new iep

tomorrow is our next iep meeting. The first for the year. fingers crossed it is a good one!

ongoing

Hannah's sleep is still very disrupted. We are happy if we can get 1 night in 3/4 where she sleeps well. One positive is that she hasn't had any wee accidents at school now for a week so I am hopeful that we have crushed that pattern. I do get tired of constantly reminding her about her ipad - she often forgets to bring it home which is a pain because I like to use it with her too. Then last week the little bugger took out her orthotics and they still haven't been found - at $130 a pop and having only had them for a week I am unimpressed. All these things are so useful for her but she is only 6 and so this sort of thing is bound to happen - it is hard to come up with a system that works well.

We have her IEP meeting next week. Will see if there are any unforeseen issues occurring then....

Anxiety

Trying to sleep last night I have been thinking about Hannah's progress this term. So far in most ways she is going great. Her friendships are growing and she is developing a positive relationship with her new teacher. So why is she having wee accidents when she hasn't had them the whole time she was on holidays? And why does she say she wants to sleep in our bed with me - and even when we get her to sleep in hers she will wake up at around midnight and rarely are we able to get her back to sleep in her own bed. She is persistent in fighting sleep until we give in worried that with so little rest she will not be able to cope at school... it is a vicious circle. See even now as I type she has just run through the room in her undies - on the way to the toilet before she plays dress ups - no prompting required. She does have some sleep apnoea but had her tonsils and adenoids out for that last year and I don't think that is the cause of her sleeplessness because she breaths steadily and quietly when asleep now. I think she is worried, anxious, overwhelmed - can't settle her mind - whatever - about the big leap forwards that Year 1 is. I think this because I can see how Kit is finding it an adjustment 'upwards' in terms of maturity and focus - reading and writing and spelling (yes training for Naplan) are emphasised here - and while Kit is loving it he is still settling in. Hannah is the same I think only she isn't able to express that to me herself so that is why I am 'guessing'.
Phil and I don't know what to do to help her. Will time take care of it? After all she has had a good transition programme. She likes going. She wants to be in Year 1. We have good supports in that I am at the school 2 mornings a week and her Nan one morning a week. Her teacher seems keen and on the ball. But you know - on Friday she was buggered. She'd done a wee in her pants at school - and the usual penalty for that is no tv. That worked quite well early last year. But on Friday nights we have 'movie night' as a treat - it is a night the kids love with popcorn where we all sit down and watch a show together. How could I 'punish' her? Then we have to go over the whole 'stay in your bed' routine. I had tried bribery - is she stayed in her own bed 3 nights in a row then her father would take her to the shops for a toy. It sort of worked the first night in that she let me put her back to sleep in her own bed and then she stayed there but not the next two. This morning when she woke up she asked to go to the toy shop with Dad. I had to say 'no' because she didn't sleep in her own bed all night for 3 nights in a row. So feeling pretty mean and not sure how to change these behaviours.
I am also concerned because I want to keep her self image positive and strong - she is an amazing little girl and I don't want to 'crush her spirit' in modifying her behaviours. Phil must have agreed that the tenor of interactions was veering too far to the negativity because when I cuddled her while I watched the movie I told her that she was 'smart and funny and kind' and when she didn't really respond to that he was very quick to reinforce that message. Anyways - if anyone has a magic idea - I'd love to hear it....

Sh

Nearly had a heart attack when Hannah's teacher said she had put Hannah's ipad in her bag on Friday and that it wasn't on her desk...luckily it must have turned up during the day because it was in her bag this afternoon. Also in her and Kit's bags this afternoon was their first lot of Year 1 homework...I chatted briefly with Hannah's teacher about this last week. At the parent information night they had basically said that homework included 2 readers, about 5 sightwords (at this stage) and a couple of other activities. Hannah's teacher caught up with e around the school - she said that she would give me alternative work for Hannah. It was a short discussion but I made it clear that I would prefer to get the same homework as the other kids plus any specific worksheets or 'extras' that she thought would benefit Hannah. I let her know that I am happy to adapt the homework to suit Hannah - or at least give her a go to see what she can do. It is what we did last year and it worked quite well.

So today the folders are there. The twins are both very excited about it all. They come home Monday and go back Thursday - so not as much time as we had last year for homework. They were both really tired but Kit got straight into a chapter of his reader. He then got a dictionary to look up some other sh words. He did the copy and cover style of writing 2 of his sh spelling words and drew a sh picture. Not bad given how late it was when we got home.

Hannah got home and ran to the musical instruments. She got into some concert attire and was obviously not interested in her homework. I wanted to try a few techniques though - to see how she and I might work some of it out. I chose a 'shaker' and she selected another instrument and brought them out to the bench where homework is done. She did fantastically!! I put the necessary letters of the 5 spelling words on blank squares of paper and to test the waters I got her to spell ship and shop. After some guidance as to what to expect and some musical accompaniment she quickly got the hang of it all and we did some very poor rapping to our sh words. Then I got her to copy shop into her workbook - with the slips of paper spelling it beside her - she did a great job! She was however very tired so after a bath and a couple of errands she and I looked at her first reader - Icecream together. Then we played with words ending in s on articpix then I let her be. Still I think that given the timeframe is tight I will try and get a bit done each morning and each afternoon - if we can get 5-10 minutes a go then I can see her managing that - I hope so anyhow - she takes in so much more than she is able to verbalise. I am glad her teacher was quite happy to try this way no doubt we'll have our planning meeting soon. She may not be able to do all 5 words in that timeframe but I think she could get 1-3 done.
On another note she also asked me if it was ok for the school to update Hannah's original letter of introduction to the whole school community and send it out to Year 1 parents - a great idea - especially as Year 1 and Kindy share a playground.

