In So Many Words

As with many kids on the autism spectrum, Michael has difficulty with some fine motor skills, especially related to handwriting. He still has trouble with coloring, although he has improved a lot, and he will go through an activity/coloring books and do all the activities but ignore the coloring pages.

I was so excited when this paper came home from school last week. The OT gave him this page of “jelly bean letters” for his to fill in with colored pencils, using a pencil grip. He was grumbling at first, but once he saw that he could do a good job on it, he even asked her to send the rest of the alphabet home with him, and he has been working on them off and on all week.

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I was pleasantly surprised to find a certificate in Michael’s school folder the other day congratulating him for having artwork on the school website. I looked it up and found this picture he drew of a house:

You can see the other selected pictures from his classmates at the Paxtang website. Evidently they have been studying Matisse!

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As a way of introducing the concept of homework, my son’s kindergarten teacher has the kids bring home a coloring page with the new color for that week. This is to remind them to bring in a picture of something that color. It can be cut out of a magazine, printed off the computer, a drawing or even another coloring page.

This first we he only wanted to trace the outlines, and last week he filled in the character. This week he added a second color and even finished the whole thing at school – yay!

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I can’t tell you how happy seeing this picture makes me! He cut out all the pieces and pasted them on by himself and, not to brag, but the BSC said it was just as good or better than the rest of the kindergarten students. I am so proud to see him doing so well in kindergarten – it makes all the hard work everyone has put in (including him!) worthwhile.

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Well, today is the first day of kindergarten for my little guy, and his teacher asked all the children to decorate a paper bear and bring in a stuffed bear for the first day. They also have a bear pin to wear with their name on it.

Here is Michael’s bear:

A tiny bit of explanation:  the red, blue & yellow on the face represent each of our favorite colors, and the purple, yellow and red stripes are the pattern on his shirt. 

Hopefully today will be a good day.  His behavioral health agency delayed some paperwork and is also having staffing issues, so he will not have a support person with him for at least the first couple of days and he will not be able to attend the social skills program after school either.  On the positive side, he will get to have a playdate at his best friend’s house today instead!

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Here are a couple of drawings from last week while I was away at the conference.  I was a bit surprised to not be in them at all, but I was also impressed at his emotional expression!  The first one shows him and his dad having a good time, and the second one represents him and Joy crying about saying goodbye.

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My little artist is really excited about creating all sorts of things now. This is a picture of him being zapped by several villains from The Powerpuff Girls.  Each of the colors represents a different one (do you think we watch too many cartoons around here??)

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This is one of the first times Michael drew our family. He drew me, himself and Daddy in our assigned colors (blue, yellow & red, respectively), and then he added his best friend in a different color and a smaller size. I cut off where he wrote Dad’s and best friend’s first names.

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Today is the first Magic Marker Monday at 5 Minutes for Special Needs, so I thought I would share the drawings that just came home in Michael’s backpack today. They are actually from playgroup on Thursday, but I just saw them this afternoon.

On the red side, the drawing is actually of the musical notes for the first part of the song. And although I have mixed emotions on him signing his name “Mike” instead of “Michael” – I am happy that he will now do it without complaining and proud that he figured out a way to make it easier for himself all on his own.

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