40 Sleeps

Day one of the summer holidays and we are already on countdown to the start of the new school year.  

Our youngest son has struggled during the past couple of weeks once the realisation sunk in that he was leaving his class this week and moving up a year. At school he has a 1:1 but from September it will be a new person doing this role as well as a new teacher, 2 new TAs for his year group and a new dinner lady. It's a lot to take in and as a result he has spent many hours making animal sounds, screeching, displaying challenging behaviour and staying awake until late each day. 

Yesterday he woke up on the last day of term and told me he was starting Year 2 tomorrow. To help him understand the concept of time I've made him a countdown chart to show him the number of sleeps until he returns to school - 40 to go!!

We have pictures up of the new members of staff who will be working with him in September as well as a photo of his classroom to help him with the transition. 

To get through the holidays I am making him a visual timetable so that he knows what we are doing on a daily basis. There will be some days where the chart is left blank so that he gets used to the fact that we can have days to potter at home.  On these days I will give him his choosing board that gives him a selection of activities he can do at home to help him plan. It can be overwhelming for an ASD child if they have a blank canvas to work from - they need some choices, but not too many to help them to decide what to do.