Fun News + Easy Snowman Craft!

Happy Holidays!! I've started to get into the holiday spirit. Perhaps it's the flash mob dance my school staff practiced today to surprise the kids at our holiday assembly later this month. My dancing abilities are severely limited, but it was fun none the less!

Time for some exciting news!!

I found out my former student, as you have come to know as "Genius Boy," is now working with MICHELLE GARCIA WINNER!!! She is my special ed idol and my kiddo gets to work with her!  He is so lucky!! If anyone can help him, it's her!

For those of you who haven't been long time followers, I'll catch you up... Genius Boy is by far the most brilliant child I've ever met, let alone taught!! The struggle was his autism spectrum disorder caused a HUGE discrepancy between his social and academic skills. Super high in one, and super low in another. His brain mesmerized me every single day. It was fun to see what kind of things I could do with him. He also gave me the opportunity to test every single behavioral strategy I'd ever heard of...and then some! I couldn't be more happy for him! I love the family so much that I still see them despite changing schools. Yay!

CRAFT TIME!!

Our art teacher is no longer on staff (long story!) and there isn't a replacement just yet. I volunteered to be the art teacher for our classroom in the mean time. This has actually been a really fun little gig. All those art projects I tend to decide aren't "educational" enough can now be done freely! 

My school is anti-holidays. It's torture for me! In the past I was allowed to teach all the holidays for one week each. We did both Hannukah and Christmas crafts so all was fair. This school the word "Christmas" is like a curse word. I get it, we have several Jewish kids, but boy does it ruin my holiday crafts I've done for years!! Time for gingerbread and snowmen! I had to get a little creative to come up with a craft that was non-denominational and also easy to do, with easily ready supplies. Also we are supposed to decorate our doors. I created a "snowman snow globe" craft that we can tape to our door.

SNOWMAN SNOW GLOBE HOW-TO

Supplies (all found at Target)

• Cotton balls
• Fine white glitter
• Colored paper plates (helps the "snow" show better)
• Decorations (Target Dollar Spot)
• Plastic Wrap
• Liquid Glue (Elmers)

1. Spread glue on the bottom section of the paper plate.
2. Pull apart 2 cotton balls to make them more thin and "snowy," then place them on the glue
3. Glue/stick on the candy cane and snowman decorations. If you cannot find these, kids can draw or paint them on. Another option would be to make them of paper separately and then put them on.
4. Put small glue dots around the top to make it it look like flakes of snow.
5. Sprinkle fine white glitter over the whole plate. It sticks heavily on the glue dots, but it all sticks lightly on the cotton and plate which makes it extra pretty!
6. Let dry, then cover the whole plate with plastic wrap to make the "snow globe" effect. The bigger the piece, the easier it is to get the plastic to stay on. Taping it down works well too.

Connecting with Kids with Autism Through Writing

Hey Everyone! Did you miss me?! It's been a record 3 weeks since I've posted something new for you! Super sorry, but I was just plain busy! So much has happened in the last few weeks but I'll do my best to fill you in on the good stuff in the next few days.

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but my teaching partner and I have split up our caseload of kids in our class based on who connects the best with them. I have multiple kids on the autism spectrum (or the related less severe disabilities) who are "mine." I'll be honest...I love them! It was the saddest part of changing schools when I was under the impression I wouldn't have any more autism kiddos. It turns out we have a few but they are more high functioning than the kids I worked with at my old school. One of my biggest successes in the last month has been my ability to make a connection with these kids!

Communication! This may seem obvious, but what can be hard to understand is that kids with autism don't communicate like we do. Yes, this seems obvious for kids with severe autism, but what about those kids who are on the high functioning end of the spectrum? What about those kids who can speak in full and clear sentences? What about those kids who LOOK like they know what's going on, but really DON'T get those social cues and verbal expressions of emotions?

