Home Schooling an ASD Child During the COVID-19 Crisis
Home Schooling an ASD Child During the COVID-19 Crisis | Social Distancing
Like most of you in the US, and the world, we are practicing social distancing to help flatten the curve of the novel coronavirus. For us that means schools are closed, limited interaction with other people and keeping our elderly family members isolated.
This means that Jackie isn't in school and I felt the need to take on making sure we don't experience major regressions. I took the weekend to gather the materials I was going to use and get myself prepared.
Home Schooling an ASD Child During the COVID-19 Crisis | How It's Going
So we are now on day 3 of school at home. I'm not sure if I am truly prepared to call it home school because I am no where near qualified to do this. I am terrified. Being on the Autism Spectrum, Jackie isn't like the typical toddler. She needs to have a routine and a lot of structure or she will regress. Since Jackie has made so much progress in the last few months, we don't want to lose any of it. We also are still on the wait list to get a medical diagnosis (and I don't see that happening on schedule) so we don't have any private support. We do have some amazing family members that have provided resources and support that have been a huge help!
The first day, we included two of my cousins. I work with their dad, so we were all exposed to each other anyway. Their mom is still going to work and if they weren't with me, the would have likely spent the day with my 80+ year old grandparents, so I was the better option. We kept very busy and did a new activity every 30-45 minutes. The older girls wanted to do all of the activities I had planned and I had to explain that we had plenty of time to do everything I had planned. I don't think these kids will be going back to school any time soon!
Home Schooling an ASD Child During the COVID-19 Crisis | How It's Going
Day one was really fun, but I was exhausted! Like I said, we did lots of activities and we only had about 2 hours of down time, when Jackie was napping. Looking back I needed to allocate more free play time. Here is what we did on Day one:
Got up & got dressed & ate breakfast
Got Jackie up and dressed
Left for Paris's house
Cosmic Yoga
Jackie’s lesson from Busy Toddler playing preschool (nursery rhymes)
Girls planted seeds
Jackie Sorted poms by color
Jackie made her Sheep
Made Bracelets with older girls
Tried princess necklace with Jackie (didn't go well)
Paris and Jackie read
Jackie played with toys
All played Bingo
Girls played Hide & seek while I finished making lunch (Pairs made soup)
Lunch
Nap time for Jackie
Older girls went with me to drop off packages
Colored Camp Castle Play Mat Dino mat
Puzzles
Sort Easter eggs
Emergency gas and food stock up
Made cookies
Played go fish
Cosmic Yoga
Sensory bin
Played outside
Read books with Paris
Went home
Bath time
Play time with daddy
Bed time
I learned that for day two, which was only Jackie and me. I learned a lot from the first day and tried really hard to encourage Jackie to play on her own and to schedule out every minute. I was more relaxed and I wasn't as tired at the end of the day. Here is what we did on day two:
Got up & dressed & ate breakfast
Got Jackie up & dressed
Left for Paris's house
Cosmic Kids Yoga
Lesson from Busy Toddler (nursery rhymes)
Free play
BINGO
Reading
Watched animal live streams
Snack
Free play
Lunch
Free play
Nap
I worked
Colored Camp Castle Play Mat free printable
Watched animal live streams
Free play
Went home
Bath time
Dinner
One last check on the live streams
Bed Time
You can see there was a lot more free play. While Jackie needs structure, too much structure can be restricting for any child. I don't know what the schedule has been like in her new class so I had to do some experimenting.
Home Schooling an ASD Child During the COVID-19 Crisis | Resources I Am Using
There are so many resources that I have been using! I will share the main ones here and mention a few more in my Instagram stories for those of you who want more! We have loved this list of free subscriptions that are available right now and this list of virtual field trips/animal live feeds.
When I was trying to figure out a program to use, I decided to go with Busy Toddler's Playing Preschool. I love what she has created with this program. Each lesson is only 45 minutes total (including 2 activities) and they can be broken up and done throughout the day. Each unit lasts 2 weeks so you can really dig in on each one. I decided to pick 2 random units because we started off assuming that school is out for 4 weeks. I will reevaluate when we get to the end of the 4 weeks.
I am using coloring pages from Rad + Happy, which I already had a subscription to. Tara released a bunch of new coloring pages this month, more than double what she normally releases! I also bought the Dino Download from Camp Castle Play Mats last month which I had printed as an architectural print, which has been really fun to color. They also sent out a new free coloring page to their email list yesterday!
I have linked some of the supplies we have been using below to give you some more ideas!
Home Schooling an ASD Child During the COVID-19 Crisis | Shop
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