School Time 9/4 - More Creative Story

Asked Becca if she wanted to work on her book today. She didn't respond. I asked if she wanted to lay down on the floor instead, she didn't respond. I explained that it was almost time for bed so we could work on her book for a little bit or just get ready for bed. Then when I asked if she wanted to work on her book she said yes.

Side note: I think it's going to be hard for Becca to start communicating more because it seems like she wants to say exactly what's in her head, but she's so limited to the words we put in her mouth that she's getting frustrated. I don't know exactly what to do about this, hopefully we'll be able to get her more words soon, and hopefully she'll be patient enough to work with me.

We re-read the pages we'd already written about Harold. I asked Becca what color she would like her dragon to be, blue, green or purple. She paused for a little while, then looked right at blue. So we drew a blue dragon together. I told Becca we could make the dragon a nice dragon or a mean dragon, whichever she wanted. She didn't pick either one the first time. I told her I wasn't going to pick for her, but we could be done if she wanted, then I asked again. This time she picked to have a nice dragon. I said if the dragon is nice then we should come up with a name for it. I started suggesting some names, Tom, David, Susan -- she picked Susan. So we had Susan and Harold introduce themselves in the story. Then I asked Becca what we should have them do. They could go for another walk, they could fly around, they could try to fix the castle -- she wanted them to try to fix the castle.

I started throwing out ideas for how they could fix the castle. They could try to make it rain, they could use magic, they could find a river to water the plants, they could suck up some water and have the dragon spit it out. She didn't respond to any of those ideas. I told her I was having a hard time coming up with any more ideas. I suggested maybe they could cry and their tears would water the ground -- she might have reacted to that one but I wasn't sure, and when I asked again she said no. So I went through the list again, and this time when I said they could make it rain I also said they could fly into the clouds to make it rain and she reacted to that. So we drew Harold on Susan up in the clouds making it rain. I asked if she wanted the clouds to be blue or black and she picked blue, which was the color we used for clouds last time too. We drew the clouds. I asked if she wanted to be done for the day and she said yes. I asked if she liked doing this and she said yes. I talked about how it's probably hard having to only choose from what I say, and that sometimes learning and doing school stuff isn't necessarily fun, but it's still good and important and it will help her be able to communicate better in the future.

Then we played a colors game with Becca and her siblings. I would hold out two colored markers and ask whether something matched either of the colors (i.e. is water blue or orange). Becca's siblings both went first. I asked Becca if grass is orange or green. She wouldn't pick, then she might have picked orange, so I said grass is green. Next time around I asked Becca if the sky is orange or blue. She wouldn't pick for a while, then she picked blue. Last time around I asked Becca if tomatoes are red or purple. She wouldn't pick, and ended up staring at the tomatoes on the counter instead of looking at the colors. I said those tomatoes were red, obviously, and we called it good.