I found a way to connect with some of these kids. It all started on accident! On Back to School Night I told all the kids to clean out their desks and that anything in their journals their parents might read, so make sure to write something for mom and dad to read that night. One of my kiddos wrote something that was both informative and surprising. He told his dad he didn't like getting big hugs. This was HUGE! Dad and I had a chat about it, and he said it's something he never knew. After writing about it, my student was able to tell us that he likes gentle hugs, but not the big strong ones dad gives sometimes. This type of communication was a BIG WIN that has lead to so many things!

Now my little guy likes to this all the time when he's feeling emotional and wants to tell us. He writes little notes to both his parents and myself. I've noticed a huge drop in his number of outbursts! Now he just writes on a piece of paper and drops it on my desk. Then I'll talk to him about what he's written, and he'll give me a written response back. He'll also write to me later in the day to let me know when he's feeling happy again. It's adorable!

I talked to him between these two notes above. He was mad at me for underlining a word on his paper. In his mind this was the equivalent of me scribbling all over his paper. I explained to him why I had written on his paper so he could see the word he wanted was right on his paper so he could copy it. He told me he was happy I was trying to help, but not so happy that I wrote on his paper. I apologized to him for upsetting him and explained that I was just trying to help and that's when he put a "that's ok" note on my desk.

A cute little happy message to the right was written on my whiteboard "The best day is today" is what he meant to spell.

How do you emotionally connect with your students/kids?

Sorry, I Forgot to Ask!

So as any of my loyal readers know, I'm OBSESSED with Julia Cook books! Laura Candler is hosting a lovely little blog hop so you can learn all about the various Julia Cook books that I've been obsessing over and find new ways to use them in your classroom.

I discovered Julia Cook and her books last year thanks to a mom of my most difficult student at the time. I was telling her about his latest struggle with putting hands on other people (not necessarily in a mean way, just always touching which drove my kids with autism bonkers!). The mom heard about a book and handed it to me to see the best way to use it. That book was Personal Space Camp and I've been hooked on Julia Cook books ever since then!

I knew I loved her books and that they teach a wonderful amount of social skills, so this is how I chose to start my school year. We have a social skills curriculum called PATHS, but it takes awhile for it to cover all of the skills my kids need. At the beginning of the year, I want my kids knowing behavioral and social expectations PRONTO! What better way than to use Julia Cook books?! Then we started our Step Up to Writing curriculum and the whole beginning of the year focused on responding to text.

What does this mean??? INSTANT SOCIAL SKILLS IMMERSION! I found a way to use the ideas and curriculum I already need teach, plus cram in all of the important stuff I wanted my kids to know right away! The kids were seeing, hearing, writing, and discussing social skills! My kids would hear a different Julia Cook book every day or two, then practice written response.

Take a glimpse into how my class ran during our social skills cram sessions with Julia Cook books by seeing how we used her adorable book Sorry, I Forgot to Ask!

First I would pull out the book and the kids would all cheer, "YAY!! It's another RJ book!!" because they know the books so well. The boy on the cover is named RJ and many of Julia's books feature him as the main character. I have a class of 11 boys this year (and zero girls!) so he is a very easy character for my class t connect with. In every book he does some sort of social mistake, then learns how to do better next time so he doesn't get in trouble any more.

In this story, RJ gets into trouble when  he does a whole series of things without asking permission first. It has a bunch of real life situations that kids might do such as playing games on the internet and choosing to walk home with a friend instead of take the bus like he should. Most of my class agreed that skipping rocks in the frog pond was the best part! Others preferred the part where he ate the chocolate cake!

In the end, RJ learns how to ask permission,  accept "no" as an answer, and apologize when he makes mistakes. All of these are ESSENTIAL features of my classroom and things my kids were struggling with when we started the year. Now, I pull out this book any time my kids need a refresher on these concepts. The bonus is that they love to books so much that they cheer instead of grumble when I read a story a 2nd or 3rd time!

Responding to the Story

I read the story, now what?

