Weekly Nutshells
Oh my. So much has happened this week I am not even sure where to start. So I will start with little things, because it was such a CRAZY week. So here is my week in a few nutshells.
- We figured out a new and great routine for changing students (yes... when I say change I mean diapers). Now it doesn't take up so much time... although it does take more time than I would like, but I have to work with what we have!
- I laughed alot again. I mean like pee my pants laughing, rolling around on the floor. Not kidding.
- Ripped my pants. One of my assistants said, "I'm not trying to look, but I think you've got a hole in your pants." Sure enough, right there in the behind was a little hole wearing through my pants. I am quite sad because it's my only pair of khakis and I only have 3 pants I can wear to school. I just rotate until I do the wash. I think a trip to Anderson is in store for me this week (no pun intended... "in store" :))
- One of my students is starting to write to communicate... it is really awesome!
- One of my students had a totally "with it" day... I can't elaborate much... but he was all there for a day and it was wonderful!
- We did a really fun "My body" labeling activity today. We laid each kid on a roll of paper and traced their body. Then they labeled the parts we've been talking about and colored it. It was super fun and out of the ordinary for us.
- I added a new part to the day called "Music and movement" in which I play 3 songs and we dance and sing. It's in the afternoon. The afternoons are just crazy and we don't get much done so I thought before we at least try to get things done, I would do something to make them move and get their jitters out. One of the songs we did was cupid shuffle and I plugged our iPad into our smartboard and put it on the camera app so they could see themselves dancing. It was a hoot!
Learnings:
I'm learning about what matters most. Aaron would call it the "critical path" and I make fun of him for it, but whether you put it in engineer terms or plain ol' teacher terms... I am prioritizing things at school. I try to do a lot of things in my classroom. I have got an incredibly wide range of abilities and disabilities. I would love to do little units like kindergarten on seasons and weather and citizenship. I would love to do stations, I would love to do more concrete activities with manipulatives. I would love to use the smartboard more interactively. I would like to work on handwriting more. I would like them to use the computer more. I would like... I would like...
Sometimes I try to do all these great things and different kids will benefit from different activities, but I've got to look at the things we do and eliminate. There's no other way around it. We cannot fit into a day what we did last year due to the high number of students in my class. At first and still on some days, I am really discouraged by that. But today I started looking at it a new way. It has forced me to truly evaluate each thing we do and decide if it is worthwhile or not. And then I've got to figure out what is incredibly worthwhile. Let me explain.
One of my students is non-verbal and very bright- spelling tons of words, knowing tons of numbers, loving books. But he cannot communicate and often gets very angry. When he leaves my class, I don't really care if he can do addition or subtraction, I really care if he can communicate and keep from being angry. When I think about where my kids will be in 10 years, I am able to decide what is most important. The students I teach are very low. I would love for them to get small jobs one day, but that might not be the reality for all of them. So... if they are going to live at home or in a group home what skills do they need. Is it walking? feeding themselves? Greeting others? Listening and following directions? Using a calendar? telling time? reading? There's a wide range of things. I used to do a really fun unit in the afternoons on science or social studies. I am having to shorten it alot and not do as much as I did last year. I hate that because it was really fun to plan, but it doesn't really matter if my kids learn about magnets, or sinking or floating objects. Sure, it is stimulating for them and give them great sensory input to do fun activities, but I will just save all thought for mini lessons on Fridays.
Our principal had a talk with us today about safety. That is his first priority. This week, one of my assistants had the idea of "hallway buddies" in my class. With 11 students and 4 of those in wheelchairs, it is hard to travel around the school. I didn't get it at first, but she said that their safety needs to come first and we will lose kids if we aren't careful. So now each time we leave our classroom we only have 2 or 3 children to really focus on.
My priority list/ critical path/ what matter most list is a work in progress, but here it is. I'd rather do some things really well than everything at a mediocre level.
- SAFETY- the children and the staff
- LOVING my children
- teaching them how to COMMUNICATE
- my communication with their PARENTS
- Teaching them to FOLLOW directions
- Establishing consistent ROUTINE
- Functional Skills
- Academic Skills
I'm not even touching on half of my thoughts for the week, but I am pretty sure this is plenty for now!
"For our light and momentary trouble is producing for us and absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory." -2 Corinthians 4:17
Yo, it's Schutte. I am stalling the writing of a post I am going to get chewed out by my professor about and I decided to check out your blog. I did not realize you became a special needs teacher. That is totally awesome. In my humble opinion, special needs people are the most ignored demographic in America. In the church, 90% of families with kids with special needs don't go. It's horrible. So basically, I think it's cool what you're doing with your life. Keep it up!
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