A Time of Transitions.

We're entering a time of transitions.

Mad Natter has been diagnosed as SPD, we have found he is a visual spatial learner, and we have started OT.  What that means for us is that I'm now checking out every book I can find on VSL, and we're in a period of transition.  I understand now why our grammar and writing programs aren't working as well as math, spelling, and science. I'm immeasurably glad to have found this before I bought our curricula for next year.  I have the opportunity to reevaluate and try again.  We will likely keep handwriting, math, science, spelling, reading and logic.  Composition and grammar, I'm looking into Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Island. I'm seeing endless recommendations for it as a wonderful thing for visual spatial learners.  In the meantime, I am trying to teach Mad Natter how to harness his imagination. It's difficult, but he seems to be grokking the concept enough that things are easier than they were.  I'm trying to teach him to use his imagination to picture stories in his head. So, when he is read aloud to, his mind will make up the pictures he needs to remember the stories.  It went well for a first day, and I'm hoping this will be a good thing for his ability to listen.

In the meantime, I am thinking on a workbox system, as well as waiting on a visual scheduling system from the OT.  Once those come in, we're going to rework how our days go, and get things together to set up our days with scheduled movement breaks, snack times, brushing times, and learning/playing times.  I'd really like this to help keep us focused. Right now, there's a lot of imagining, a lot of playing, a lot of daydreaming... all during working times, and during playing times he'll sit quietly and watch a Let's Play video for a game we don't have the system to run, watching for 30+ minutes at a clip. I'd like to try to reverse that focus a little if we could - or get the focus for schoolwork as well as for New Super Mario Brothers WiiU.  Fingers crossed it works, because for right now, we're having some major struggles getting through ten minutes of work in under an hour, and neither of us needs that.