Little Miss Independent Demonstrates her Life Skills

Natty has always been a feisty independent little soul. 

From persevering until she could feed herself with a spoon, ignoring the fact that she was covered in carrot purée, to dressing herself in a colourful array of inventive costumes that Vivienne Westwood would be proud of, to insisting on climbing up to reach her favourite bowl BY HERSELF! even though you have offered to pass it to her. 

Yep, just call her Little Miss Independent.

Little Miss Independent demonstrates her life skills

Now sometimes letting your child with Down's syndrome do things by themselves takes a lot longer. You're in hurry for the doctor's appointment and you really need to get in the car. Now.

You feel your frustration mount. But the only way any of us learn is by doing things for ourselves and building on the mistakes that inevitably occur. And at these moments I always remind myself that I don't want Natty to learn to expect others to do things for her, to become reliant on them more than is essential. So I bite my tongue and try to avoid the words, "hurry up" for then all is lost. 

So this week, when we came in from school I asked her to get changed into her relaxing clothes and put her painty school cardigan in the laundry basket according to our little routine. I took this moment to nip to 'the smallest room of the house' and on my return heard the washing machine splish-sploshing and turning its load.

But hang on, I hadn't put any laundry on that day. 

"Natty, what's in the washing machine?"

"My cardigan."

I paused for thought, to make sure I reacted in the right way.

"Show me what you did."

"I put the cardigan in. I twist this (turned knob to 40oC quick wash), and I press S-T-A-R-T." She spelled out the word as I do each time I set the mechanical workhorse going.

I hoped my surprise wasn't showing on my face. I have showed her this many times as I chat through what I am doing, and she had remembered exactly. I felt enormously proud of her.

"Did you put washing powder in?"

"Yes. Here." she declared pointing to the soap tray.

I opened the soap tray and asked her which part she had put the soap in.
Her little fingers pointed to the section for main wash, not the pre-wash or conditioner. 

"Good work, littlest of smalls," I thought.

Eager not to look shocked, because, well, why should it be a surprise that Natty can complete such a task successfully and by using her own initiative? I gave her a big hug and thanked her for helping me. 

"Mummy is so very proud of you Natty."

"I'm proud of you too Mummy." 

I didn't have the heart to tell her that perhaps it was not incredibly eco-friendly to only put one item in the machine at a time. I'll work on that next time, perhaps when she gives Daddy Downs Side Up a lesson in the workings of The Cardigan Cleaner...

Festive Fine Motor Skill Fun: Paper Chains!

It's that time of year! A recycling box full of unwanted catalogues and children wanting Christmas craft ideas.

Once I've flicked through them, if I even get time for that, I pop them straight into the recycling bin, making a mental note to remove myself from the umpteen mailing lists. 

That is, until last week when Natty was off school due a sudden bout of bed and pyjama-covering vomiting. Clearly not able to go to school but jolly and chirpy in herself, we decided to settling down to a spot of Mummy and daughter making and doing.

The plush paper booklets, fliers and leaflets lay on the kitchen table as we ate our breakfast, promising ever more original gifts for the neighbour, teacher, pet dog... 

AHA! I thought. They were all in festive colours, silvers and greys with touches of red and green splurged on them. They would make perfect Christmas decorations: paper chain material! 

In the past I have bought costly paper chain making kits, the sort where your child ingests copious amounts of glue, licking the ends to stick them together. They look lovely but... we would have a go at making our own, for a fraction of the cost.

You will need:

unwanted Christmas catalogues

scissors or a guillotine

stapler 

I cut the paper into roughly similar widths and lengths then Natty began looping the strips through each other and holding them in place while I stapled them together. I was struck by how fiddly this was and what a super little exercise for developing her fine motor skills. Her Occupational Therapist would have been proud!

She even demanded to do it all by herself. The stapler was a little stiff for her small hands but with a bit of help she got the hang of it. 

The results were better than I could have imagined, we made meters of the cheap decorations over a few days. And more importantly Natty learnt a new life skill and she was kept occupied while getting over her tummy bug.

Happy Christmas artsy crafty creating!


Check out our Christmas Pinterest Ideas here. 
You might also like to read Painting a Triceratops: Fine Motor Skills Development here. Or try Christmas pretzel biscuits here.

Kicking off Learning Disability Week with a vlog about confidence and friendship

I was asked by the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities to put together a designated blog post for them as part of Mencap's Learning Disability Week #LDWeek13 this year.

I was honoured, and set about thinking how best I could join in with their theme of planning for the future and safeguarding. At 6 years old, Natty's adult life seems far far away, so I decided to chat about the importance of self-help skills, and specifically making friends, which in turn boosts self confidence and self-esteem. Vital commodities for us all.

