Arty Farty

I have uploaded some pictures of the boy's artwork, if you'd like to take a look. http://www.flickr.com/photos/13916877@N00/ It was done over the past 6 months or so.

One of Quinn's artworks.

Griffin's work tends to be still quite primitive, but he is improving since having his physio sessions. He generally enjoys painting more than drawing as he doesn't have to press so hard which is still a bit difficult for him, but he is starting to get more adventurous now. He is also starting to show an interest in Quinn's work, so I will give him a chance to try what Quinn does if he wants to. We have also been focusing on letting Griffin do things that we were just doing before, because they were hard for him, like squeezing a peppermint out of a wrapper etc. He is also talking a lot recently, and comes out with some quite complex ideas and grammar. being able to express himself well as seemed to reduce his level of frustration in general.

Quinn is doing very well and can now colour well, inside the lines. He is also doing plus and minus sums (or 'mathematics' as he corrects me), I have given him all sorts of combinations under 10 and he is able to do them correctly (e.g. 2+5, 5+4, 7-3, 10-6 etc as well as 1+2+1, 1+1+1-1+1 and 10-5+2 etc.) He can also sound out words to read them and can do most short (up to 5 letter) words quite easily.

Quinn spoke to a little girl over the week-end who is in grade 1 this year. He asked her about what they do in grade 1, and if it is hard, and I think he feels less daunted since talking to her as he knew all the stuff she told him about. I have discovered that Quinn's teacher has
(hopefully inadvertently) scared him about the difficulty and sternness of 'big' school. He recently out of the blue said he didn't want to go next year. When I questioned him about it he said he thought school would be very hard and the teacher wouldn't help you. When I explained
what it was really like he was keen to go again, and after talking to the girl is quite excited. he is very much looking forward to being able to do team sports too.