Last week, we spent a lot of time on perspective taking. The kids acted things out from the perspective of others. They tried to capture what other people might be thinking if individuals acted in a certain way (expectedly or unexpectedly). The kids did a great job with this! We referred back to our text about Lucy (You WILL Be My Friend) for insight. The children also enjoyed a game day.
Hi Families,
Last week, we spent a lot of time on perspective taking. The kids acted things out from the perspective of others. They tried to capture what other people might be thinking if individuals acted in a certain way (expectedly or unexpectedly). The kids did a great job with this! We referred back to our text about Lucy (You WILL Be My Friend) for insight. The children also enjoyed a game day.
0 Comments
Hi Families!
This week, we spent time talking about expected and unexpected behaviors. My 3rd grade did a sort of these behaviors in the classroom. The older group did a similar activity, but they had to write a situation and then how other people would feel if they engaged in that behavior. It was interesting to see them trying to take another person's perspective. My older group also read this book (youngers will do it this week) called You Will Be My Friend to talk about expected/unexpected behaviors in making friends and socializing with others. To be continued next week! Hello Families,
Happy Friday! This week, we spent a bit more time talking about the 5 point scale and the children created their own Stress Scale. I love doing these each year--they help me to find out how the children feel about different people, places, situations, activities and things in their life. I do not display these scales but I like to use them to know how the year is beginning for each child. We also talked about Expected and Unexpected behavior this week. We talked about how sometimes, the environment or setting is important in deciding which behavior is expected. For example, changing in the locker room at the pool is expected, but changing in your classroom is unexpected. On Friday, we took a little break and read A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni. I love this book because it talks about friendship being instrumental in helping the character accept himself the way he is. We watercolored a chameleon and then talked about why each child depicted their chameleon that way. It was a reading comprehension win as well as a social skills win! I will try to post some of the projects next week when we polish them up! I will be in meetings on Monday, but I will be in the building. I hope you have a great weekend! Hi Families,
Sorry this blog is late! We spent some time last week making group expectations and going over the 5 point scale. I know that this is review for a lot of kids, but it is such a foundational piece for our program that I wanted to make sure everyone was refreshed in the language. I didn't meet with each group each day. The building is starting WIN time this coming week, so I didn't want to pull children out of fun activities or extra recess, but I did meet with children during their scheduled block if it worked with their class schedule. Next week, we will continue talking about the 5 point scale and taking a closer look how to move up and down it. Hi Families!
We made it through the first week! The first week of school is always so exciting, and new, and fresh, and exhausting! I'm betting your kiddos will sleep well tonight! I know I will! This week, we did not meet in regular social skills groups. Many general education classes were learning about classroom routines, their peers and the expectations of their new teachers. It's really important for kids to be involved in those conversations and lessons! Most of the academic content will begin next week, though a few classes have already snuck in a couple of math pre-tests and a science experiment or two. I spent a lot of my time pushing in to classrooms and taking note of what supports, visuals and supplementary resources I can provide. I will be working hard this weekend on making a schedule for our support staff and making sure everyone has the support they need to start the year right! I am planning on running mini groups next week, but the building starts WIN time the following week. So stay tuned! And have an awesome weekend! Hi Families!
