Satin Hands and an Intervention....Strange Combination

I never used to need lotion for my hands.  However, ten years ago, I started teaching my varying exceptionalities pre-k class and I found myself washing my hands 100 times a day.  And let's face it....school soap is not gentle on your hands.

About that time, I discovered Satin Hands from Mary Kay and could probably have been their poster child.  (I'm not a Mary Kay consultant, I just happen to really like this product.)  The ladies that I work with found out how much I like it, and it is now a frequent gift for me during the holidays and at my birthday.  So now, I actually have a set a home and at school.

Little did I know that my Satin Hands would become an intervention this year!

I have a little girl in my class who tends to scratch her arms when she perceives work as being too difficult.  It can be pretty bad on occasion and she has picked scabs and opened old scratches.  Bleeding in the classroom is not a good thing!  Interrupting reading groups or math groups 3-4x every week to deal with bleeding is also not a good thing.

One day, I was using the lotion while she was at my table and she asked me what it was.  I told her it was lotion and asked her if she wanted a little squirt.  She said yes and "mmm, smells good."  Then I got my bright idea.  If she likes the smell and the feel of the lotion, maybe we could replace her scratching behavior by asking for some lotion.  I asked her if she would like to do that and of course she said yes.  So I told her she could use the lotion but she was not allowed to scratch.

I now have a tube of lotion at my reading table.  She still sometimes starts to scratch in moments of academic frustration, but with a simple verbal prompt of "Mary, do you want some lotion?"  She will stop and gently rub her arms.  We haven't had a bleeding episode since we started. It is MUCH easier and less distracting to give her a quick squirt of lotion than it is to deal with washing, drying and band-aiding arms when she scratches and draws blood.

Funny is Funny

I've worked with the paraprofessional I am assigned with for the last four years.  She is amazing.  Every year within one of our social skills lessons we talk about things we like and don't like.  This leads us into how different people have different opinions.  Which in turn leads us to lessons on respect, caring  and tolerance.

Every year, my para tells the kids how she does not like frogs.  We live in Florida.  Once during the rainy season, she was laying on her couch reading her book and a frog that got into her house jumped on her face.  She tells the story and the kids laugh but for the most part understand why she doesn't like frogs anymore.

This year I have a little girl who is very bright and on the autism spectrum.  She and I do a lot of social stories to help her learn new skills.  Her mom sent me this link because Mrs. B.  (my para) has to watch this video.  According to our student  "we can teach her to like frogs again.  They're not bad.   They can be our friends."

We cracked up laughing when we watched the link.

Accountable Talk

As my reading instruction continues to evolve over the years, I keep adding new strategies to my "bag of tricks."  It's funny how I get ideas.  (Honestly, I very rarely have a completely original thought when I start to figure out a new strategy or a lesson I haven't implemented before.)  I recently told a first year teacher that one of the greatest gifts a teacher can have is to be a good synthesizer.  If she can learn to take all of this overload of information we are bombarded with and somehow synthesize it together and use it when it's appropriate and useful; then she will be able to continually add to her bag of tricks.

I'm adding to my bag of tricks.

For the past few years my 1st-3rd grade students have loved having "Nacho Karaoke" day once a month.  On the day the cafeteria serves nachos, I let them all eat in the classroom and we sing karaoke to songs with lyrics that I have saved from YouTube.

I'm reviewing my list of songs before this year's first Nacho Karaoke and was re-introduced to the song "Brave" by Sara Barielles.

As I paid attention to the lyrics, I really noticed the refrain this time: "Say what you wanna say.  I wanna see you be brave!"

I thought this would be a great way to introduce "Accountable Talk" to my students!  For the past few years, it's been challenging to teach children how to agree or disagree with a peer based on text evidence.  It can be hard to raise your hand and speak up during a group, especially if you are disagreeing with a friend.  However, when students DO engage in accountable talk, I have found that they truly start to engage with each other and the text in a purposeful and meaningful way.

