Lionzebragiraffe one, poo, free.

So it has been an extremely long time since the last time I posted.  Sorry about that.  I also changed the name of my blog (I’ll explain that in a later post).

This week we made a lion mask, and because I just have to be different, I decided to incorporate a couple of other animals into my mask (and yes, I insist on doing all of the crafts my students do, and not just giving the directions.  It’s more fun that way)…

I don’t think any of my students knew what I was doing, even after I explained it to them.  That’s ok.  They colored their lions blue and purple and tye-dye, so whatever.  Let me have my lionzebragiraffe.

My students are working on counting in math, and even though I am so sick and tired of working on that goal I laugh every. single. time.  I love hearing them count to ten.

One

Poo

Free

Pour

Pive

Seas

Seben

A

Nime

Tin

Gets me every time.

My car smells like finger paint

Welp, another day another craft.  I am really not the crafty sort.  I have plenty of ideas, but zero patience for actually executing them.  But now that I’m teaching elementary school kids I really have no choice but to follow through with my ideas.

This means that my car’s a hot mess (and I mean this in the most literal sense.  It’s been over 100 degrees everyday this week) full of rolls of tin foil and rainbow yarn left over from my Father’s Day prank (yes, I did actually have some left over), popsicle sticks, construction paper, glue, scissors, and finger paint.  I could probably make a pretty decent profit selling craft supplies out of the back seat of my car to desperate stay-at-home moms that need to keep their kids busy.

Anywho, so far this week the kids have made two paper bag puppets – a monkey and a parrot.  They seemed to really like both of the crafts, come to think of it, they like all crafts.  It doesn’t matter what we do, they always love it.  I could give them each one broken crayon and a dirty piece of paper and they would still have fun.

I don’t know if you can tell, but I used the same trick with some of the spots as I did with these flower/stars from the jungle collage.  They’re just cut out circles from dried paper plates we used for painting a few days before.  I noticed that today the kids were much more comfortable with the abstract-ness of the spots than they were before.  With the exception of the little girl that made this red bird, they all were willing to use them on their birds.  I’m all about helping these kids get outside of their teeny tiny comfort zones.

It wasn’t until after I sent them home with their dry monkeys that I realized I had missed a golden opportunity.  How amazingly cool would it have been to have a monkey vs. parrot fight!  King Kong vs. Pterodactyl right in my own classroom.  I could have used the stop motion app on my phone and pulled out the creepy barbie doll in my school-issued laptop case.  It would have been epic.  But, as my grandma used to say, “If we would’ve had some ham we would’ve had some ham and eggs, if we would’ve had some eggs.”  That’s just how it goes sometimes.

To play or not to play?

As you may know, I’m teaching kids with special needs this summer. The school day is only 3 hours long and we only go to school three days a week. That’s not a whole lot of time to get to know the kids, and with all the IEP stuff and data collection we have to do it can be hard to find time to have fun with them.

We do, however, have a twenty minute recess. Usually recess is a plan time for most teachers while a few are on duty. But in summer school everyone is on duty – all of the teachers and all of the aides. So a typical recess at summer school is ten or so adults standing off to the side chatting while about fifteen kids play on the playground.

It may be wrong, but I love the unhelpful high school teacher.

I have to admit that adult conversation is a nice break from the kid songs and nonsense that usually come out of my mouth when I’m teaching, but recently I’ve realized that retreating into the adult corner is somewhat of a missed opportunity. Recess is really the only time in our short day that requires no data collection or teaching. This is a sacred time specifically and exclusively reserved for having fun.

Every recess I’m torn between hanging out with the cool teachers and going down the slide with the little stinkers that keep my stock in Excedrine in the black. Some days I choose the cool, jaded teachers and other days I choose the stinkers, but I’ve noticed a definite change in my view towards the kids when I play with them. Student A isn’t IEP goal 3.1.4, she’s the brave little one that likes to go down the slide backwards (this is totally against the rules btw). Student B isn’t just working on extending patterns and finding rhymes, he’s building a strong friendship with a kid in another class by playing tag.

