Man Your Battle Stations!

Four more days until the bird count! Are you ready?


Photo credit to Cleve Dowell and article by Cathy Gilbert of the Manning Times (Page 3)

The Santee National Wildlife Refuge is proud to announce their participation in the 13th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count, Feb. 12-15. This annual bird count is organized by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as a way for people of all ages and levels of bird-watching experience to participate in observing birds in their backyard, off their balcony or at their local refuge!

Manning resident Tammy Glaser participated last year with her daughter, Pamela, who is autistic and homeschooled. "We do the Backyard Bird Count because we follow a form of homeschooling (Charlotte Mason) that involves nature study," Glaser explained. "Plus, birds are so fun to watch and sometimes you see some interesting things. And you learn a lot. If it's not freezing cold, maybe we will sit on the back porch rockers since Pamela has an idea of what to expect this year."

Each year, tens of thousands of people throughout the U.S. and Canada take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count. Each checklist will contribute valuable information for conservation, by submitting the data online. The information gathered through this bird count will help scientists understand how the distributions of birds are changing over time.

The Santee National Wildlife Refuge will host an early morning bird walk on Saturday, Feb. 13, starting at 7:30 a.m. as part of the Great Backyard Bird Count. Refuge staff hopes to observe wintering sandhill cranes as well as snow geese from the trail’s observation tower to add to the count tally. Ducks, geese and a variety of wintering songbirds may also be seen. Interested participants should meet at the visitor center.

"We are also encouraging visitors to the refuge to observe and keep track of all birds seen during the 4-day count period," said Susan Heisey, Park Ranger. "Individuals interested in participating can pick up a bird check list at the refuge’s visitor center or information kiosk at the Cuddo Unit and start counting. Not only is the count keeping track of different species seen but also numbers of each of those species."

"Once a person has completed their hike, drive, or bicycle ride around the refuge, they can return their checklist to the refuge visitor center, where staff will compile the sightings of all participants," Heisey said. Individuals must return their checklist to the visitor center no later than Feb. 15 for their count to be included. "If the visitor center is not open when you come by, the refuge will have a box on the front porch for folks to leave their checklists," she added. "Please make sure that participant names and contact information is included."

Santee National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1941 as a sanctuary for migratory birds. The refuge encompasses just over 12,400 acres of habitat along the banks of Lake Marion in four separate units. The refuge visitor center as well as the Santee Indian Mound and site of Fort Watson are located on the Bluff Unit, 8 miles south of Summerton on Hwy 15/301. Santee National Wildlife Refuge is one of 550 national wildlife refuges across the country that make up over 150 million acres of land and water for fish and wildlife conservation. The refuge system offers a variety of outdoor activities, including fishing, hunting, environmental education, wildlife observation and photography. Each year, about 40 million Americans discover the wonders of nature by visiting a wildlife refuge. There is at least one wildlife refuge in every state and one within an hour’s drive of most major cities.

For more information about the Great Backyard Bird Count and visitor opportunities at the Santee National Wildlife Refuge, contact Susan Heisey, Park Ranger, at 478-2217 or email susan_heisey@fws.gov.

Mark Your Calendars!

It's that time of year again . . . next weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count! Rather than repeat what I have blogged before, here are some posts to give you some perspective and advice:

The Value of Nature Study
Scaffolding Kids in the Bird Count
Day One of GBBC 2009
Final Day of GBBC 2009

At first, you might find it hard to identify birds. This one completely mystified me last year, and I kept thinking it was an American goldfinch. Every day, I watched it sample camellia fruit from a neighbor's yard. I could always tell the bird was there by the way one cluster of leaves would wave wildly and then I would see a flash of gold, followed by another cluster dancing around. One day I caught him (the flashy color gives his gender away) taking a bath. I snapped a photograph and emailed an Audobon Society representative in our area. It turned out my "finch" was really a juvenile Baltimore oriole. The drab orange made him look finch like from a distance. This year, he is sporting bold orange colors, leaving no doubt of his identity!



Bird-watching feels like a treasure hunt sometimes. This morning, I walked outside and heard the sweetest music imaginable. Perched in the three pecan and two oak trees in our yard were hundreds, maybe thousands of robins, making me believe that Punxsutawney Phil got it wrong this year, ignoring the Facebook photos of my friends in the D.C. area attacked by Snowzilla.

Last year, the kids and I startled at a huge thud against the window of the television room and had a rare opportunity to photograph and record our first headbanger bird. Last year, we spotted a gorgeous painted bunting, even during a rare snowfall. Even if we don't meet any new friends this year, we will enjoy seeing our faithful ones.