My class has already set our essential agreements (rules) including one that states "We will be kind to each other."  With that as a foundation and also practice of the roles of "speaker" and "listener,"  I think we can use this song to talk about how important it is to speak up and "say what you wanna say" during an accountable talk discussion time.

Fair vs. the Same

This summer, I came across this visual on Pinterest. To me, this shows why we assess and plan for individual differences for our students.

What is FAIR is not always the SAME thing for everyone. At the beginning of the school year, my class has a meeting and we generate our class rules. We call these "agreements" (and sometimes for little kids I call them "promises.") The students agree to follow the rules we generate. Then my assistant and I make agreements with the class too. One of our most important agreements is to help make things fair.

I find the concept of fairness to be one that even my youngest three year olds could understand. When the adults promise to be fair, it sets the stage nicely for differentiating your lessons according to your data. When someone asks me why something is different for one person or one group, I simply reply "Because I promised you all that I would help make things fair; and you have what you need right now, and so do your friends."

Clearly the boy who is tall doesn't need a box to stand on (even if he wants one) and clearly the child who is the shortest needs 2 boxes if he is going to be able to see the game. What is fair, is not always the same thing for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Pinterest link led me back to this post by Phil Artman. He found it on Facebook and could not determine the original writer.  If it belongs to you and you do not have a "noncomercial share alike" aspect to it, please leave a comment and I will remove the post.

Chapter Book Read Alouds 2nd and 3rd Grade

My class loves to listen to me read to them.  Since my students are 2nd and 3rd graders now, I like to try to expose them to chapter books as read alouds.  The following is a list of some of the books we read this past year with some brief comments about each.


1) Boxcar Children #1

I chose this book because it was one of the extended complex texts that was recommended to go with our first unit with our reading curriculum, Wonders.  The students liked it and enjoyed the adventure of the children living in the train boxcar.

2) Stuart Little

"Stuart Little" was our next read aloud because of a play we were scheduled to see.  My district is very fortunate to have a lot of support for education for children within the arts.  Part of that is experience at our local theater for live performances.  "Stuart Little" was actually a very difficult book to read to my students. The language and vocabulary that is used actually puts it much higher than a second or third grade level (I think it's more like 5th or 6th grade.)  However, my students loved the story.  We  went through this book pretty slowly and stopped to explain a lot of the words or phrases in the book.  By the time we got to the play, my class loved that they could "see" parts of the story they already knew and we had great discussions about the parts that were different.

3) Horrible Harry and the Drop of Doom

Horrible Harry has a great series of introductory chapter books.  I read this book to my class to introduce Harry and Song Lee to my students.  I have found that once students are familiar with some of the characters they are more likely to make the transition between picture books to chapter books.

4) Santa Clause Doesn't Mop Floors

We read this book as a purely enjoyable read at the holidays.  As we progressed through the story, we had some great conversations for our social skills lessons.

5) The One and Only Ivan

Oh! How I loved this book.  The story is told from Ivan's point of view.  Ivan is a gorilla that was once wild and is now kept in captivity in a shopping mall.  My class loved hearing about Ivan's thoughts and feelings and solutions.  They also loved learning that the story was based on a real gorilla.  This gave us the chance to talk about what they phrase "based on a true story" means (how often the main idea and the theme of the story stay true but frequently the author changes some of the details to make the plot of the story work.)  **This was my favorite read aloud this year.

6) Little Dog Lost

We all enjoyed this story too.  It is written in the style of a poem, even though it is also presented as a chapter book.  This was the first time my class had seen a free verse poem this long.  That was a great way to show them there are many different ways a writer can share their thoughts and ideas with the reader.

7) How to Eat Fried Worms

If you have read any my previous post about "How to Eat Fried Worms," you will know I love this book.  I first was introduced to it when MY second grade teacher read it out loud to my class.  I remember simultaneously loving it and being grossed out by it!

