Planet Alfie: a guest post for autism awareness month

Planet Alfie

a guest post by Alfie Rona for autism awareness month

Hello, my name is Alfie. I am 4 years old and I live with Mummy, Daddy and my little sister Holly. I have blue eyes, red hair, and a really good sense of humour. I also have autism which means I see the world a bit differently to other people.

The world can be a bit of a confusing place for me sometimes, and often I don’t know what people want me to do or say. I love having friends, playing and having fun like everyone else, but I do need a little bit of help to be shown how to join in.

Sometimes I don’t like the way some things feel or sound. Like when my little sister cries, the noise hurts my ears and makes me upset.

I REALLY love, my ipad, playing with my marble run, and looking at how things are put together. I also love numbers and counting. Sometimes my interests make it hard to learn new things because I’m so excited about the things I love, it’s hard to concentrate on other stuff.

At school, we have been learning about ‘Space’! We all coloured in our very own planet. My one is called ‘Planet Alfie’.

When I was home for the Easter holidays, I was set a challenge to make Planet Alfie come to life for a school project. It was really fun and I want to show everyone how I made it.

To make Planet Alfie, you will need:

1 balloon
1 newspaper
flour
scissors
paint
paintbrush
something to balance your balloon (I used a bowl)

Step 1 – Paper Mache

First my mum blew up the balloon until it was nice and round. Then she got the newspaper and helped me to cut out lots of strips. I counted each of them into a bowl. I really do love counting. I like numbers because they always stay the same, and it make me feel good when I know which number is coming next.

Next, we put some flour and water into a bowl and I mixed it up together with a spoon, until it made a really gooey paste.

Sometimes, because of my autism, I don’t like the way that things feel because my sensory system can get a bit mixed up. I didn’t want to touch the paste because it was all wet, gooey and would get stuck to me; so I handed my mum each strip of paper, and she covered it in the paste and put the strips all over the balloon until we had about 3 layers.
Remember to leave the bit where you tied up the balloon uncovered so you can pull the balloon out later.

We put the planet into the airing cupboard for a few hours until it dried and the paper went hard. When it came out, the balloon had popped inside! We pulled it carefully out of the end. If your balloon hasn’t popped, you can always do it yourself with something like a pin. If you don’t like loud noises or the pin is a bit sharp, you can ask your mum to do it for you.

Stage 2 – Painting

Planet Alfie is black, grey and red. To start off, I painted all the planet black so you couldn’t see any newspaper underneath.

When it had dried, we put black and white paint together in a bowl, and I mixed it up with a paintbrush which made it grey! I loved watching the swirls as I mixed it together. Then I used a big paintbrush to paint my planet. I didn’t paint over all of it, because I still wanted to see some of the black underneath.

When the grey paint had dried, I finished it by painting my planet red. This was the last part which made me really happy because I could see all the different colours of the planet come together!

Planet Alfie is finished. I am taking it in to school today to show all my friends, and I can’t wait to see all the different planets hanging up in my classroom!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my guest post and that you have fun making your own planet! Thank you very much for reading.

April is Autism Awareness month. If you would like to find out more about how autism affects adults, and children like me, you can click here.