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Right, thinking cap on.
Well, I started with a bucket and a tennis ball as Rafe had clear problems with both the washing machine and the jeans (that I’d tried to start with!).
Then I moved to those rags with knots in them.
As far as I can see, I’ve got 3 things which will need to advance and be worked on individually.
1) items to be put in. I need to advance to things that are bigger and won’t just “drop” in. Plan is to do this slowly with larger rags and different items until he’s ok with all those. (Or else all I’ll be washing is tennis balls). Just think he may struggle with the larger bits as it will take more than one “drop” to get them in the hole.
2) Washing machine itself. Differs to cardboard box in 2 main ways – it’s not cardboard! and it has a door. May have to fashion a door from the bit I cut out of the box, so he gets the hang of negotiating around it as an obstacle to putting stuff in. Will revert to tennis ball at the start before moving back to rags.
3) At the moment he’s putting in one item at a time. I need him to be able to move a pile of things into the washing machine without me having to put each one individually on the floor. Out of all 3 things I think he’ll struggle the most with this one, and a lot of that is because of the lack of independant freeshaped work that I’ve done with him. It’s like throwing 2 balls – he’ll run and grab one, then run to the other, then just keep changing which one he’s holding.
So the plan is just to build it up incredibly slowly. One item at a time.
Only going to introduce him to the real washing machine when everything else is fluent!
Any tips? Have I missed anything?