You don't need much to get started. Birds need food and water. We have the bird bath stationed right next to the food supplies: suet in a suet cage, seeds in a feeder, and a bag of thistle. Some birds use both, but others feed on what's wild in the yard: robins and their worms, chipping sparrows and their pecans, orioles and their fruit.

We also have bird books and a notebook with clear pictures of birds we typically see in our yard. I usually take pictures first and then look things up because cropping and zooming in on specific features helps me nail an identification.

Really, other than the set up, it doesn't take much time. You only need to spend fifteen minutes, counting, and a few more of entering data. It is really cool to be part of a nation-wide scientific study! Join us!

Watching for Starts and Stops in Painting Class

Pamela's Home Work
During the week, Pamela and I did homework. We did make-up work from the previous week (the blue value study), redid the block study so she could understand the ideas of light and shadow in the context of value study (red block), and painted the projects she missed in class last week (apple and sunrise). During our short lessons, we went at Pamela's pace to giver her time to process the ideas rather than rush through technique. I also focused on Pamela's new objective: look before you leap, which means Pamela learning to watch for my starts and stops and wait before starting if I have paused for some reason.


Pamela's Second
Watercolor Class
Pamela did two of three projects from Tuesday's class: the black value study and the rainy landscape. She showed the same pattern from last week, requiring very little scaffolding with a familiar process (the blocks) and more direct guidance with a new process (the landscape). I noticed that Pamela carefully monitored her teacher, who directed her attention to the new students in the class. While the other students started working after hearing the verbal instructions, Pamela, in her "watch for starts and stops" mode, usually waited until her teacher painted. I noticed that Pamela did not like water dripping off her brush and had a hard time making gray. Overall, she was very relaxed for the color value study and lagged because she was only referencing the teacher and not the other students. I think I struggled more than she did because I shifted my attention between Pamela, the teacher, and the lady on my right, who was a new student. Talk about a three-ring circus!



Because this project was unfamiliar and more vague, I gave Pamela Pamela more support. I tried really hard to help her focus her attention on something and encourage her to look and think rather than telling her what to do. Several times, she did not understand and headed in the wrong direction. I stayed calm and neutral and got her back on track. At the end of the video, Pamela very clearly let me know when she was tired and I respected her request to stop.



My Lesson Learned
I cannot believe I missed a golden opportunity (pardon the pun). One of the most important things about RDI and Charlotte Mason homeschooling is to focus on process, not product--the sweet moments, not the end result. I was so absorbed in helping Pamela keep up that I ignored the chance to spotlight the funny moment when the teacher found a golden raisin stuck to her papers. Falling into a mechanical plodding through the steps, an unmindful going through the motions, is the polar opposite of experience sharing.

Since Pamela did not feel up to painting a camellia, I tried my hand at it. I realized a mistake we had made in the color value study: I should have had Pamela place each color in a separate hole in her palette. I did that for my flower and found painting it much easier. About halfway through painting the camellia, a friend popped into the gallery. We fell into a lovely conversation, and I began to relax and not really pay much attention to what I was doing. Watercolors are very snarky, unpredictable things that are very hard to control. Letting my mind focus on something else allowed me to go with the flow.




Things to Do

• I plan to lead a lesson on painting a camellia with David and Pamela over the weekend. I will give verbal instructions and turn away for a moment. David can verbally spotlight what he is doing so that Pamela can learn that she can follow the cues of other people too.
• I address Pamela's issue with adding water. I will find a better set up that works for Pamela and model a calm and neutral attitude about the dripping paint.
• We do some shaded landscapes (two based on black-and-white pictures and one from our ideas) since next week the class will be doing colored landscapes.
• I will contrast the idea of wet on dry for the flower with the idea of wet on wet for the landscape
• The teacher forgot to bring salt for a misty effect in the sky. We will try that on the landscape pictures in case she brings some on another day.
• When we do color value studies, I plan to guide Pamela in place each new color in different hole.

Watch and Paint in a Small Group

Three years ago, we pulled Pamela out of all small and large group activities. I felt like we were talking ten steps backwards. Common wisdom says that autistic children will eventually learn to socialize if we mainstream, include, and enroll them into group activities. Unfortunately for Pamela, she never seemed to advance beyond heavy-handed guidance, bordering on manipulation, from me. A few months later, she quietly told me that youth group was "too hard" . . .

Why did I pull out the stops? The theory underpinning RDI is that autistic children have an underconnected brain that makes it difficult to pick up social cues needed to succeed in group settings. Some research points to the relationship between a smaller corpus callosum and autism: "Corpus callosum reductions are present in autism and support the aberrant connectivity hypothesis." One news report puts a human face on this hypothesis.