8) Charlotte's Web

My students loved this book...well except for the one who hated it and the one that it stressed out (but she still loved it!)....For more information on this read here.  Overall though, the class really did like this classic!  This was a novel that we had plenty of copies of throughout our school.  I was able to get a copy for every student in my room and the liked tracking our progress in their own book as I read it to them.   We ended our school year with an "old school" thematic until based on this novel.  My class loved that kind of structure to our day.  I wish we could do more of it.

Photo credits:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Boxcar-Children-No-Mysteries/dp/0807508527

http://www.amazon.com/Stuart-Little-E-B-White/dp/0064400565/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407204457&sr=1-1&keywords=stuart+little

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=horrible%20harry%20and%20the%20drop%20of%20doom&sprefix=horrible+harry+and+the+d%2Cstripbooks&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Ahorrible%20harry%20and%20the%20drop%20of%20doom

http://www.amazon.com/Santa-Doesnt-Floors-Bailey-School/dp/0590444778/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407205160&sr=1-1&keywords=santa+clause+doesn%27t+mop+floors

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_14?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=one%20and%20only%20ivan&sprefix=one+and+only+i%2Cstripbooks%2C167&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Aone%20and%20only%20ivan

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_22?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=how+to+eat+fried+worms&sprefix=how+to+eat+fried+worms%2Cstripbooks%2C259&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Ahow+to+eat+fried+worms

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_12?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=charlotte%27s+web&sprefix=Charlotte%27s+%2Cstripbooks%2C259&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Acharlotte%27s+web

Doll House and Choice Time

At the end of the day this past year, my class enjoyed "Choice Time."

If you were to walk in my classroom, "choice time" looks remarkably similar to "free time."  I don't call it "free time" however, because the children are not "free" to do whatever they want...they have to make a choice from the leisure activities we have available and then stay productively engaged, unless they have asked permission to make a different choice.

Unproductive wandering throughout the classroom is one of my "teacher pet peeves."  It drives me crazy and I have found that unproductive wandering leads to lots of management or behavior issues. Hence, we have "choice time" and not "free time."

One of my older third grade girls wanted me to buy a Barbie doll house for them to play with during choice time.  I explained that Barbie houses cost a lot of money and we didn't have enough to buy one.  She accepted this and went on to play with something else.

A few days later while browsing on Pinterest, I came across this pin that uses a 3 ring binder to make a Barbie doll house from Southern Disposition.  Take a look.  Kendra includes lots of ideas and instructions.

How serendipitous!

When we got to choice time the following day, I asked that little girl if she would be interested in looking at a possible solution to our Barbie doll house problem.  We looked through the website and directions.  She was hooked!

I happen to have lots of scrapbook paper at home that I don't use anymore because I now do most of my photo albums digitally.  I also have a scrap craft bucket of ribbon, lace, beads, etc that I keep for projects at school.  I purchased some scraps of cheap fabric from the scrap bin at Jo-Ann's.

I also happened to know that our bookkeeper has A LOT of old binders that no one wants to use because they aren't perfect.  They were "perfect" for us because they were free!

So for about $8 for fabric scraps and some Stitch Witchery (no sew tape that fuses fabric together), we were in business!

Two girls wanted to make doll houses but they didn't really know where to start.  We talked about how sometimes people use an "inspiration room."  I asked them what colors they wanted their rooms to be.  One chose blue and the other chose pink.  We googled images of girls bedrooms.

One girl choose this blue room from Amecdes as her inspiration.

The other girl chose this pink and green and cream room from Bess.Net as her inspiration.

Our choice time lasts for 15 or 20 minutes at the end of each day.  For about three weeks, the girls spent their choice time creating, figuring things out, problem solving and adding details to their doll house.


Here's one girl making a mirror out of a file folder, aluminum foil, and lace ribbon she cut apart.

Here's her room after she covered up a granola bar box for her bed.

