The last few days, where we have had time with Daniel by himself, and no-one else interrupting, has been so encouraging (on Daniel’s behalf) that it is obvious we are going to have to put in some effort to give him this type of focus time.

He is obviously doing better

• in the morning
• with no noise
• with no interruptions
• lessons over and done with in one block of time.

I discussed it with the other kids today and we are going to work as a family, to give Daniel daily lesson time, with no interruptions.  This is possible  because the other kids are old enough to work for a period of time without my direct supervision.

With the eye to being flexible, today we started Daniel’s lessons just after 7.30am.  We started early so that Daniel and I could join the weeding session.  Daniel did really well though the Soundway session was 35minutes of writing practice which he found hard.  There were a few tears but then he pulled through that, and then more tears, and more success.  The lesson finished on a high note with Daniel knowing he was doing good work.  We did another session with “Seven Blind Mice” – Daniel was obviously more familiar with all of the three concepts we are working on; colours, days of the week, and ordinal numbers.

We spent some time weeding together but it was cut short by rain (of all things – it doesn’t rain here in June!)  From then on the day just got colder and colder.

Today was my best friends birthday!  The kids spent the rest of their morning time getting presents for her.  Daniel raided my cupboard and gave her a small box of dried banana and some frozen mango (they have their own freezer full of frozen mango but we didn’t tell Daniel that!  It is the thought that counts and his willingness to share what we have.)  Nomi created three monkeys – see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.   Jessica and I worked on completing a Recipe Book using raw vegan recipes.  These are the recipes I take away on holidays so they are simple but enjoyable.