What does this mean? It means that the brain has a difficult time communicating with itself, particularly in problem-solving and picking up social and emotional cues. People with this issue process much more slowly than those who are typical. It's like the difference between traveling country roads and superhighways: Pamela's brain goes at a slower pace and navigates more twists on the road than mine.

RDI approaches underconnectivity by going back to early milestones and slowly focuses on redoing developmental gaps that make social situations difficult. We have spent the past three years working on the foundation for small group activities. After seeing Pamela in the watch and do videos from last week, our consultant thought Pamela ready for small groups. About a day later, a Facebook friend who also has a child with autism posted that she was offering watercolor classes! Pamela loves drawing and painting, so I took it as a strong whisper from God!

Although Pamela did not know her teacher, Carrie, the setting was perfect: quiet with classical music which Pamela loves. The class was small: the students were two adults, a homeschooler, and Pamela. Carrie caught on right away to nonverbals and declarative language as you can see in the video. You can see how comfortable Pamela between her smiles and loving gaze at her paints.

I loved how careful and thoughtful Pamela was. She didn't automatically squeeze a new tube of paint because she noticed the tip needed to be punctured. She looked at what people, usually the teacher or the other girl, were doing before taking the next step. When she needed something, she asked for it. When she was confused, she asked a question. Pamela even made declarative statements from time to time.

Color Strips
The first project focused on becoming familiar with colors. Beginning with yellow, Carrie had them mix the paint and water, draw a line down the paper, and label it with the name written on the tube. Then, she moved the class through this process, color by color, until they had ten parallel stripes, labeled for future reference.

This activity spotlighted Pamela's processing speed. She clearly shifts her attention and takes an action at a much slower pace than her classmates. Had I not been there to scaffold her, she would have bogged down the class. After making two or three stripes, Pamela was familiar with the process and kept up very well. I also noticed that the task shut down completely when she needed something that was not truly essential (switch paintbrushes or get new water). It reminded me of Monk who he gets distracted and cannot function until whatever is bothering him is resolved.




Block and Color Value
This project was a color value study. They studied the lighting of a block, finding the sides that were dark, medium, and light. Then, they drew it and painted it, starting with the dark side and adding more water to lighten the color for the other sides. The teacher also introduced a very important tool for lifting color off the page: a paper towel.

My role was to help Pamela keep pace by doing non-essential things and pointing out what people were doing to help her shift more quickly. I backed out my support whenever she kept up with the class. When the teacher asked questions about light and dark, I gave Pamela more direct support to help her understand what the teacher was saying by thinking of something concrete like shadow and the overhead lights. Rather than tell Pamela what to do or get, I would be vague, "What do you need?" or "What did Carrie draw?" I thought Pamela attended very well to instruction, especially when the teacher had visuals.

Pamela seemed very thoughtful. At one point, she drew a shadow on her box just like we did in Pennsylvania (ten years ago) when we did Draw Squad. Pamela watched both her teacher Carrie and the homeschooler before painting and studied what they had done.




Carrie had two short projects left, but Pamela thought otherwise! She had worked for fifty minutes with one short break. She told me was tired and sat on the couch. I decided to watch the teacher do the next two projects. We have been working on them at home, which will give Pamela a chance to think through what Carrie is teaching at her own pace.

Why did I let her "quit" before the class ended? Trust underpins all good relationships. I trust that Pamela is not trying to cop out, that she really is tired when she says she is tired. She knows she can trust me, that I am not going to push her into the impossible, that I might guide her to the edge of her competency and back out when she's gone too far.

The biggest pain about RDI is filming and editing it. However, doing all that work is worth the effort. In the heat of the moment, I focused on the pace of the class and helping Pamela keep up. I did not realize what a wonderful job Pamela had done in watching and doing what her teacher and classmates were doing until I started editing the clips.

Lessons Learned

• Position Pamela closer to the teacher and within view of the homeschooler.
• Give enough support to help her keep pace with the class, especially when learning a new technique.
• Do non-essential things like closing the paint, pulling out a sheet of paper, pouring clean water, etc.
• Have plenty of fresh water on hand.
• Organize paintbrushes by kind since she goes through several during the class.
• Practice concepts she might not have had time to process at home: adjusting color value with water and lifting off color with a paper towel.
  

Whatever Happened to David G? Part II

Before I cover the results (or grades--what most people want to know), I wanted to talk about the transition itself. Homeschooling in a rural town with few homeschoolers and people who don't get homeschooling, much less a Charlotte Mason philosophy, was not easy on either of us. Last April, when the opportunity to travel to Minnesota arose, David joined me and spent time with his friends there. We realized how much we missed co-oping with other homeschoolers, talking, hanging out at the park, sharing good books, meeting at the YMCA, etc. I do not miss, however, snow and long winters.