And here is her final product.  The curtain rod is a pipe cleaner with some blue beads we had in our craft bucket (I think they were table scatter beads from the Dollar Tree.)  The curtains are just lengths of lace ribbon she cut and then threaded onto the pipe cleaner.  The rug is a scrap of felt. We printed an image of a dresser off of another Google image search and she glued it to the wall.  The bedspread is a scrap of fabric that she cut.  I helped her make the pillows and the column of fabric that covers the 3 rings with an iron and the Stitch Witchery. (Hot irons and young children are not a good combination!)

Here is the other girl after she finished her mural and began working on her window.

And here is her final room.  She decided to make her bed a daybed.  We used a Girl Scout cookie box for this and scraps of fabric that she cut.  Her curtain rod is a pipe cleaner with some of a pearl strand that she twisted together (the pearls were is my scrap bucket.)  The curtain ties are more of the pearl strand.  The rug is a scrap of felt.  She also cut some mat board to frame her butterfly mural.  Again, I helped with the iron and Stitch Witchery of the column of fabric in the middle and the pillows.  

The two rooms together looked like this (sorry the photo is a little fuzzy!):

The girls had so much fun making their own doll house bedrooms.  They also had a lot of fun playing with them during choice time once they were completed.

I know I can't prove that they practiced their social skills or their problem solving skills and I certainly don't have any data to justify letting them spend 15 or 20 minutes every day making a doll house.  However, these little doll houses have been one of my favorite memories from the year.  To me it shows:

1) Willingness to accept and handle disappointment and the word "no" (We didn't buy their doll house that they wanted.)
2) Willingness to accept a compromise and take responsibility to follow through on the compromise
3) Ability to think in a problem solving process (Watching the one girl work for 2 days to get her mirror to stand up by itself was awesome!)
4) Ability to persist at a long term task (relatively speaking)
5) Thinking creatively
6) Using materials for another purpose other than its intended use

****One little girl is in my class for help with an emotional and behavioral disorder (EBD) and the other is in my room for  help with a severe learning disability.  I'm pretty happy with all of the skills they practiced in an authentic and personally meaningful way.

Many, many thanks to Kendra at Southern Disposition for her great idea!

Book Talk Tuesday

Since the summer has been in full swing, I have done a lot of blog hopping and reading links on Twitter streams.

I just found Gladys's blog over at Teaching in High Heels.  She and I have several things in common: like Gladys, I could spend large amounts of time and money investing in children's literature.  And I also agree everything LOOKS better in high heels, but I have to admit, I always have a pair of sparkly flip flops under my desk for when my feet hurt!

At any rate, I'd like to piggyback on Chelsea's "Book Talk Tuesday." Lulu is new to me and I love finding new books.  I can't wait to take a look at her series.

A series that my class has throughly enjoyed this year is Skippyjon Jones.

Skippyjon Jones is a Siamese cat who imagines spectacular adventures for himself as a chihuahua.

There is a whole series of books telling of Skippy's adventures.  They always include a warning from Mama Junebug, Skippy entering his closet as the cue that his imaginative adventures are beginning and poems that get the kiddos in my class clapping their hands and begging for me to repeat it "one more time."

I love to hear kids interacting with books, laughing and enjoying the experience.  I hope its one more step on the path for life long readers.

Math Homework

Within my self-contained varying exceptionalities class, I typically have quite a few students with language impairments.  These students usually need extra support when completing math word problems and multiple step math problems.  They also most frequently need extra time to practice skills and concepts.

I like to have the students practice math skills, but the homework component that is part of the series my district has adopted just didn't work for us this year.  The homework pages were "busy" which made it difficult for the students and families to discern the most important information.  They also moved at a pace and changed skills so quickly, that my students didn't have enough time to truly master some of the computation skills or concepts, let alone apply those to word problems.

I ended up using a combination of resources to make sure each student had math homework that they could independently complete.  Here were some of my most frequently used:

KidZone Free Math Worksheets This site offers several different computation skills and at different levels of difficulty.  The printed pages are "clean" and not visually busy so they were ideal for homework.  (And it's free!)

