Miss M Teaches Again

photo courtesy of artbrothers.wordpress.com

Teaching young children often means a lot of play and even more time spent justifying why this time is so important. This week was a powerful week in terms of the spontaneous play time I allowed in the classroom.

I have a child, M, with autism. He does have some interactions with myself and my teacher assistant (and we are working on increasing the latter), but has next to no interactions with his peers. This week our goal was to have him exchange something with one of his classmates once a day (often times he will take something from them and then give it to one of the adults and seek reinforcement from us). We successfully completed this task minimally throughout the week and then he brought in several toy cars from home. I had no intention of having a free play time that day, but I diverted from the plan because I was curious to see what would happen.

M ended up giving his classmates cars to play with for at least 20 minutes, including putting it in their hands, making eye contact and seeking a smile. He spontaneously signed “bus” as he gave it to a friend and was copying them when they signed “thank you.” I had prompted him and his peers to sign “please” when they wanted the cars, but he ignored my request. Later, however, he began prompting his peers to sign “please” before he gave them the cars. My assistant and I were so pleased with the progress and even more amazed when V, a classmate, went to sit next to M at lunch independently. They didn’t communicate with one another at lunch, but I will do everything  I can this year to facilitate a friendship between these two boys.

As a result of this play time, I am now working on a thematic unit involving transportation for next week (including exploring ramps in science, which I never got to in the science curriculum last year). I can only hope that next week’s planned play time elicits some of the same successes we experienced last week and hopefully even more!

thingsforteachers:

(besides actually knowing how the school runs) is definitely seeing students from last year. Especially when they come to ask me for help.

I completely agree. I had the option of teaching some of the same kids this year, but passed on the opportunity so I could stick with the same grade level and it warmed my heart to hear my little ones say my name and smile when they saw me on their first day.

School is officially back in full force… meaning lesson plans and feeling like I need a nap when the school day is finished.

I was recently presented with a new list of standards that I am expected to follow in my weekly plan book. I was shocked by them and was looking to hear the opinions of fellow educators or parents.

Last year my expectations were:

• Reading: 5 times a week
• Writing: 5 times a week
• Math: 5 times a week
• Social Studies: 4 times a week
• Science: 4 times a week
• Phonics: 3 times a week

This year, I am teaching the same age/grade level, but instead of 45 minute periods they are now 30 minutes and the expectations are:

• Cognitive skills: 10 times a week (including PRE-reading, PRE-writing, PRE-math)
• Play Skills: 3 times a week
• Motor Skills: 6 times a week (half fine motor, half gross motor)
• Self-Help Skills: 5 times a week
• Socialization Skills: 10 times a week

Um what? I mean sure, I can do this no problem…. but this isn’t pre-school or daycare. What happened to the academics?

Teachers: what are the requirements for the lessons you must teach in your classrooms?

“Three Things I Love” is exactly what it sounds like. It will give me an opportunity to share 3 things that I’ve been using in my classroom and make my job easier (or just more fun). Feel free to share 3 things you love too… I’m always looking to add new things to my classroom.

1. Evan-Moor “Retelling Tales with Headbands”

I’ve been using these headbands in my class during summer school as I am teaching classic fable and folk tales. My kids love wearing them (and I’m guilty of enjoying the relaxation I get from coloring them) and acting out the stories. They like to take turns and assume each characters’ role. For kids who couldn’t even attend to a story last September, they are retelling stories with ease and even remembering dialogue that occurs between characters.

2. Melissa & Doug’s Wooden Alphabet Stamp Set

I’m a huge fan of Melissa and Doug products and of everything alphabet. I love using these stamps in phonics (such as when identifying initial sounds) and studying word families (such as the -at family: bat, cat, fat, pat, mat, sat, etc). The stamps are just enough to keep them entertained while studying something that can easily be boring. I think next year I will let my students use them to add the title to the cover pages of their published pieces in writing (especially since the set includes capital and lowercase letters).

