The wheels fell off my plan fairly early. Bee changed his mind about the Work Ready course - he became quite anxious about doing it. So we have left that for another time when he is ready.
Starting home-school I knew that the more formal the learning feels to Bee, the more resistant he is to engaging. He likes to be on the floor and our style is conversational. The more relaxed Bee is the more he is likely to take initiative. For example when we started our study of nouns, he took the white board and started taking notes before I even had a chance to ask him.
On the days Bee is only mildly avoidant I find that we can sit somewhere and watch YouTube videos. We have subscribed to around 40 educational channels (some of which are listed on our Resource page). I have also started curating some playlists based on topics Bee has expressed interest in.
When Bee and I travel together we always listen to podcasts. We enjoy comedy podcasts with an educational element, such as The Dollop.
Bee has been enjoying playing pool, and spends a lot of time practicing his angles. He also enjoys playing and creating levels in Geometry Dash.
I'm finding it takes Bee longer than I realised to process some information, especially if it is related to choice. I am learning to give him the information and then to follow up a couple of days later. Pushing too hard just leads to shutdowns and/or meltdowns. Too much choice is overwhelming, so I am trying to balance these instances as best I can.
We are still experimenting with ADHD medication. Bee is overwhelmed by large amounts of text and/or data. He has communicated that he often forgets what he has just read and loses his place on a page. He has mentioned sometimes words get jumbled, speaking with his OT this could just be because he loses his place whilst trying to read.
Moving forward I will be looking at ways to provide smaller chunks of text. For example I have some sample comprehension activities from my teacher studies I created that we can use as a starting point. If having these smaller chunks of text help reduce Bee's demand load it will hopefully be a way to build on his reading skills.
Learning new concepts seems to draw the most demand avoidance with Bee. He is prepared to do a math worksheet or some spelling words, but its harder to engage him when teaching new concepts. Mostly this centres around maths, and it maybe that I need to experiment with various lesson videos and hopefully find the right fit. When he was do DE they used the mathspace program, Bee did not like the presenters voice and that would be all he could focus on.
