Art Project

This is Jeronimo's Maori art project (as mentioned in the notebook!). He chose different Maori symbols, and of course, the name "Joe", which was a last minute addition. A creative mix of traditional art with a bit of Jeronimo's character thrown in!

Jeronimo's Speech

Jeronimo presented his picture book as a speech yesterday.

Here he is practicing with me:
https://youtu.be/znd7fbuQ1J0

Here's the actual performance - not the best filming, sorry, because I was cueing Jeronimo with one hand:
https://youtu.be/3lir_uNN60g

Snow On The Hill - Jeronimo's Picture Book

Jeronimo has been working on his own adaptation of the picture book "Snow on the Hill" to present as a speech next week. It's not all coloured in yet, but here's how it looks at the moment:

Jeronimo has really enjoyed making this project, and has been working on his presentation, using the following steps:
1. Read the page.
2. Show the page to audience - wait for 5 seconds while they look at the artwork.
3. Turn the page. Repeat for all four pages.

Trying new things

This week Jeronimo had a go at learning how to drum, here's a video:

https://goo.gl/photos/SyaGkmTYLatzu63s6

It sounds a lot better in his headphones than it does in the video! With drumming, he learns hand-eye coordination, left-right brain development (sometimes called "cross brain coordination"), following instructions, and some music knowledge as well. He also has a lot of fun!

He worked on a 4-beat pattern, using his right hand on the hi-hat cymbal all 4 beats: 1, 2, 3, 4! 1, 2, 3, 4!
Then he brought his left hand in on the snare drum, just for beat 3: wait, wait, 3! wait. Wait, wait, 3! wait.
It's tricky to hit that 3 every time, but he did his best and kept improving.

We've also started some games to learn how to be patient while it's someone else's turn. The first game is "Memory", using pairs of Diego cards that we made.

We've also made a Snakes and Ladders game (but we've changed it to Waterslides and Pyramids) and played just once, but we need to wait for it to be laminated to play again.

Jeronimo is also working hard at doing his tasks without any help. He practices with his "stations", which are activities in trays on his desk. He takes the activity in a coloured folder out of the tray on the left and completes it. He puts in back in the folder and then into the tray on the right. Then he takes the coloured square from the front of the left tray and puts it on the right tray.

Jeronimo is doing very well with this, and enjoys the activities.

Jeronimo has fun and learns at the same time with all of these fun new experiences. It helps him settle and be focused on more straight-forward activities like maths, reading and writing.

Wig and Hat Day!

Jeronimo's green afro was a hit today! Here he is with me and my Mickey Mouse beanie in the music room:

Just after these photos were taken, Jeronimo had a good go on the drum kit. I'll be able to share that video soon, but not today.

Here is a maths exercise to help with columns:
http://www.tinytap.it/games/g1jh7/play/columns

Here are some

The Gardener's Maze

Here are some fragmented sentences that Jernomino used to describe pictures in the book. Each boxed phrase or word shows a piece that Jeronimo would say on its own:

Some of these phrases were offered immediately, others took some more help.

Jeronimo was then able to put the fragments together to write whole sentences: