We are ready for fall!

We loved making these fall leaves and scarecrows after reading some autumn themed books. Our classroom looks so beautiful for fall! When we arrived on Monday, we found a pile of mini pumpkins by the fairy door - one for each of us! Some children wrote thank you notes to the fairies.

We have many fall and Halloween books out in our book bins and baskets for "read to self" time.

And, we added a new stamping center that has been very popular. 

On Tuesday, Miss Qonja came in to read a book to us about manners. She loved how polite all of the students were - they listened quietly and looked at the book when she showed us pictures. 

In our social skills lessons we are learning about following directions that we may not like, or getting an answer that we don't like. We talked about how our bodies might feel and what coping skills might help us stay calm. We learned that we need to listen to the direction, say "OK" and then do it. We can breathe, take a break, or use the coping skill tool box if we have a strong feeling of upset or anger, but we cannot yell or become unsafe. Later on, we can use our words to ask questions about the direction or the answer. 

Conference Day is November 12 - I have several families scheduled for a conference or IEPT that day. Please go in through Family Access and Skyward to schedule your conference. I am looking forward to meeting with you all. 

I am adding a link to Walled Lake schools special services web page - there are some nice resources there: http://wlcsd.org/our-district/special-services/

Our first Parent Support Group meeting will be on Wednesday, October 28 at 6:00 in Room 113. All parents, grandparents and caregivers are welcome. We will need a minimum number of parents attending in order to hold our meeting - we hope many of you will be able to join us! The 3 EI teachers and social workers will be there as well. 

Apples and Fall Leaves

We are excited that we will be returning to the WL Outdoor Center for a field trip on November 11. We will participate in several science related activities at this beautiful facility - more information to come soon. Part of the cost of this field trip and the bus is funded by a grant we received from the WL Foundation for Excellence. This trip will include all three special education classrooms and staff, and will be for the students only.
This week we took some time to read fall related books and created some fall art of our own.

We also learned about Johnny Appleseed- we stamped apple prints to make our Johnny Appleseed pictures and wrote about him in our journals. 

We have been reviewing the coping skills we've learned this year. They include: deep breathing, get adult help, take a break, use the coping skill tool box and yoga. Some of our interactive whiteboard activities include yoga practice.  

A new coping skill we have added is "ignore distractions" - we practice looking away from a distraction and reminding ourselves to focus on our work or task. 

On Wednesday we welcomed back our music therapist, Miss Marlowe. She will join us every Wednesday morning - the children love her and she gets maximum participation from each of them!

This year, you will need to go online to Family Access and register for your Parent Teacher Conference. Conference Day is November 12, and you may begin signing up on October 1.  (IEPTs held that day are already scheduled for you.) Here is the link with directions for signing up for a conference time slot: Conference Sign-Up Direction. This is a link to video directions:  http://youtu.be/ny4lqiEcx2Y. 

 On Friday October 16 we will join other students at Loon Lake for the Color Fun Run Event. Each student will receive a free t-shirt to wear and bring home. This is a fundraiser sponsored by our PTA, and is always a lot of fun for our class. 

Our first Parent Support Group Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, October 28 from 6:00-7:00. We will meet in Room 113, our classroom. We plan to talk about how the Zones of Regulation and coping skills can be used at home and at school. I hope many of you will try to come - perhaps there are other topics you would like to see us discuss at our meetings? Many parents have found that it was helpful just to have a time and place to meet with other parents who are experiencing challenges with their child, and I have often noticed that the sharing of ideas among parents is very helpful. 

We are learning so many new things!!

We have been talking more about the "zones".  We talk about feeling in the yellow zone when we are upset, silly or frustrated...we refer to our coping skills board to help prompt children to take a break, breathe, or use the coping skill tool box to help get back in the green zone. Children are beginning to understand that the green zone feels better, and we always praise them when they use a coping skill to calm down strong feelings.

We had some other social skills lessons that helped us learn about focusing to listen to/watch directions. Focusing, listening, and thinking about the directions takes a lot of practice - we try to build this skill into everything we do. We are also practicing how to use "self-talk" to stay on task, especially when a distraction takes our attention or focus away.  One way we practice is by having students repeat directions to themselves so that they can remember what to do. We love to practice this with our rhythm sticks! 