Calculating Area and Perimeter This site offers a worksheet generator that allows the parent or teacher to pick whether the child will work on simple or complex shapes; metric or English units of measure; or various combinations.

Touch Math This is a program that includes blackline reproducibles that our principal purchased for our special education department.  It is an investment up front, but well worth it.  My school has the Upper Grades program.


Since I'm sharing resources that I use for homework, I will also share my homework philosophy.  I believe that what I send home for homework should be work that the students in my class can complete independently (or with very minimal support.)

I believe this because, I don't want the child going home and practicing a skill incorrectly 2 or 3 nights every week!  I also know that the parents of the children in my class have differing levels of the support they can provide for their children with homework.

I also believe that it is important for children to learn how to become responsible for their own actions. Completion of homework assignments is one of the criteria for the students in my class to earn their "choice time" at the end of the day.  I don't think it would be fair to assign a student to do homework that he/she cannot complete on their own and then also tie their choice time to the completion.  If I know they can independently complete the homework, then I feel comfortable setting the expectation that you must have completed homework before you go to choice time.

This criteria and philosophy has worked for the classes that I have had for the past several years.  It's always possible that I may get a group of students in the future that need a different plan; or an individual within a group that needs something different.  Since I have a full time special education classroom, I also believe it's my responsibility to be willing to change my homework expectations when the children's needs warrant a change.

Charlotte's Web

We ended our school year with a novel study.  Two of the general education teachers and I pulled together a unit on Charlotte's Web for the students.  I'm so glad we did!  After so much emphasis on our standardized testing this quarter, it was refreshing and rejuvenating to go back to great literature and helping children understand and enjoy it.

Here are a few of the lessons we completed:

1) Every student had a novel and was expected to follow along.  I hadn't typically done this in the past when there was such a difference in my students' reading skills and the level of difficulty of the text.  This sounds silly, but it was almost an "A-ha" moment for me.  The brailled book that we had was in contracted braille and Gabby is still reading uncontracted braille.  This book was too hard for her, but she was able to explore the book and track through some of the chapters when she had 1:1 support.  I have 2 students who are also still reading at a beginning first grade level.  When they were given a simple verbal prompt on when to move to the next page, they could inconsistently track with us too.

2) We completed a "following directions" lesson based on the passages in the text to map out and create the barn scene.  We added more details as we learned them throughout the book.  (The white circle is just blocking out all of the kids names.)

3) When Charlotte was finally introduced in the book, the students all picked a spider to research.  They made a spider body and were responsible for finding 8 facts about their spider.  Then they read their planning sheet and facts to me; and I helped them type it into a word document so they could cut out the facts and glue them to the spiders legs.  We started them with 3 facts: all spiders are arachnids, all spiders have 2 body parts, all spiders have 8 legs.

4) The classroom staff also made a web (tulle and yarn) for Charlotte and surprised the kids each morning with the words that she wrote in her web for Wilbur.

5) In addition to these "crafty" classroom projects, we also completed several Type 1 writing pieces about what students know about a farm, what they know about a County Fair, what they think will happen to Wilbur, why Fern wasn't paying much attention to Wilbur at the fair etc.  (Our school uses the Collins writing program.  To see more about a Type 1, click here.)

6) Two social skills lessons emerged from this novel study that I wasn't expecting.  One boy had already seen the movie so he knew what the story was all about.  One day he went home and cried.  (Talk about making me feel terrible!)  His mom sent me an e-mail to let me know what was happening.  We talked about 2 options for him: 1) Finding alternative assignments for him so he wouldn't go home crying every day.  2) Watch him closely during lessons and prompt him to take a break if he needed one.  He has very quiet but consistent clues that tell you when he is getting upset.  His cheeks get red and he starts to fidgit.  Watch for these clues and ask him if he is "ok or if he needs a break."  If he chooses a break he could go to the computer and put the headphones on and go on Tumblebooks so he didn't have to hear us.  