1. First I read the story using the "stop and think" strategy with the kids along the way to increase comprehension. Then we talking about the book and how RJ could have done things differently in the beginning of the book so he wouldn't get in trouble.
2. The kids shared with their partner a time when they made a mistake by not asking permission and got in trouble (these are super funny to listen to while they chat!)
3. Next, I had the kids write about the story and draw what happened in the beginning and the end of the story. 
4. Another option I've done with other Julia Cook books is to draw the sequence of events. Take a peek at the adorable pictures below when the kids responded to Thanks for the Feedback, I Think (another fabulous Cook book).

Special Sparkle Giveaway!

Hey Guys! You can find me over at A Special Sparkle where I have a GIVEAWAY waiting for you!!

Today was picture day! My kids did really great, but picture day in special ed is a whole other experience! I taught general for 3 years and it was always the same routine. The kids go up to the stool, smile, photographer peeks at the screen, says "great!" and then you move on to the next kid. This does NOT happen in special ed!!

I love my kids! They are ADORABLE and do not look "special" by any means if you just glanced at them. The problem happens when you pull a camera out! They suddenly turn into aliens! Force kids who don't like eye contact to stare at a stranger with a camera and smile a real smile...easier said than done! You should have seen the goofy things my co-teacher and I were doing to make the kids laugh!

And this happened:
Teacher: You didn't dress up for picture day?
Kid: No, I just want to look natural for my picture!
(a few minutes later at picture time)
Me: Smile for the camera!
Kid: Why do I have to smile for a picture? I just want to look natural. My parents know what I look like when I smile.
Me: How about you smile and I give you instant prize box?
Kid: *Big cheesy grin* (that was eventually caught on camera 3 tries later)

And here's me on picture day! Cherish it, I actually have makeup on at work. It happens about twice a year! Obviously not the official photo as it was taken by our class aide as I was sitting on the kids' bean bag chair in the "calm corner." That thing is shockingly comfortable! I've been known to sit on it as I work on my laptop when the kids are gone after school!

Also, my support for autism continued into my weekend this week! I participated in a fundraiser workout to support kids with autism. The kid it was named after is the exact type of kids I've been working with for the last 5 years. 
LIFT UP LUKE
  

Successful Parent Conferences

We just finished our parent teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday. It was a long couple of days, but they went fabulously! I genuinely don't think I've ever had a more successful set of conferences! Every parent left very happy, and so did us teachers! Whoo hoo! Yippee skippy!

In our class we have 2 teachers and we each bond with completely different kids. Some kids come to me for everything, other kids prefer Lauren. We have totally different personalities and therefore different connections with the kids. Both of us love this and see this as the epitome of teamwork in a co-teaching classroom. As long as every kid feels loved and has a strong connection with at least one of us, that's all that matters.

With this in mind, we took turns leading the conferences based on which teacher has the strongest connection with that child. It's a very equal balance and made the conferences go 50/50 for who was leading and who was taking all of the notes.

One thing that seemed strange to me at first, but I actually really liked was the "action required" section of our notes below our regular notes of the discussion topics. We had to make a list during our conference of things that needed to be followed up on. This ranged from emails to specialists, behavior charts to send home, to the new strategies we wanted to implement based on our discussions. This section made it SOOOO easy come Monday morning to make sure we did all of those little follow up things that can be so easy to forget after a new parent walks into your room to talk.

Our kids have made soooo much progress since they walked into our room on the first day. The kids have already made HUGE academic strides! We have also had kids who had struggles with their behavior who are like whole new kids now. We are so proud of them!

One thing we make sure to do is tell little stories about each kid to their parent about something that made us laugh, or something that made us very proud of them! The parents always love this part. This was my favorite story of the week:
Please note the kids are dead serious during this conversation.
Kid 1: (big sniffle/snort)
Kid 2: They make tissues for that!
Kid 1: Tissues are for boogers. This is snot!!
Kid 2: But still! Use a tissue!
Me: Actually Kid 1, Kid 2 is right. Tissues are for boogers AND snot (as I try my hardest to keep a straight face, but then burst into laughter as I look at the other teacher)
The parents busted up laughing and it made for a very enjoyable conference ending!

