Bird Feeders

We made these bird feeders back before Christmas.  I found lots of different ways of doing this on Pinterest (new favourite place to waste time!) and decided on these two methods as they both used skills the boys are using quite well in different activities - rolling, threading and using cookie cutters.

The first one used toilet rolls rolled in peanut butter and then rolled through bird seed....

For the second ones we spread bread with peanut butter, cut out shapes and then pressed them into the seed.  I made holes in them and encouraged the boys to thread the string through.

We also spent time using the bird seed for general sensory play and encouraged tasting of the peanut butter on bread, which Charlie enjoyed :) .

We took the feeders to my mum's as she has a bird table and I feel a bit mean encouraging birds into our garden as we have 3 cats!

Butterfly Blackberry Cakes

My mum picked us some blackberries from the back of her garden.  I already picked quite a few a couple of weeks ago.  They are really early, the other places we pick them are not so ripe yet, but we keep checking!  Although we've kind of had 'summer holidays' we have done a bit of informal butterfly work following on from the Big Butterfly Count and I picked up a butterfly cake mould yesterday so today we used it and the blackberries.

We just added the blackberries to an ordinary sponge cake recipe and then we did one cake in the mould and made fairy cakes with the rest.  We made the filling with whipped cream, about a tablespoon or so of pureed and sieved blackberries and a tablespoon of sugar.  This is an old whisk from my childhood.  The boys really like using it so I'm glad I rescued it!

I always leave some cakes without icing/cream as James and Charlie are much more likely to eat them plain - we let them choose.  Charlie ate 4 cakes!! They were very nice!

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

James enjoyed making these today....

he was happy to try the chocolate,

but not so keen on the strawberry!

Strawberry Sensory Success

We have been spending some time each week focusing on a particular fruit.  I have loads to post about apples which we have been working on for months but we've now moved onto strawberries so I'm starting with that!

The boys are not good at eating fruit and vegetables.  We've made what we consider to be huge steps forwards over the past months. To most people it probably looks minimal.  Charlie is eating apples and trying new fruits regularly.  James has been eating carrots and sometimes a sprout or piece of broccoli with a roast dinner! It's all very wonderful!

We approach this with a very relaxed attitude, there's no expectation that they eat what's put in front of them, we play, sing, cook and explore the fruit with all our senses. If someone takes a bite, we go really over the top with praise!

Today we made strawberry smoothies.  I find the boys really like the smoothie maker as it gives rewards that Charlie in particular finds pleasing - not the smoothie - the really loud noise and the great visual stimulation!  The first time I made smoothies with him he danced around the kitchen!  Today, he was brilliant, signing please to press the button again and again.  (I purposely kept switching it off to keep the communication going).  His smoothie was very well blended after this surprise communication game!

We then led onto some time spent sitting at the table with the smoothies and some more strawberries.  We listened and watched several different 'Strawberry Fields' videos on YouTube, listened to the story, 'The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear' and did a bit of sensory play and hand massage with some strawberry scented soap and Lush strawberry massage bar.

Charlie sat with me doing this for a good 45 minutes and ate quite a bit of strawberry!

Our potato plants grew rather large.....

 I have been worrying for weeks that there were actually no potatoes in the planters because the plants seemed to have put so much energy into growing upwards.  As we decided not to enter the competition in the end, we harvested one container on the 'Potatoes For Schools' day and the other one when we needed them - which was today!  

These were Charlie's....

....and these were James'.

We weighed James' spuds and he had 3lb. 

We cooked them tonight. I really wanted the boys to try them so we roasted them as we know Charlie will eat potatoes this way.  He ate them all up, James didn't want to taste, which is fine, we just keep offering!

Birthday

What on earth do you buy boys like ours for their birthday?! It seems to get harder every year to think of something 'new'.  I really didn't know what to do this year and then I came across this.....

....they both seemed quite pleased and intrigued with it which is a start.  It's very simple, they just have to put the marbles in the top and then they musically run down the tree.  I think it could also be quite good for communication if we withhold the marbles!

We were on holiday on the boys' actual birthday so I didn't go for full on cake baking and decorating this year. However, I do feel that it's my job to make them a birthday cake so I did this instead.  I got the idea from 'Great Healthy Food for Vegetarian Kids' by Nicola Graimes.  Charlie liked it but James clearly prefers bought cornflake cakes to mum's homemade ones!

