Sensational Learning with Penguin

Today is the First of October, and my online world is full of reminders that today is indeed a New Month. There are shiny new ‘challenges’ to join in with on instagram, and as we look ahead, October seems to be glowing with promises of cosy autumnal moments. We’ll be surrounded by the golden hues of autumn leaves, our homes will be decorated with pumpkins, conkers, acorns etc (and that’s even before mentioning Halloween), and our cups will be filled to the brim with our favourite hot drinks.

I appologise for sounding sarcastic… I actually enjoy all those autumnal things. It can just get a bit much sometimes, and I know from experience that in about four weeks time, most of us will be looking back and go “Whoa, that’s another month gone already?!” And by making overly ambitious plans, we might set ourselves up for failure?

With that said, I’m going to do just that. Set myself up for almost certain failure. You see, the start of October also means the start of a blogging phenomena called ‘Blogtober’. The idea of it is to publish one blog post per day throughout the whole month. And as I didn’t manage to publish a single post during all of September, I thought this might be a great challenge for me, to get me back into the habit of writing here… Although, it’s now late evening on the first day and this is as far as I’ve got, ehrm… So yes, I’m setting myself up for failure by setting this totally unrealistic goal for myself. But at this point in time I’m feeling motivated as well as undetered by the probability of failing, so hello Blogtober, I’m in!

My motivation is in part due to a couple of very encouraging messages from a stranger, so if you read this, thank you!

I’m feeling a strong sense of new beginnings in some other aspects of life as well. This month (and to a large part this very week), we’re getting some fairly big things sorted out, regarding issues that have remained since moving from Sweden to England almost three years ago. Touch wood and all that!

October is also my birthday month. So in just under four weeks, a new year of my life will begin. I’m not sure if that really means anything of significance, but it still contributes to my feelings about this month.

I guess for the most part in life, in general, we’re in charge of when we make a new beginning of something. We don’t really need a new month, a new year etc. Yet it seems like a no.1 in the calendar can give us the nudge we need to make a change? And the challenges on social media can also fill that purpose, giving us a little kick up the backside, to do things we’ve had in mind but haven’t got around to doing. Perhaps this is the case most particularly for serial procrastinators like myself? Or what do you think..?

If you, just like me, have a child who is non-verbal, minimally verbal, or has other significant difficulties with verbal communication, you might have had some thoughts about looking into alternative communication systems of some kind? If so, October could absolutely be the month for making a new start! As it is AAC Awareness Month (with AAC being short for Augmentative and Alternative Communication), most companies that offer products in this field, are running some serious special offers. The picture below shows some of the AAC apps which will be on offer during certain days this month, but there may well be other offers as well, so check your app store. And if the app you’d like to try is to expensive, have a look to see if they offer a free trial period or a free ‘light’ version of the app. Quite a few of the AAC apps can also be subscribed to on a monthly basis, rather than bought outright, and I think that’s a great option as you wouldn’t want to spend hundreds of pound on an app which you then realise isn’t a good fit for your child. Finding £10 per month is also much more reasonable for most families, than forking out a £200 lump sum.

Anyway, getting back to the idea of Blogtober (still hoping to finnish this post before midnight UK time, it’s now 10.56 pm…). I’m hoping that this will push me to finish most of the 14 unfinished posts that are currently stuck in drafts limbo, some of them since well over a year. Also, as I’ve mentioned before, some of the posts I’ve written on social media are ones that I in hindsight feel might deserve a less transient home here on our blog. So, this Blogtober I intend to look back through those posts (mainly on Instagram) and pick out some or sharing here, either as they are or with added thoughts, links etc.

I’m hoping, perhaps foolishly so, that by the end of October I will look back and see that we’ve actually achieved some positive new beginnings… To be honest, I have quite a list in my head, of things that I would LIKE to get rolling this month. Or to get finished, leaving room to focus on other things. We’ll see how it goes. I hope that on the evening of 31 October, I will be enjoying the Halloween atmosphere with a sense of achievment.

And then follows the First of November… A New Month, New Beginnings! x