Armed with a new iMovie Phone App, I decided to try my hand at a vlog, incorporating an interview with Natty and some lovely photos. I warn you, I am very much an amateur, but I do hope you can find a few minutes to sit and enjoy our chat and then join in with the #LDWeek13 celebrations by using the hashtag on Twitter, posting to Mencap at Twitter and Facebook and adding your posts to the linky below.

Watch out for my equally suspect poetry skills on Wednesday, when my #superhero post for Mencap airs!

                          

Update on The Undateables

Well, we all watched the inspirational and very dateable Kate on The Undateables 2013 last night with pride, nervousness and excitement. 

Kate riding high after last night's programme

Kate is an incredible woman that I had the honour to meet when attending the British Institute of Learning Disabilities annual conference. She also has Down's Syndrome.

Today I copied and pasted some of the lovely encouraging messages I soureced from Twitter and Facebook and sent them to her colleagues, along with the rather nosey question "Is she still seeing Simon?" 

Kate was thrilled.

Kate's colleagues are protecting Kate from the media and fielding too many questions as she is very tired after the excitement of watching the programme last night. But they passed this message from her to her well-wishers and a lovely photo showing how happy she was at work today:

“Simon and I watched The Undateables together – along with over 30 family and friends! It was such a lovely evening. We are arranging to meet again, we’re getting on really well and we’re both going to see how it goes from here.”

And is Kate relaxing at home tonight? No chance. She is out with friends watching a pantomime!

So, it looks as if The Undateables got it right. Despite the titles and what you think about the directors' cuts. She provides a positive role model for our children, she fills we parents will hope, she has moved many to tears of joy. The nation has fallen in love with her beautiful ways and her sense of humour. No, she is not 'cute'. She is a woman, enjoying the world of dating.

Even Rufus Hound tweeted @RufusHound to
@DownsSideUp "I think she is most things that we should all try and be. She's brilliant."]

READ MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAMME AND KATE HERE IN KATE STARS IN THE UNDATEABLES

Puppy Pippin joins Downs Side Up

Before someone helpfully leaps in and tells me that dogs aren't just for Christmas, I'll explain that we have been toying with the idea of a puppy for many months. 

I favoured something large and robust. Daddy Downs Side Up thought something tiny would be easier to manage and less threatening to the girls. He was right.

3 days after Christmas a friends forwarded an ad for Chihuahuas that she had seen locally.  That, as they say, was that. And the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

The madness and travel of Christmas had passed. We were ready and the ideal dog was waiting.

Here is a *CUTE PIC KLAXON* photo of Natty meeting her dog Pippin for the first time. What has been lovliest is that she is no longer the tiniest member of the G Unit, the one who needs toiletting help and explanations of how life works. She is now explaining and dictating to the micro-puppy, who, in DS terms, is just the right size for her to manage.

Home Education Day: Fruit and Veg

I know that many of you are interested in what we have been doing during our one flexi-school day at home each week. It's going really well and Natty and Mummy are enjoying quality time to enjoy learning together.

I thought you might like to see what we got up to last week...

The topic being covered at school was Healthy Eating and Fruit and Vegetables so I planned a series of activities that covered science, reading, writing, literacy, numeracy and life skills using this topic as an umbrella.

1) We took a shopping bag and went around the kitchen collecting as many fruits and vegetables as we could, including fresh, tinned and dried varieties. We said the names of each aloud. Natty loved putting them in the bag and heaving it around, shouting 'ooooh, heavy'.

2) I spread 2 bath towels down on the floor and labelled one fruit, the other vegetables. Natty and I said each word, then I spent a while shouting out the words while she jumped to the appropriate towel, pointing to the right word. I made a huge fuss of her for being able to read the words 'fruit' and 'vegetables'. What a proud girl :)

3) We took the fruit and veg out of Natty's shopping bag one at a time. This time I encouraged her to remember the names of each item. She needed help with a few and we used Makaton to back this up. We talked about the colour of each item too, again using Makaton as reinforcement where necessary.

4) I encouraged Natty to decide if each item was a fruit or a vegetable and sort them.  There were multiples of some. This was a challenging task, so I helped by saying that fruit are 'sweet and juicy' and that we generally 'cook vegetables'. I added a fruit bowl to the fruit towel and a saucepan to the vegetables one as a visual prompt of this.

5) We moved on to our numeracy task, using our home starter kit of Numicon. This is an invaluable sensory, visual system that uses colours and shapes to represent each number. Natty found 1 tomato, 2onions, 3 carrots, 4 grapes and 5 potatoes and so on. We set them out on the floor in order and then Natty matched the numeral and the Numicon shape to each number set.

