Down Syndrome progress

I will refer to my Down Syndrome child by his initial "J" from now on.
J is doing great in the first year program. J. is in grade one. He loves to come to phonics.
One thing that he just loves is the guessing bucket. I have simply taken an ice cream bucket and written "guessing bucket" on the top. He (and all the children in the first year program) take this bucket home every time and bring back something that starts with the letter of the week. This activity may get boring after awhile but I am hoping to keep using it as long as possible. It has so many valuable aspect to it, not the least of which is the fact that they spend considerable time at home trying to decide what to bring. This activity fosters a lot of discussion about the letter of the week. J. is so full of excitement when he comes in with his bucket -hoping he can "stump" me, as I try to guess what he brought.
J. has a very long attention span. I tried to think of an activity to work in the "upper case letter" song, so I came up with the idea of pausing the cd after each letter and putting that puzzle letter together. J. worked through the whole song which I am sure took 10 - 15 minutes. He even had the handicap of the fact that the puzzle was in lower case and the song and the book (we turned the pages as the song went along) is in upper case. I am going to try to come up with other ideas to work in upper case letters.
Since there seems to be a lot more time when the ratio is one to one I also fit in reading "story books" to J. When I bring out a book to read his reaction is always "No" I try to play down his negative reaction and come up with a reward for listening to the book. e.g. As soon as we read this book it will be treasure box time. That always works.
He is also not very fond of colouring or writing. He always say "no" again I have some incentive to distract him. He does enjoy using a white board so I give him his own white board, pen and eraser. He can try the letters on the board first - then on paper. Progress with pen and paper is slow at this point. He is doing much better with oral work.