Owl Lessons

This week we continued our theme of nocturnal animals. The boys have loved every minute of the lessons and I find myself constantly surprised by the amount of academic vocabulary they are using during our conversations! I love hearing the kids talk about how owls are predators and the prey of the snowy owls are lemmings in the arctic.

When we were writing a graphic organizer I was happily surprised by one of the kids who was ignoring my modeling of answers and creating his own ideas. They were exactly correct and he was on a mission to do the assignment on his own. Normally a teacher would be mad at a kid not following directions. Instead I was proud of how hard this struggling reader was working to generate ideas and then spell the words on his own!

We finished watching The Magic of the Snowy Owl on Monday. My kids really loved the movie and even asked me to send the link home to their parents. It's a PBS documentary, but it's not targeted for kids. You may want to watch the video to determine if it's appropriate for the type of kids in your class.

More specifically, this documentary shows what can happen to the runt of the litter. I explained this to my students by telling them that most sets of animals born in groups have a "runt" who is not as big or strong as the others. Sadly, in this movie the runt dies when there is not enough food for the whole family to survive. I skipped over this part because I didn't want the kids to be any more upset than necessary. They know the bird died, but I skipped over minutes 28-30 and started it at minute 31:03. I'm all for science, but not scarring kids for life!

Then we made paper owls using this template. I made an enlarged copy of it, then cut it and traced it onto old file folders as tracing templates for the kids. They all got to pick their colors to decide if they wanted snowy male (all white), female (white and brown), or another combination of realistic owl colors. They turned out pretty cute! Take a peek! Yes, I'm well aware that a few seem to have turned into Angry Birds! Haha!

I've also created some owl clip art for my lessons to make some of PowerPoint and worksheet activities a little more detailed. You can pick it up here in my TPT store.

Starting our Nocturnal Animals Unit

It's October now, so what better way to celebrate the month of Halloween than with Nocturnal Animals as our theme?! We started off the lesson with a simple picture sort that I found to separate nocturnal and diurnal animals. I'll be totally honest, I had no idea what the opposite of nocturnal was in science terms! Thank you Google search! You can find the link here. The activity was pretty simple, but the kids loved it and it was a great way to kick off the unit and get their brains going. I also made a little introductory Nocturnal Animals PowerPoint but it's not quite ready to post for you guys just yet.

Then we watched a few short videos about owls on National Geographic Kids. This was a great way to learn some basic owl information with images and videos of real owls.

Night Owls
Night Vision
Full Video List

Then we completed this simple graphic organizer for the information we learned from the video. You can download it for free HERE. The owl clip art I drew for this unit is also in my TPT store now too.

Then on Friday we started a longer documentary about how hard it is for snowy owls to survive in the arctic. I had a chat with the kids before the movie started about how owls are preditors so they will see them eat small animals in the movie. Thankfully owls eat things whole so there wasn't anything gruesome!

I've learn kids are either fascinated or totally bored by documentaries. One of the things I love to do is sit next to the player to hit pause every time there is an interesting fact and talk about what is happening. Then the kids are more likely to be engaged in the movie, and I know they are learning the crucial information I want them to learn. This movie is long (an hour) for my little 1st/2nd graders with attention struggles, so I actually broke this into two days. I need to develop a response activity for when the movie is over Monday afternoon.

This video is from PBS and shows how a family of owls tries to raise owlets in the arctic. Be warned, it is a nature video that was not film just for kids. There is a very sad section involving the runt dying that I highly suggest you fast forward through! Approximately minutes 27:30-31:02! It's super educational, but still has sad real life events that not all kids are ready to see!
The Magic of the Snowy Owl