Welcome to another school year! I hope you had a fantastic summer! Mine was really nice--it was a great balance of relaxing and productive! We are hard at work preparing for the children's return. We sent out a letter and supply list--you should be getting them shortly through the U.S. Mail. What is not listed in that packet is the annual Meet and Greet! On Wednesday (August 31), the PTA is hosting a Meet and Greet/Ice Cream Social. From 3-4, students and parents are welcome to come into the building, look around and meet your teachers. If you would like to bring your child's school supplies to drop off at this time, you're welcome to do so. The PTA will be hosting an Ice Cream Social (I think the plan is outside with weather cooperation) until 4:30. We hope to see you at this event! We are also excited to welcome a new speech pathologist to our team. Mrs. Roslyn Adams comes to us from another building in the district and we are excited to have her on board! Mrs. Adams is also excited to partner with our program and has gone to conferences to learn about the social curriculum we use! We think she will be an excellent addition to our team and to your child's education! You can find her picture on our Ancillary Staff page under Our Program and Program Staff. I hope you enjoy the last bit of this beautiful summer! See you soon! Hi Families,
I know you're thinking, "Father's Day!?! Is she crazy? We have a few weeks before that holiday!" And you're right. And I am crazy. But there's much to do and we're running out of days! Soooo...in the interest of not forgetting to celebrate our fathers, we bumped the activities up a little in our calendar. The kids have been working on a Father's Day surprise for their dads. Some groups (2-3) got theirs done and are bringing them home. The older kids didn't finish yet so look for those next week. We also spent some time enjoying our last game day with Mrs. Szalay. The kids have really enjoyed these groups and we hope to continue them next year. We didn't have a joke or a word of the week, despite my best efforts. I think the schedule will prohibit from having them next week as well as individual classroom schedules are off to complete last minute activities. I will be keeping the joke books and Social Skills Notebooks however to continue our work in them next year! I hope you have a great weekend! Hi Families,
Happy Memorial Day weekend! We were busy this week! I know you're probably sick of reading about Circles--I'm sick of writing about them! But I'm never tired of teaching them! What an invaluable tool to help our students understand healthy relationships and boundaries! We worked on them for a couple of days this week. Interspersed with that were various assessments and field trips for different grades. Each group also had a game day, though they all happened on different days! Planning at this time of year is a bit chaotic as each general education classroom has so many different things going on and my students are included in 5 separate classes! Whew! We got to everything--just all in its own time! Next week, there is no school on Monday due to Memorial Day. It's one of my favorite holidays! If you are able to check it out, Milford has a beautiful parade with many veterans and a touching ceremony in Central Park afterwards! I highly recommend them both! If you're not able, please remember those who gave their lives for our country in your own way. We are so fortunate to live in the Land of the Free because of the Brave! **************************************************************************************** Our emotional vocabulary word this week was: irate. Students wrote it under "angry" in their social skills notebooks. Our joke was: "What dinosaurs knew the most words? The Thesaurus!" (This took a lot of explaining. I think the kids are mad at me for cramming some learning into their humor break.) We are back at the Circles program again! This week, we worked on our personal information and got through our purple and blue circles. One group even got through the green circle. We talked about the ways to touch and trust people in these circles and how we can expect to interact. We also spent some time this week working on DRA reading tests, playing games and working on a thank you project for our Recess Buddies. One group will work on this next week. So between field trips, a wax museum, assessments and overall year end excitement, we packed a lot in!
This week's joke was: "Why did the banana go to the doctor? He wasn't PEELING well!" Our emotional vocabulary word this week was "Out of sorts". The children wrote it under "sad" in their social skills notebooks. Enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend! I hope you enjoy the Spring Fair tonight and the sunshine! Happy Friday!
This has been our motto this week (and for several weeks now) as my group finished up their M-STEPs and MI-Access tests! This is a rough time of year for our kids because of the stress and scheduling of these tests. I'm really proud of them for their hard work! Our schedule was messy this week due to the testing windows, so we did our best to keep calm and keep working! We worked on some low-key activities to balance out the testing. The children enjoyed a game day, some work on Growth Mindset concepts and some problem solving of what to say to help change your mindset when you're frustrated. We also worked on practicing our personal information as well. Please continue to practice this at home! Many kids don't know their addresses, phone numbers and parents' names! Next week, we will begin talking about the Circles program, so look for that information. Our joke this week was: "Why did the kid throw the clock out the window? He wanted to see time fly!" Have a great weekend! |
Archives
June 2017
Ann Reece
Ann Reece is the upper elementary teacher in the ASD program. Categories |