Ella’s been in school for 3 weeks now. She has settled well, is participating activities and learning along side her peers. She loves her teacher, giving her a big hug as a greeting each morning.
She knows where her peg is and is getting better at hanging up her coat by herself. She can put her book bag in the correct box with some help and can find the correct basket for her water bottle to go in, again with prompting. These are all things that she does every day so the repetition is good for helping her to consolidate these tasks in her long term memory. I am confident she will be doing these three tasks independently before long.
I quickly realised that I needed to be more organised in terms of school uniform (she comes out so grubby that I’m washing every item she wears almost every day!), what Ella needs to take with her each day and remembering to return any forms or letters that need signing.
This starting school malarkey has been as much of a learning curve for me as it has been for Ella!
I began thinking about what I could do to help me be more organised and more able to get everyone out of the door at 8.30am every morning. And there’s also the days that I don’t take her to school when Ian/the nanny/granny takes her. My organisation has to work for whoever is doing the school drop off and on whatever day of the week that may be.
I also realised that being organised is about Ella. Therefore, in the long term it should also be something that works on her level too and benefits her in terms of her independence and her confidence in doing things for herself.
And then I remembered a post I had seen on Facebook, a mum of 7 kids who had bought a set of plastic drawers for each of her children, that sat in her hallway. 5 drawers in each set, one drawer for every day of the week. Socks and pants for everyday are a given but then there’s PE kits on different days, after school activities and other variables to factor in (I’m feeling marginally inadequate at this point that I’m struggling to organise one child, let alone 7!).
So I stole the plastic drawers idea and added a twist to make it more tailored to Ella, the way she learns (visually) and by linking it to something already in place at school.
Our drawers are coloured, a different coloured drawer for each day of the week.
At Charnwood (Ella’s preschool), they associated a different colour with the different days of the week. And seeing as Bianca (the SEN teacher) has moved from Charnwood to Ella’s primary school, they have adopted the concept too, for familiarity and continuity…
I’ve always known that Friday was ‘blue’ day as Ella always says ‘Friday, blue day, granny’ because granny always collects her on a Friday. Her favourite day!
So here is what I’ve done with our drawers…
So, apart from Tuesday’s drawer being the wrong colour, they’re actually pretty close to the correct colours for the days of the week. A printer, laminator, a pair of scissors and some glue later and the days of the week are now on each drawer front…
There’s space on top to put her water bottle and glasses (which she will not wear once she’s finished school for the day). I’ve currently added a bulldog clip as a makeshift hook for her book bag but will change this to something more Ella friendly soon…
We will see how it works in practice next week but hopefully being able to put a clean polo shirt, socks and pull-up into each drawer as a starting point for the week ahead has to be better than nothing! I will report back and let you know how they are working and how Ella benefits from them over time.
Happy weekend everyone (especially all those fellow parents who do the school run, enjoy your days off!) xx
Our first baby, Ella Mary, was born at the end of November 2010. We were shocked to find out soon after her birth that she has Down's Syndrome. I was determined from the start that Down's Syndrome will never define Ella or what she is able to do. We will provide for her everything she needs to become the child and the person she deserves to be. There will be hard times ahead.... there are already many hard times behind us. But I already know that the good times will always outweigh the hard times. She has taught me so much in such a short time and seeing life from a new perspective is a privilege that not many of us get the chance to experience.
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Good luck with the boxes – great colours!
on September 28, 2015 at 11:49 am talkhealth