News

Things are settling in well at school. I am very happy with how Hannah's teacher is handling things. Biggest issue is getting her ipad home each night - she didn't bring it home Thurs or Fri so I couldn't do any of the speech app with her over the weekend. Will try and chat about that with the teacher... Hannah was totally wrecked the first week back. I sent her away on a Dads and kids weekend and was sure that this would spell disaster for the next week too but it seems to have been fine. She was much less tired and managed to still go to her swimming lesson after school one day as well. SHe had her first dance lesson of the year on Sat and is back in the disability swimprogram too so just about full steam ahead - except for her sleeping patterns - they are still a bit dreadful... she must have been up for about 2 hours all up in the middle of thee night last night...fingers crossed some routine and consistency will sort it out reasonably soon - for our sanity as well as hers.
Kit was thrilled to be elected for the SRC - he received his badge at the school mass on Friday. Unfortunatley I couldn't be there but he grandparents were and took some lovely photoes - if they email them through I'll try and post one. One of the other mums said he was so proud that afterwards he kept looking down at his badge - she was worried because he wasn't looking where he was going! I am a bit worried - I don't want him becoming a politician and yet he does like to 'work the room'...
Anyways here's to another week. We also found out last week that our principal is leaving .. so uncertain times ahead I fear.

Information Night

Went to the meet and greet last night. Hannah's teacher seems fantastic!!! I am sure she's gong to have a good year. She also was a lot less tired yesterday which is a good sign that she is settling in a bit more. She sits at a table with 2 of her friends and told me that she played with them at school. She has been using her ipad although we still have a bit of organising to do with it - I downloaded a First then Visual app - but for the life of me can't work out how to upload our own pics...

At the moment Kit is more of concern to me. He is happy and likes his teacher and is enjoying Year 1. Two things about him are on my mind though. There is a boy who he has a love hate relationship with (personally I'd prefer that it was mostly the latter with some of the things Kit tells me about his 'friend' but that is another story) Anyway - Kit has been getting upset because this boy has been hissing and poking Kit - in class and in the playground when they line up. From what I can tell it isn't bullying yet but potentially...So I bit the bullet and mentioned to the teacher that Kit had told me she was going to rearrange the kids desks - could she please separate these 2 boys? I asked. Sure she said. And she did - but she put Z behind Kit - on different tables but within reach - hence the poking and hissing. Hmm. We'll see - hopefully she'll quash that sort of thing very quickly. Other reasons I am uncomfortable about this 'friendship' developing is that this boy puts Kit down. When he went in the talent show he was told he was terrible. That sort of comment has been made by this boy about a few things. Then he also tells Kit he doesn't like a particular country - or anything to do with it - including the people. Now I know he is only 6 and that that sort of attitude is learned - but there is no way that Kit is learning that one and I was very blunt with him about it. Then there was the googling twin towers on the dsi and watching cartoons about it - why?? I wondered and after watching Kit say that Z had told him about these cartoons - I had to tell him that I was very uncomfortable with him just looking up these flip notes as if they were fun because I couldn't see anything 'fun' in what really happened with the twin towers I elaborated a little bit more and he has not looked at them again. SO this boy is just a bit too worldly an influence for mine - and not the sort of worldliness that I think is appropriate for 6 year olds. DH and I have discussed with Kit who friends are there to make you feel happy not sad. That he doesn't need to be friends with everyone - he has to be polite and respectful but if someone is making him feel bad then they aren't really a friend are they? etc. We'll see - as I said occasionally these 2 boys actually play nicely together but mostly - not.
The other concern is about the work in Year 1. It is only early days but I am watching to see how quickly the teacher starts to give Kit work that is appropriate and challenging - cos that hasn't happened yet. As I said it is early days though. Still at the end of kindy he and 2 other children were working on a 'contract' system of individual work which he loved. Kit is self-motivated, independent and focussed - and I think he really benefitted from this system of work. He also attended an enrichment group once a week which was mixed ages and he loved that because he is quite drawn to older kids. Anyways I'll wait a little while - not sure how long (?!) and then I'll ask his teacher about it. Just like with Hannah - I want to build a positive partnership not come across as pushy, still I am a bit anxious to see how the new teacher will address his needs because his kindy teacher gave it a good go.

At the moment he is loving the Snugglepot and Culddlepie stories (he borrowed it from the school library yesterday) - who'd have thought but he was retelling me the events of one of the tales his father read him last night, just this morning. HE actually read a page of it without error too but it is quite a long story and he definitely prefers to share the reading of it with another person rather than read it all by himself.