Pancake Day

It's been a very successful pancake day in this house because Charlie ate one!  And it had sugar and lemon juice all over it - result!

James did some pretty fabulous lemon squeezing and stacking too.

I made a pretend pancake to go with a little rhyme I found in the TES resources but it all went wrong because my poor little pancake just kept sticking to the pan! 

I think I might make some material ones for next year and get a better pan!

The Eating of the Underlay and other stories

Pica - I guess lots of children with autism do this.  We only really have issues with Charlie chewing non-edible items at the moment and at times this has been quite pronounced, particularly when he discovered a liking for carpet underlay and ripped up 3 brand new carpets.  We don't have carpets anymore, its obviously very bad for him to chew and eat the underlay and very expensive for us! Anyway, I thought I'd just share a few things we have tried as replacements for the things he chews.  Most have had some limited success. 

I think he likes the textures in his mouth so I just look out for foods which could give him the same feeling.  With the carpet underlay, I started to give him raw mushrooms and crumpets.  He now loves crumpets which is great and will play with the mushrooms.

The other main thing that gets chewed is paper. Any paper he may find laying around, annoying but can be kept to a minimum by tidiness (if I had any of that!) but also wallpaper.  We are slowly getting rid of most wallpaper in our house and Charlie is helping with the process.  Its not so easy to replace, but I came across this sugar/rice paper in Hawkin's Bazaar and I'm trying to remember to offer it to him instead when I see him going after paper.

The other thing is sticks and leaves. Well obviously the leaves can be replaced with edible leaves and believe me, I've tried everything!  I've put lettuces in pots in the garden and in the house I've left pots of herbs, cress, living salads etc.  But no!  He knows they are supposed to be eaten so they get left alone!! 

Sand, cotton wool, oats, and dried rice and pulses are all things that would make it into his mouth during play if we didn't intervene.  Oh and he will chew fabrics. 

We used chewy tubes in the past when James 'nibbled' on stones, something which has thankfully passed.  They never really worked for him as it was a different sensation but I did notice Charlie had found one the other day and was using it correctly.  I think we heard about those from our lovely Barnardo's Speech and Language Therapist  rather than an OT! I know we had to find them ourselves. 

The more I think about it, the more I think this is an under-researched and under-treated part of autism.  Occupational Therapy is very hit and miss in this area.  The boys didn't see one for nearly 2 years after diagnosis and yet their sensory needs are immense. 


All comments and suggestions welcome!

Christmas Sensory Box

This is supposed to be a Christmas sensory box - it does smell Christmassy but I think it looks autumnal! 

It contains :-

A bag of mixed nuts
Bag of walnuts
Cinnamon sticks
Dried orange slices
Christmas scented pine cones

James helped to make the orange slices.  He's quite into helping to do fruit and veg at the moment and its a great way to get him exploring different foods without the pressure of having to eat them.  He licked a few bits of orange doing this. I say, 'Mum cut, James put IN' and he puts the items in the baking tray!

With the sensory stuff, I tend to just encourage exploration of the textures and smells.....

 but my mum got James putting a nut in each section of a little plastic cake tray which worked really well!

Feeding the Ducks

I love going to feed the ducks!  It's lucky that I do because I have spent much of the past 10 years doing it!  I wanted to write about this simple childhood activity because we have got so much out of it.  When our son's were born, our daughter was just two and we lived in a small town.  We were lucky to have a great nature area where there were lots of ducks to go and feed and it became part of our daily routine - town, ducks, park!  We all loved going, it was something we could all do together and it got to the point where I am convinced that the duck recognised our double buggy!! Well it just kept on until we moved and the boys went to school.  Although they had and still do have very little speech, one thing they could both say at that time was 'duck'.  They lost this when they lost the consistency of the activity and hearing the word which really highlights the need for repetition and routine in their learning.  Now we are home educating and live very close to a different flock of ducks, we're back at it.

This week we have been learning about animals and water so of course we had to go and feed the ducks.  Feeding the ducks actually means mum and dad feed the ducks and James and Charlie feed themselves.  This is the other great thing that we have got out of it.  They are both so restrictive about what they will eat and this was not helped by trying them on a gluten and dairy free diet several years ago.  After that we couldn't get them to eat bread at all.  They gradually started eating it again over many trips to feed the ducks when they were given a piece to hold and there was no pressure to do so.  Yay for the ducks!