3. Double-sided dry erase boards

This one seems fairly obvious I’m sure, but I will admit that I love these even more because I frequently find them in the $1 section at target. These were a lifesaver in the beginning of the year when my kids were just learning to write and draw recognizable pictures. Rather than wasting a ton of paper, I could scan the important stuff and then they could erase and write again. Now its like a little treat for them to be able to use them. We practice drawing recognizable characters for our storyboard retells before writing on paper and occasionally I’ll let them use it for a random free-draw when we have an extra 10 minutes between lessons.

What are three things you love (especially if you’re a teacher too)?

I’ve been using summer school as an opportunity to teach classic folktales and fables to my class. Because they are English Language Learners and language delayed, they often aren’t familiar with these classic stories and stories with built in lessons are always a plus.

Since we had studied animals throughout the school year, my students associate turtles with being slow and 7 weeks ago when I broke my foot, they started associating me with a turtle since I was walking and moving much slower than before. I figured this would be the perfect time to study the story of The Tortoise and the Hare.

I collected various versions of the book and had my students make predictions based on the cover and various other times as I read the story to them. The students immediately paralleled me to the turtle, teasing me for being slow and assumed the role of the rabbit predicting that his speed would allow him to win the race.

They were all quite surprised when the hare fell asleep and the tortoise moved past him and went on to win the race. As we continued to read, retell and act out the story throughout the week, each student volunteered first to play the role of the tortoise so they could bask in the celebration of winning the race. However, when I turned my back and allowed them to free-play with the props, every one of them allowed the hare to zoom past, skip his nap and go on to win the race.

While the message of “slow and steady wins the race” was lost on these 6 year-olds, I think they enjoyed the story and now I’m finally enjoying giving them a run for their money since my foot is almost healed and I’m not moving at turtle speed anymore.

Because of the type of students I work with, they are required to attend summer school. My school still runs on a 10 month school year, but teachers have the option to work an additional 6 weeks during summer school. Summer school for us, means 5 days a week, 8:30-2:30, with only a measly 30 minutes for lunch. Monday marks the 15 day mark, which means its almost halfway finished.

Fortunately, I am teaching the same class I taught during the school year and am working with the same assistant. Luckily for us this means we don’t have to get re-acquainted… we just snapped back into our typical routines minus all of the structure we have during the school year. The summer curriculum is focused on Language Arts and Math, both of which I enjoy teaching, but aren’t necessarily as fun as Science or Social Studies can be and definitely isn’t necessarily as fun as the stuff that my students’ siblings are at home doing.

As an only child I never even thought of how they might be jealous of their siblings that get to stay home during summer school… until Thursday. Two of my boys ride the same bus and are best friends. C came in informing me that B was absent. I asked him where he was and if he was sick (this is all in sign language by the way). C tells me that B was with mommy and was crying. B had told us his throat hurt the day before so I just figured he was sick and C has very minimal expressive language so I didn’t push it. At dismissal I asked their bus matron what had happened with B that morning at which point she tells me his mom was trying to push him onto the bus as he was crying, holding on to the doors refusing to move forward and saying “No!”

My initial reaction was to feel a little sad. B is admittedly my favorite student (more to come on that later) and I was upset to think that he didn’t want to come to school. He came in on Friday and I asked him why he was absent. He got a very guilty look on his face and didn’t answer. He kept avoiding my question, but later he was dying to tell me some stories (he has developed so much language and when he is absent he comes back dying to communicate in sign since no one at home signs). He was telling me about a Spongebob video game, and some other one with a guy with one eye (a pirate, a cyclops, I don’t know)…. turns out…. he just wanted to stay home to play with his brother.

B, I don’t blame you. If I were still 6, staying home to play would be my choice too…. guess I need to up my game a little to be able to compete with older brothers and video games. I’ve got three more weeks to make summer school the cool place to be!