This week, we also talked about Habit #3, Put First Things First, and discussed the importance of finishing our work BEFORE we play. We finished out the week with a game day to practice our social turn-taking.
This week, we began our new social skills curriculum--Superflex! This superhero-based curriculum helps students address challenging thoughts and behaviors. The hero, Superflex, is trying to save Social Town from The Unthinkables, a group of challenging characters that influence people's thinking. This week, we began to address Rock Brain. Rock Brain gets peoples' brains stuck on one thought instead of being flexible. Superflex saves the day with Superflexible strategies. The children are excited to learn about the different Unthinkables and we're looking forward to creating a Wanted Wall with the different challenging characters.
This week, we also talked about Habit #3, Put First Things First, and discussed the importance of finishing our work BEFORE we play. We finished out the week with a game day to practice our social turn-taking.
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This week, talked about making friends and inviting others to play. We read You Will Be My Friend, a book about a pushy bear who demands that others play with her. In the end, Lucy learns that inviting people to play gently is a better way to go. We drew pictures about ways to invite other people to play with us. This week, we also reviewed the 3 As and the steps for taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions. We did some video modeling as we acted out ways to fix our mistakes and take responsibility for ourselves. The children loved being the stars of their own movies (on our classroom iPad) and watching themselves make good choices and right their "wrongs". We also spent time reading about Habit #2: Begin with the End in Mind. I related this back to wanting to make friends and also taking responsibility for ourselves by talking about setting goals for what we want to accomplish or have. This is a tough concept and we will continue to work on it. On Friday, we finished out the week with a game day. I love watching the kids put the social skills we've been working on to use as they navigate compromising on a game, taking turns, being patient, losing, etc. Not a bad way to end a busy week! Enjoy your weekend! In order to bring some holiday cheer to our week, we made rainbows (for St. Patrick's Day) that we called "The Colors of Us". Instead of the normal ROY G. BIV color scheme, these rainbows were pigmented with colors that answered specific questions about us (our favorite color, the color of our hair, etc.) We used these rainbows to then ask each other questions and answer in turn--creating reciprocal conversations. Since there was only one topic--color--we were always on topic! We had some fun and learned a lot about each other. This week, we also spent some group (and language arts time) on identifying our favorite, or nearly favorite book and citing reasons WHY we like it. This is a tough skill but the children persevered. We illustrated our picks and made a nice display to go outside our door for March is Reading Month! The final big concept we tackled this week was Taking Responsibility. We discussed that everyone makes mistakes and in turn, we all need to own up to those mistakes. I have found, that as a rule, we're really good at apologizing, but that we need some practice in acknowledging our behavior so that we may change it in the future (this is tough for ALL people--not just little people!) So I created the 3 As. This is that way I taught the children and you may find the language useful at home.
We had a nice week and made a lot of progress! I hope you have a great weekend and that this snow has moved on so we can get back to our regularly scheduled weeks!
This week, we continued to talk about Habit #5, Seek first to understand, then to be understood. We spent a lot of time talking about tone of voice and HOW we say things. We role played saying the same word or phrase but in different tones of voice. The students were surprised how something so simple could change the meaning (and often the outcome) of a statement or request. I typed up the lesson that we did on the white board so you could see and maybe reinforce the concepts we discussed. (Click on the heading "Listen Up and Stay Healthy" if you can't see the visual). We talked about what senses good listeners use and essentially dissected how a message is sent in communication. Peruse at your leisure. We also read a book called Germs Are Not For Sharing. We discussed good habits for keeping us and others healthy. (Head's up, there's still a LOT going around--we've had staff out all week with various bugs.) If you see your child washing their hands a bit obsessively this week, I'll take the heat for that. :) |
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June 2017
Ann Reece
Ann Reece is the upper elementary teacher in the ASD program. Categories |