We added another coping skill to our bulletin board - "get adult help". Students are learning to raise their hand and wait when they need help with difficult work. They can also get adult help on the playground or anytime when someone is bothering them. 

We have continued to enjoy stories and activities about farms and farm animals. We are becoming more independent when we create art work, and attempting tasks that we think might be hard. 

We are all working on journal writing and drawing...our journals are for the month, so it will be interesting to compare writing done in September with writing done next spring! 

In our Social Skills Lessons we talked about the Listening Rules that help us learn and participate in school activities. These rules include ears listening, eyes watching, voice quiet and body still. We also practiced focusing and shutting out distractions - research shows that these skills are linked to academic and social success. We practice these skills every time we work together at group time, for a group lesson and during a read aloud story. We also began to learn and review three coping skills - deep breathing, taking a break and yoga. Taking a break means stopping what you are doing and just sitting/relaxing quietly. We encourage students to take a break at the beginning of frustration - they are always praised for using a coping skill such as taking a break.
We completed several "tricky" art activities together - these types of activities help give children opportunities to learn and practice the Listening Rules and focusing...these are the same skills children will need in the general education setting. Although art activities may be fun, they can also be challenging and frustrating...

We are building our "read to self" stamina by reading/looking at book boxes and baskets each day. We are learning how to look at books carefully and quietly...we are up to 10 minutes already!

We went to our first assembly - we practiced sitting and watching a yo-you show. 

We had a great first day of school!

Today was a busy, exciting day for all of us in Room 113. We discussed routines and practiced things like lining up and walking in the hallway to go to music and PE...everyone has a number and a spot to sit and walk in.

We did some work...

and we had Center Time...

We began our Farm Animal Unit by learning and reading about cows and we completed our first art activity! There were many transitions (music, PE, lunch and recess, getting on and off the buses) so your child may be tired and hungry by the end of the day! This is just a short little blog post to let you know that your children are off to a great start - we enjoyed each and every one of them today! 

Welcome Back to School!

Our first day of school is Tuesday September 8! Our classroom is ready and we are excited to welcome all of our students.

Families will be able to visit our classroom on Wednesday September 2 between 2:00 and 4:00.
Curriculum Night for parents will be on Wednesday, September 16 at 5:30. 

Every morning we read these words together before we start our day...they help us remember that everyone in Room 113 is valued and supported.

School Supplies - Your child does not need a lot of supplies, but there are a few things that will be helpful for him/her to have:  a good backpack, a pencil/crayon box (usually these are plastic), a pack of crayons, some pencils and some glue sticks. We have scissors and markers for the class. We always welcome contributions of glue sticks, Kleenex boxes, and canisters of Lysol/Clorox for cleaning off the tables. 

I can't wait for our first day...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbLz9-riRGM&sns=em

Dinosaurs and the end of the year...

We have had a lot of fun with dinosaurs this week. We learned about paleontologists who excavate and uncover bones and fossils. We tried a little pretend excavation of our own with cookies and toothpicks.

We also made some dinosaur foot print fossils of our own.

We had a lot of fun with this egg ...maybe your child can tell you all about it! At first we were worried, but then we did a little research and determined that this was a stegosaurus... and they were plant eaters!

We finished up reading "Charlotte's Web" - we loved all of the characters and everyone had a favorite part. On Friday we began to watch the movie - the children were so surprised and amazed to recognize so many familiar events, characters and words from the book! They absolutely were able to handle listening to a chapter book!

It is very hard to believe that we have come to the end of the year! This was such a wonderful group of children, and they were a joy to teach! This class was excited about learning, and they made such wonderful progress in so many areas. I truly looked forward to seeing them each day, and I will miss them all this summer.  Some of our classmates will move on to Miss Ross' classroom in the fall, some will remain here and one will move to a new home...but we will always be friends! I am always available by email, and hope that you will keep in touch over the summer, and in the future. 

We will be sending home artwork over the next few days, and on Wednesday I will place your child's report card in their home folder. Please be sure to check for it.

Happy Summer Vacation!! Thank you for your support and help this year!