David also attended the Teen Program at the ChildLightUSA Conference in June 2009. He was amazed to meet other teens who had read the same books, who were diverse thinkers, who understood his perspective. They immediately bonded, and he told me that he felt like he had known them all of his life. The program, developed and administered by and for teens, included talks led by a professor about the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Beatles monopoly games at night, Shakespeare readings (the Pyramus and Thisby scene was a riot from what I heard), Jane Austen tea, nature walks, a musical theory class, a tour of GWU's theatrical department, etc.

One night, a couple of parents dropped in late to hear the Sherlock Holmes reading. We looked at each other puzzled for a few minutes because the tale was much creepier than any of us had recalled. We were relieved with they explained that they had switched at the last moment to Edgar Alan Poe's The Black Cat. The most fun I had was dropping in on their Jane Austen dance lessons (yes, parents were invited). The teens who planned the conference watched Pride and Prejudice so carefully they learned the dances and were able to teach it to others. We practiced for an hour, headed back to the apartments, and dressed as best we could for the impromptu ball. Next June, I think I'll play hooky from being an adult and go to the Teen Conference instead!

The six-week marching band camp that started in July allowed David to make friends before school started. He got to know the building and established a rapport with the band director, who ended up teaching one of David's elective classes (percussion). Because David adjusted well to the discipline of the band, push-ups and all, he developed a reputation for being a respectful student. Since the music they rehearsed did not include electric guitar parts, he enjoyed being able to create his own part. When he wasn't at band camp (five hours a day), he hung out with his cousin Jose, who stayed with us for two weeks before starting college.

Tomorrow, I will wrap things up with the results of David's first semester in school away from home. For now, I will close with an anecdote about what we did on his between semester break. David had a chance to meet up with his ChildLight friends (who keep in touch on Facebook). One played one of the Major-General's daughters in a full-blown, stage production of The Pirates of Penzance. Except for one dearly-missed family from Oklahoma, we were all able to converge on Charlotte and, after the performance, we headed to the star of the show's home. I am not sure what time he went to bed but I know David had a blast getting caught up with his friends.

I have loved Gilbert and Sullivan ever since playing Peep-Bo in The Mikado, and Steve caught the bug after seeing the movie Topsy-Turvy. (He really couldn't help it for it's in his blood. His British grandmother and aunts used to sing in Gilbert and Sullivan productions before his mother left England and met Steve's father in Central America.) We attended a HMS Pinafore concert in which singers wore the costumes, but nothing was staged. The music was great, but it is not the same as seeing whole enchilada: dancing, acting, sets, props, etc. Even Pamela loved Penzance: she loved the pirates and thought the giggling girls (part of every Gilbert and Sullivan production) were hilarious. She laughed at one of the anachronistic gags--the pirates stealing valuables from the Major-General's home managed to cart off a laptop! Pamela loved the plot twist revolving around her favorite topic, leap year.

My next post will wrap up David's first semester in public school . . . and not meander off on some far-flung rabbit trail . . . I hope . . .

Whatever Happened to David G? Part I

Since the summer, I have been rather quiet about our son David. Don't let the forced perspective photograph fool you. He was not captured by a giant!

Exactly a year ago, David asked us to attend school away from home. While I was not thrilled at the idea, we realized that he would be seventeen by the time school started in the fall of 2009. He was old enough to make a decision like that. So, we laid down firm guidelines to get him ready for the transition:

• He took two homeschooling co-operative classes (writing and conversational Spanish) to prepare him for a classroom setting and different teachers. (The reason we have not attended co-ops since we moved here is that it required a 45-minute drive, one-way.)
• He needed to finish Algebra II and chemistry, his least favorite subjects, without acting like he was walking the Bataan death march.
• He had to man up on chores around the house and yard work. Prior to this, he dawdled and piddled even when given an agreed-upon wage.
• Even though he was going into senior year, we wanted him to start as a junior to take off the pressure of having to everything in one year.
• We would not ever wake him up for school or help him keep track of his stuff. It was his responsibility to know where he had to be, when he had to be there, with the stuff he needed.

I thought those requirements stringent enough to dampen his ardor for school, but David surprised me. We saw a complete change in his attitude, and he showed us more autonomy and discipline than we had ever seen. He whipped through math and chemistry almost at the speed of light. During the summer, we had his eyes checked and he needed glasses (very mild issue unlike his mother who is legally blind without her specs). He saw the dentist and doctor since we would no longer have the luxury of scheduling appointments whenever.