We decided to try the second option and mom said she would let me know if he comes home crying anymore.  If he continued to be upset at home, then I would find alternative assignments for him. On one occasion he chose to take a break but out of the 3 or 4 other times I asked him, he chose to stay with the group.  I think giving him some control over whether or not he had to listen to something upsetting made it more manageable for him.

Another little girl, who can be very loud and a bit dramatic, but is also very young and sensitive to sad situations also had a few moments when the story was upsetting.  Her plan was a bit different.  Throughout the year we have had a "safe space" set up for her so that she could manage her own behavior and de-escalate herself.  She also processes information better when she is prepared for it and it is not a surprise.  (We're working on handing unexpected situations, but for this novel with the themes of friendship and life cycles and death, I thought she still needed to be prepped.)  For her, I would warn her when a sad part was coming up and let her choose her safe space or holding my assistant's hand while we read that part.  Interestingly, most of the time in the year when she was upset, she liked to be alone and choose her safe space.  Each time within this story she chose to hold my assistant's hand.  

For these two students, I spoke with their parents about the novel and how it was affecting them emotionally. My goals in the novel study started with the literacy goals of character traits, how characters change throughout a story, remembering details, researching information, etc.  For them, my focused shifted and I really wanted the social skills practice more than I wanted them to gain the literacy skills.  However, in getting at this social skills practice, I didn't want to push them so hard that they were crying or emotionally distraught at school or home.  It was a fine line...thank goodness they both have very actively involved parents who let me know how they were doing at home too!  

I wanted the boy to learn to speak up and request a break when he felt like he was getting to the "overload" point.  While he only took the break once and he needed prompting, this novel gave me some good information to share with his teacher next year so she can continue with this.

For the little girl, I wanted her to remember that she had solutions and choices that she could use to help her manage her emotions.  I also wanted her to be able to attempt to do this without yelling and disrupting the whole group.

The novel study of Charlotte's Web was a great way to end the year.  It gave the students a great piece of literature to read, fun activities that still had an academic focus, and kept them interested and engaged at the end of the year!

Keep Your Hands to Yourself..........

I'm dating myself......

Today Lewis shoved his arm out and pushed another child while "trying to get his spot back" in line.  He had a thousand reasons why it was okay for him to shove his arm out and push the other child.

All I could think of was the Georgia Sattelites song from 1986, yes, 1986........."Don't give me no lines and keep your hands to yourself....."

I had to keep mentally reminding myself not to sing it!  The rest of the lyrics are grossly inappropriate for first, second and third graders.

But, as always, I did share my thoughts with my assistants, and we had a good laugh.

Now they will have to share my misery of biting my tongue and not singing....."don't give me no lines and keep your hands to yourself......"

Braille: Minute to Win It

I know it's way past Valentine's Day, but hey, St. Patrick's Day is coming up.  I thought I'd share how I modified a Minute to Win It Board so that Gabby (the child in my class who is blind and has CP) could play with the class on Valentine's Day.  Maybe, this might spark an idea for someone else for a St. Patrick's Day idea or an upcoming Easter idea.

I found this board on Pinterest.  It came from Teaching Heart Blog.






I wanted my class to be able to play the game, but I needed to change it a bit for Gabby.  Here's what we came up with.

We just took some cafeteria straws and glued them to vellum to created a raised space for Gabby to put all of her candy items.  Then we brailled the amount and the item name so she would know what belonged in each area.  (Since Gabby has limited motor control, I also didn't have her stack or try to place things within small isolated areas.  If she got it into the right section, it counted.)  There's nothing fancy or pretty about this board, but it did give Gabby access to the game and allowed her to play! Can you tell we took the pictures AFTER she played with it and got chocolate smudges everywhere?  :-)

Finally, for the class as a whole, I told them we were going to see if we could all complete this in one minute.  If one child finished, she was encouraged to cheer on her classmates.  (I still have some very young students in my room, so I try to limit the competitive aspect of games and focus on the participation and teamwork.)