6) After a little break and a healthy snack of one of the bananas and some grapes, Natty and I went back to the kitchen to prepare a homemade vegetable soup. We took all the vegetables from the first activities. Natty washed her hands and put on her chef's set. I went to Spotify to find some vegetable themed songs to play (there were scores of them!) and off we went. I was very nervous about Natty using a serrated knife to chop, but she did very well with guidance although my heart was in my mouth the whole time. You know your child and what they are capable of. Always supervise such activities closely.
Natty then poured in the liquid and stirred while dancing.

The amusing moment Natty remembered she'd taken off her apron earlier!

7) We tidied up and had some lunch and then began our writing practice. We wrote 'a' 's' 'p' and 't' in plates filled with oats and dried beans, then on each other's backs, in the air, on the floor. We wrote the letters on paper (Natty finds a rubber pencil grip helpful for pencil control) using the Ruth Miskin ideas for formation ('a' round the apple and down the leaf...), firstly tracing over dots and then freehand.

8) Time for a quick burst of literacy practice. We went through the flashcards in Natty's current book (one from the Oxford Reading Tree series), then matched the cards to the 'same' words in the text. We then read the book and talked about the story.

9) And we still had time for a swim before going back to school to collect Mia :)

Mummy was shattered and in bed by 9pm!

The New School/ Home Ed Term

We've been dropped on the shore of a new term, today our first day back, having ridden the crest of a wave all through the summer holidays.  

It was our best summer ever, the girls were super company, got on well for the most part, and the house was filled with visiting family end to end. I think we only watched Mary Poppins about 87 times too, which wasn't too bad going ;) Read about our summer experience here : Looking Back, Looking Forward

Now we are ready to plough on, full of enthusiasm and determination to be better organised, get up earlier, work harder and happier, fit in more play and leisure time and ditch the stress. (ahem, that is not unrealistic is it?)

Natty has moved up into year 1 alongside her peers. New classroom, new teacher, new (slightly higher) loos. The few teething troubles of last year have hopefully been ironed out. The new class format is more table-based and formal, in a warm, colourful welcoming way. Gone is the role play corner and boxes of dressing up. This could go one of two ways, but I'll wager that Natty will thrive and soar with less distraction, freedom, (chaos even) and will don the more grown up hat of a year 1... we'll see. Maybe it was the exciting air that made it seem OK for Natty to push her classmates. I hope that this behaviour will also dissappear. We haven't seen it over the summer.

Also new for this academic school year is that I will be teaching Natty from home for one day a week. This wouldn't be for everyone, but I felt it was right for us.  I didn't want to Home Ed entirely, as Natty thrives in the school environment, a popular and communicative pupil. She has learnt so much from the daily routine of school and I cannot begin to compete with their resources, and quite frankly, I'm not sure my sanity would stand up to 24/7 education. But this particular balance feels right. Our amazingly supportive Head is behind us, understanding fully my reasons and thinking.

Essentially on our one 'playing schools at home' day, I will stir a mixture of what is going on currently at school with what is coming up in the following week. I will add a generous measure of life skills and a sprinkling of sporty fun.

Why can't you do all this in the evenings and at weekends? I hear you cry. Well, when the girls are at home I treat them equally. We play and bake and read together, but it's impossible to tell one to go away while I quietly work with the other. This way I can have undisturbed learning time with Natty without Mia feeling pushed out of the equation, or, as is more likely, feeling she wants to be the teacher.

Our Wednesdays will be fluid and subject to change, but tomorrow's plan looks like this:

Drop Mia at school

Do a short shopping trip, using a magnetic shopping list. Ask Natty to pint out the right shop then  encourage her to ask for the items such as apples and bread, help bag them up and pay.

Go home for a good 2 hours formal learning comprising:
Reading current school book - reinforce with key words and flashcards. Make sensory words, using sand glued onto card.
visit www.oxfordprimary.co.uk website for additional, alternative activities for the same book.

Finish summer scrapbook by sticking in photos, leaflets from places visited, adding drawings and labelling.

Begin our Days of the Week project, incorporating Makaton, pictures of what we do on different days, using our velcro calendar and wearing the appropriate socks and pants for that day! Make colourful shapes with each day of the week and blu tac onto kitchen window!

Then we will do some life skills in the afternoon.
Having collected eggs and looked after the chickens, I plan to make cookies tomorrow (constipation-busting ones of course). I have printed images of all the ingredients and we will do a matching game with them, then find the ingredients in the kitchen. When we've made the cookies we will glue the cards into our book and Natty can write 'and' between each one. Her first recipe card!

Then we'll get Mia, come home, run round the garden, plan tea, do homework, bla bla bla.
Don't expect to see me on Twitter on a Wednesday evening. I will most probably be tucked up in bed at a reasonable hour for once.