We got him current on the bare minimum shots, and he only needed the MMR. Even though David did not react to vaccinations like his sister did, we were still cautious enough to say no to anything not required. And, boy, did I have to stand up to the nurse. His shot record clearly showed that he had three out of three required HepB at birth, one-month, and two-months of age. Unfortunately, they dated the first one as "at birth." Because the record did not state the actual date, she wanted to redo that. The nurse actually made a long-distance phone call to her supervisor in Columbia to get the okay to approve. Did they understand they were dealing with a Warrior Mom who had survived twenty years in the trenches of autism? I won, of course!

We quickly ruled out the local private school in town. While David was technically born in the south, southern Louisiana is unlike Carolina. He spent most of his life in the land of Yankees, cowboys, Native Alaskan fishermen, and MinneSOta nice. From personal experience, he had already figured out that his gypsy ways and nonconformist thinking would not bode well in a conformity machine of jocks, hunters, preps, and beauty queens. So, we opted for the public school where the population is diverse enough to accept him for the person he is.

We set up an appointment with the principal who runs a tight ship. He gave us a tour of the school and pointed out that block scheduling allows students to carry everything they need in a backpack. After the principal banned lockers, excuses to be roaming the halls melted away and so did forty percent of their disciplinary problems. Although we live in a small town, the school has the same problems as other public schools (occasional fights, gangsta-wanna-bees, and drugs). That worried us a little bit, but we knew that David's strong-will and resistance-to-conformity would be our ace in the hole. He had never been a risk-taker and had shown great respect for authority in following the transition plan we had outlined earlier. By the way, I asked him the other day if he had ever seen a kid pushed through a plate-glass window in a school fight and he had not. Thus, my junior high school was more violent than his high school!

We found a couple of advantages to the plan. Our town has Christian learning centers adjacent to all schools. When parents grant permission, children may take Bible studies for credit (ancient history, for example). He would have access to the vocational school for computer classes and AP classes in his senior year. David has always loved music and our church lacked a forum for his skills on the electric guitar (mainly, self-taught). The school band was the only high school band from our state to march in the inaugural parade last winter. Their hard-working band director had impressed me at community events with the band's musicianship, responsiveness, and discipline. Having sung for many fabulous directors, I recognized someone who had something to teach. Even if David got nothing out of school, he could learn a lot from this man, and maybe even get a band scholarship for college!

We enrolled him in band camp, and he spent six weeks in the heat of a Carolina summer, learning to march, work with other guitarists, etc. Whenever they messed up or disobeyed, the director had them on the ground doing push-ups. Instead of getting annoyed, especially when he had to do push-ups because of someone else's error, he laughed it off. As a veteran of push-ups myself, it did my heart good to see David drop 'em and do twenty at the end of practice!

No, this is not his first day of school! I mightily resisted taking a picture of my "little" boy for his first day of school photo! He wore a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers like the rest of the kids. That happens to be during Spirit Week in which the juniors dressed for success!

How did he do in his first semester? That is upcoming in this blog series!

Tear-Free Shoe-Tying Lessons

This time last week, Pamela could not tie her shoes. We have relied upon the goodness of velcro, slip-on shoes, and crocs. I cannot even remember the last attempt we made in teaching this milestone. It's been that long ago. Now, don't start talking about Momheimers--you know when the gray matter in your brain leaks into your hair . . .

Here is a review for those of you who have been lulled into avoiding my blog due to my hibernation last month. Keep in mind we NEVER practiced tying shoes outside of the short lessons described here.

Thursday, January 14, Day One
Pamela tied a shoe with specially colored laces sitting on the table during a ten-minute lesson in which she modeled my actions, step by step.

Friday, January 15, Day Two
Pamela tied a shoe with specially colored laces sitting on the table during a two- minute lesson in which she modeled my actions, step by step.

Weekend, January 16-17
We had nothing to do with tying shoes. Instead, Saturday night, we watched the daughters of Major-General Stanley take off their shoes--and other things--at a production of The Pirates of Penzance in Charlotte, NC. We came home on Sunday and were too exhausted to lift a finger.

Monday, January 18, Day Three
Pamela advanced to tying a shoe with plain white laces by following my lead.

Today
We reviewed tying shoes by guide. First, we sat on the floor, put a shoe with colored laces in our lap, and tied it just as before. Then, we put Pamela's untied shoes on her feet and tied them: she modeled my actions, step by step. Finally, Pamela tied her shoe with only a little bit of scaffolding to help her get back on track when she strayed. Here is the video to prove it: