June 2013 Updates: More learning experiences for Hahgoot

After many months I managed to get Hahgoot to sit down and write in Hebrew and she produced a very long story, inspired by a picture in Pilon magazine.

After the success of the elephants story, she had a new project, using my “magic story cubes”, which I made many years ago for my comics course students. The yellow cube has options of protagonists, the green cube has options of places, and the red cube has options of goals. Hahgoot’s story was about the scary mushroom, in the toilet, that wants to take the rhino out of the fridge... Needless to say, these cubes were very popular among my comics pupils...

Right: the finished short story. Left: working on a new short story, about the stupid fork, in space, that wants to beat the snotty witch... Good stuff!

In her maths homework Hahgoot enjoyed two workbooks, one in Hebrew (left, with unusual riddles) and one in English (right, here she is learning about coordinates).

When I work with Hahgoot in maths I try to keep a balance between riddles, hands-on activities and practicing sums and multiplication. All important maths skills!

Hahgoot enjoyed this maths workbook. Left: making patterned “snow flakes” Right: she solved the “King Monster” riddle!

Hahgoot spends 10 minutes a week on homework from school, and the rest is my material...

Hahgoot had a very bad incident at school this month, which is a long story, but basically she was playing with Hamish, the game took a bad twist and she ended on the floor, unconscious (after he pushed her backwards), with him kicking and hitting her. Then a few more kids joined the beating and she was saved by her friend Jasmin. Hahgoot was obviously in a state of shock, both from the physical event and from not understanding how this happened (she has problems making eye contact and deciphering non verbal cues, and with her slow processing she couldn’t see the problem). The incident happened in a really bad timing: the last break before the end of the day, on the last day of school before the Queen’s birthday long weekend. So the school couldn’t deal with the situation on the spot, and my long weekend turned from family oriented trips to a weekend of therapy focused activities, Floortime to reduce the shock and release the emotions, endless discussions and empowerment mental work so she will feel strong and not a victim. I was a psychologist, OT, and doctor (monitoring her as she hit the back of her head).

She couldn’t remember much of the event at first, from the shock, so I had her draw pictures and later write a chronological account of the event (also because the school could only deal with this in 4 days delay, it was important we get the info on paper quickly. I also asked Helen to write down Jasmin’s account of the events.) When she started drawing the first things she remembered was colours: everything turning red, black, blue, green- that’s how I realized she was unconscious. When she did come back her senses were all jumbled up. She mainly remembered hearing things and took a few seconds for her vision to work properly (she described the colours she saw all mixed up wrong – which makes sense with the location where she hit her head). We kept watching the “My body is mine only” DVD, and now some of that info might be more relevant to her at last... Hahgoot made a nice thankyou card for Jasmin and we had them over on the long weekend as Jasmin was very worried about Hahgoot. Not an easy event but I used it as a positive learning experience and I think she came out of it empowered.

Hahgoot made a workbook for Alma – about Super Misty and cars!

Hahgoot doesn’t like to use our wooden dolls’ house but she does like to make up her own dwellings!

Hahgoot has been working hard in her swimming class Her progress is very slow due to her motor planning difficulties, but seeing her smiling in the water and coming there every week with no fuss is the most important thing!

In our next presentation: We move on to the other drama queen – Alma!