We are starting to see the light at the end of the very long COVID lockdown tunnel. This week, the Pfizer vaccine was approved by the FDA review committee for children aged 5-11. In a few weeks, it seems E will have an opportunity to get his first vaccine and with luck, we may be able to finally return to his Nana and Papa’s house for Christmas festivities. To begin discussions about the upcoming vaccine, I decided to officially start our human body unit this week. It seems all human body curriculums start with the skeletal system which is well timed with Halloween around the corner but truly must be one of the most boring elements of the human body!? I tried to make this as engaging as possible by reaching E through multiple modalities that typically inspire him. First, we watched a lecture by a pediatrician on the fascinating parts of the skeletal system. He now recalls several of the bone names and can tell you the shortest and longest bones of the body, why we have bones, how to help bones be strong, and what would happen if we did not have bones! (scary thought!) I pulled out “Mr. Bones” which is our model skeleton which he helped me assemble as we named the bones. Then we read a comic book style book called “Human Body Theater” which reinforced the lecture elements from Doc Robins. Finally, we completed a craft I discovered on Mystery Science that called on his fine motor skills to create a hand x-ray.

For Math this week, I decided to approach it through interests first. We completed a Math Mystery which required E to look for clues in a table of times and temperatures to uncover the solution to a problem which had been written as a story. He was very engaged with this task and immediately asked to do the next one, which of course we did. They progress quickly in difficulty but we will continue to sprinkle these into our weekly plans as he enjoys math when problem based rather than computation driven. In addition to this math activity, I decided to attempt to work on his fine motor and visual perception through the use of Tangrams. Historically, E has avoided tangrams. I believe this is for multiple reasons.- first, I think the visual perceptual skills of rotating is challenging for him which also surfaces in his distaste of puzzles. But, he also has stated that tangrams are “kid-y” because they are always primary colors, plastic, and the student is forced to use the designs provided instead of having the opportunity to be creative. After having spent the weekend flirting with the idea of opening an Etsy shop for laser-cut Christmas ornaments, my mind was in the laser cutting mood so I thought it worth a try to make our own tangrams! We found a template as a starting point, applied our CRA logo, and E helped me print and sand the creation. He fell in love with these tangrams and asked to do more and more puzzles….

We also continued with phonogram work this week. Despite his natural gift of reading without instruction, we are targeting spelling this year to build his confidence. Here you can see his creative handiwork. After mastering the single letter sounds (why does one letter have so many different sounds!?!), he is ready to give a SpellEd talk. (his take on TedEd!).

For science this week, we did the human body work but also a bit of chemistry. Here you see him using Methylene Blue to test for ph.

One thing that was not planned this week was a deep dive into Character Strengths. We began a new segment on GoZen called Go Well Being which opened the discussion on each person’s unique strengths. When I asked E what he felt his strengths were, he couldn’t name any other than innovation. He is without a doubt, innovative. Truly, he is one of the most innovative individuals I’ve ever met and that strength will take him great places in life as long as he continues to embrace it. But, he also has many other strengths. He is deeply compassionate, highly sensitive, loves to learn, lights up when engaged in mutual conversation with others, he perseveres in the face of challenges, and he deeply feels the beauty of nature. To help E see his own strengths, we spent time reviewing the Via Character Strengths model. We each created a poster of our individual strengths which hangs in his art gallery now. Then, we again targeted those fine motor skills by stringing beads onto a bracelet that represent each of the strengths and wearing those on our arms all day to remind us of just how many strengths we both have.

We also spent a lot of time outside this week because it is the start of fall which is the most wonderful time of the year!

And last, but certainly not least, E participated in an interview for an educational company he enjoys called MEL Science. They are a box subscription service and considering the launch of a new line focused on Space. Who better to talk to than our resident astrophysicist? To say the interviewer was impressed was an understatement. She spoke to me for 20 minutes after the call just wanting to genuinely understand E’s development and passion.