Fall Leaves

We read so many wonderful books about fall this week, and wrote about fall in our new October journals. 

We created acorns, squirrels and leaves - our room looks all set for fall now! Lot's of good fine motor practice with these projects. 

We each chose a leaf to investigate and looked at different attributes such as size, shape and color.

In our social skills lessons, we continue to learn how to focus. One new skill we practiced is called self-talk. We can talk to ourselves in a quiet voice ...for example, we might say, "Focus. Ignore Tommy. Keep coloring my paper. What do I need to do... oh yes, color in five circles."  Self-talk is a strategy that students can use to help themselves listen, follow directions and stay on task. Over time, it usually becomes internalized. Your child can use self talk at home too - have him/her use self talk to follow a 2 step direction at home, or when you go to the store or a restaurant.

We also are learning and using another strategy - get help. We need to raise our hand with a quiet mouth if we need help with our school work. We can also get help from an adult if we have a problem on the playground or at Center Time. We practiced using calm words to let an adult know what we need help with. This is a great skill to work on at home too - when our students are able to get help the right way, they will feel less frustrated and more confident. 

We read a story about a girl who was TOO LOUD. We learned that we can use our "whisper voices", our "table talk voices" and our "outside voices". Ask your child to show you these different voices at home, and talk about when each voice might be appropriate for different settings. We have many loud students, but all of them were interested and motivated to practice this! This is why children are so great - they really do love to learn new things, and they feel so proud when they are able to be successful! 

We have a new OT, replacing Mrs. Chrisekos. Mrs. Grad has begun to work with our students who receive OT services. 

On Thursday the Walled Lake Central drum line came through our hallways - we thought it was really cool!