Many thanks to Colleen at Teaching Heart Blog for her awesome freebie!

Note to Colleen:  I tried to leave a comment on your original page on your blog  to ask permission if I could publish this post with attribution back to you.  For some crazy reason, it kept giving me an error message and wouldn't submit.  If this post in anyway makes you uncomfortable, please let me know I will take it down!

Memorable Moment #12...Seriously?!??

What do you do when you hear yourself say to the child who is blind, "Gabby, look at me."

 Seriously?!? Did I just say that? Did that just come out of my mouth? Yep, it did!

 Let's think about how ridiculous this was......

 1) I have had countless hours of training and coursework addressing cultural differences. I am well aware that many children do not look adults in the eye.

 2) I have had countless hours of training and coursework in classroom management and social development. I am well aware that when children are being scolded they do not want to look the person doing the scolding in the eye. (....And I was giving Gabby a "what for" because she refused to work for one of my classroom assistants.)

 3) I have been working with this child for a year and a half. I am well aware that she is blind. Did I really just tell her to look at me?

Stick a fork in me, folks.....clearly, I'm done.

On a happy note, there was some good reflection that came about because of this. Sometimes when you catch yourself doing something that "just happens" that is so blatantly not best practice, it raises your level of consciousness or deliberate thinking about that very act or concept. You don't "forget that you know it" again.

I'm pretty confident that I won't be telling ANY other child to look at me when he/she is in trouble because this lovely little incident is firmly embedded in my brain.

Remembering Sean Kilbane

Last week my husband and I received very sad news that a friend of ours died in an accident at the age of 43.

My husband wrote about him here........

Remembering Sean Kilbane

Writing Haikus

Way back in 2009, I worked with a friend of mine who is an SLP to devise a manipulative word bank to help my summer school students with autism generate their own sentences and write a simple paragraph.  It sounds pretty straightforward, but it was actually quite a bit of work for me because I had never had to provide quite that level of support for students.  You can read about it here.

This year, I used this strategy again.  While my current students, don't have the severe needs of the class I developed the system for, I thought it would be helpful for some of them.

We were working on a unit that focused on different forms of poetry.  One of the lessons for the general education students at grade level was to write a haiku.  I wanted my students to do this too.  So I stole some ideas from my general ed teacher friends and then added some supports to them.  Here is what we did:

1) Each student painted a background of mixed colors with yellow and orange.  My assistants and I used our Elison machine to cut out some "bare trees," spiders, and leaves.  The kids used the black shapes to glue a scene to their previously painted background.  (Sorry I don't have a picture of this! I'll see if I can update this with a "fake" one that I make so you can see what I"m talking about.)

2) As a whole group we looked at the pictures that were created and generated a word bank of words that described our pictures.  I wrote them on the board and the kids copied them.  We also reviewed the rules and syllable pattern for creating a haiku.

3) Two of my students were able to generate their haikus after completing these activities, others needed some more help.

4) I transferred the word bank to post it notes and put dots underneath each word to identify how many syllables the word had.

4) The students moved and manipulated the words to create a phrase that made sense and also fit the syllable pattern for a haiku.

5) When they finished writing their haiku, they read it to me and I typed it on the computer.  We printed their haiku and they used craft scissors to cut the edges of the paper the poem was printed on.  Then they glued their haiku to their picture and we hung it up for display!

When my general education team decided this was going to be one of the "published" pieces we would do for our quarter 2 writing grades, I was a bit worried.  Writing a haiku is very abstract.  I needed to find a way to teach the syllable pattern and the emphasis on nature to my students.  The art project and the post it notes (as well as previous experience with haikus we read aloud) helped them to successfully complete this! It's nice to be "pushed" into doing something that is a bit uncomfortable sometimes. (I never would have chosen haikus as a published writing sample.)   As a teacher, it made my brain stretch and think about how to make this lesson work with my students.