Computers, Science and P.E. They also ate lunch in the M.P room with their class and since there were around 1,100 kids on year round schedule, the Principal kept a tight ship, it was really run like a Private School. You can imagine the noise level at lunch but he did an amazing job at keeping it as quiet as possible. Hunter still needed to have cotton in his ears in the beginning to soften the sounds, but overall he did great. Hunter's teacher updated me almost daily on how he did, I really appreciated that. At the end of the year, his class did a little play for all the parents, he memorized his lines immediately and he was one of the few that was not scared to get up in front of everyone. I will never forget that feeling of being the proudest mom in the world...

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Kindergarten...

Very emotional day, my little boy is only 5 and starting Kindergarten, wow! No more self-contained class, he was now mainstreamed with an aide nearby if he needed her. Hunter did a half-day program in the mornings and then got home and worked late into the nights doing intensive therapy. He also did some outside Occupational Therapy. He never complained or protested. I think the structure of his very well-organized day was really good for him. He met many kids his first week, there were 36 in his class, and by the second or third day, he had memorized all of their names. The girls were the most helpful, like little mommies wanting to help whenever they were needed. Hunter thrived in Kindergarten, he had a wonderful teacher that really cared about him and knew he was capable of anything so she did not treat him any differently than any other child. To this day, he still talks about the one time he got in trouble in class. It was an innocent mistake, they were working with geobands and Hunter's came off and shot across the room. It was his first time in trouble at school and he took it really hard, he has never forgotten it and still wants to talk about it...Hunter never forgets anything...

you are just so smart...

As I mentioned before, Hunter's B-Day is in September. Most kids that have September B-Days wait until the following year to enter Kindergarten. I don't regret too many things in my life, but my biggest regret is not giving him that extra year that he desperately needed! Everyone from his school told us that he should definitely enter Kindergarten at 5, that he was way too smart and that if he waited another year, we could see behaviors due to not being challenged enough. Hunter was reading at a 1st grade level and testing above grade level in math and vocabulary. To this day, there have been very few 'behaviors' that he has exhibited at school - I now believe they were wrong but at the time, I had nothing to compare it too so I trusted his IEP team. Anyone that is going through that same dilemma, go with your own instincts, you know your child better than anyone else. It is now too late to retain Hunter, so he is the youngest 5th grader in class, and socially not ready for middle school but our hands are tied unless we move him to private school. Also, Hunter wants to remain with "his friends"... it is very tough!

Pre-K years...

Hunter loves school, always has and I hope that never changes! Today as I write this, his elementary years are coming to an end which scares me, but I can only hope the next 7 years are as good as the first 7 have been! Pre-K was awesome, he was in the program from the moment he turned 3 to 5. He loved going to school, he loved his teacher and her aides, and he loved his little friends that were just like him. The class also had "typical peers" that they used for little role models which was a great thing! The class was totally self-contained, they even ate in class but he loved that little safe world. Hunter loved circle time, of course he adored Music, he excelled in Art, loved doing calendar time, was one of the best puzzle masters in class (when most kids were doing 10 pc puzzles - Hunter was challenging himself with 100 pcs) - he just loved learning about anything new. It was 2 of the best years of his early childhood. It was hard to let him go into the large Kindergarten class but there was no stopping Hunter, he was just ready!

the first workshop...

It was 8:00 am, a Saturday and the day was finally here, it was sometime in January 2004. Today was our very first workshop. I was really excited, very overwhelmed and a bit scared to start our ABA therapy.  We had 3 consultants and 2 tutors that would be designing Hunter's program. We had heard that the kids do not always like the workshops, that they tend to protest to "coming to the chair" and that it can be a difficult transition. Not for our boy! He loved every minute of it, maybe it was because he is an only child, and loved all the attention, or maybe he knew that this was going to give him the tools that he so desperately needed to survive in this very big world!? They called him to the chair for the first time, and he went right over with a gigantic Hunter smile that melted the entire room! Everyone clapped and cheered, he just looked at them like, "are you guys crazy"? They did some basic questions, he nailed them, then they told him to "go play". He looked confused but followed their lead and everyone cheered again. It only took Hunter about 2 times for him to get that he would get all this positive reinforcement with cheers and clapping when he would do something correctly, and boy did he LOVE it! By the third trial, he looked at everyone right before he was going to answer their question with this cool look on his face and little swagger, like I know I am going to nail it and impress these strangers and get them to cheer---he was right! His reinforcement that first day was raisins, he was working for raisins (M did not want him to have candy or sugar when he was little) so that was his treat, and he worked so very hard for them! I think by the end of that first day, probably in the 6th hour or so, he was also working for rocket ship rides in his chair from one of the coolest male consultants. Hunter was on his way...