I’m not a mushy, sappy, lovey-dovey person with an unrealistic and rose-colored view of “being the change” or whatever, but it is my experience that spending a few minutes to enjoy my students does have a positive affect on their education. On the days I play with them, something kind of amazing happens – they’re more willing to follow directions and stay on task. I really don’t know why. I’m not more lenient and I’m not their friend. In fact, I’ve gotten more strict with them as the days go on. Maybe they feel more comfortable with me? I don’t know. But whatever the reason I guess I would just encourage anyone else who works kids with special needs to spend a few minutes to just relax and have fun with them.

Related Article: Power of Playtime by Science Daily

Sometimes, parents just amaze me … and not in a good way

I have to say that I have really lucked out with my kids, parents, and aides for summer school.  As a whole I don’t have much to complain about, but one little girl’s mother really grinds my gears.

Every time this child comes to school she is filthy.  I mean F.I.L.T.H.Y.  There is stain upon stain on every piece of her outfit.  Stains of different ages on the same piece of clothing.  Holes in her skirts.  It’s just appalling.  She literally looks like she has been hanging out in a landfill on a rainy day.  It so, so sad and so, so infuriating.

I understand that laundry probably isn’t most people’s favorite chore or their favorite way to spent their free time, but every parent has a responsibility to their children are given the best chance to succeed in life, and sending your child to school in filthy clothing is only preparing them to fail.  It sends the wrong message to her typical and non-typical peers, as well as to her teachers.  I mean really, who wants to be friends with Pig Pen?  Who has high expectations for Pig Pen?  No one.  No one wants to hang out with him and no one thinks he can make something of himself.

Does this mother think that just because she has Down Syndrome she won’t notice that her clothes look disgusting?  This child is a super smart and super quick little girl who doesn’t let anyone get away with anything.  How is she going to feel when one day she suddenly looks around the room and realizes that hers are the only clothes with holes and stains.

All I want to do is go to Goodwill and buy this girl some new clothes, but I know they’ll just end up like all the rest.  Tattered and dirty.

Classdojo.com

I wanted to share something I started using in the classroom this week.  It’s a website called classdojo.com.  It gives each student an avatar (or you can upload their pictures) and lets you give and take away points for positive or negative behaviors.

Here’s a screen shot of the Demo class (and no, I did not play favorites when I awarded points.  Ok, maybe just a little…).

The positive and negative behaviors are completely customizable.  Here’s what some of the standard positive and negative behaviors are:

And here are some things I might add for my class:

It also gives you an overall performance breakdown.  This one is from the Demo class:

What makes this site so awesome is I can award points with my phone.  So if we’re on the play ground and little Angelina Jolie decides she wants to go down the slide backwards, stop half way, stand up, and yell at the people patiently waiting in line behind her, I can take away a point right then and there (not that any situation even remotely like this occurs on a daily basis…).

The kids have really gotten in to this.  On Tuesday we took a class vote for what reward the kids with a certain number of points would get at the end of the week.  I think they really like having a concrete list of behaviors that are positive and negative.  So much of the behaviors that are “acceptable” in our culture and society are behaviors we learn through observation.  But these kids don’t have the skills needed to pick up on the social queues that can make or break someone’s social life.  Hopefully this will help them out a little bit.

Chewbacca showed up today

Today was the first day of the second week of summer school, and other than one of the little girls affectionately trying to choke me with my scarf, it went well (she was just admiring it and thought it was pretty.  she didn’t realize it was tied around my airway).  I might have to rethink my choice of accessories.

After everyone finished their breakfast we went back to the classroom to start our morning meeting.  One of the things I ask the kids to do is to sign in on the smart board.  Today one of the kids thought it would be appropriate to to make Chewbacca noises as he signed in.  He wrote his own name, but he sounded just like Chewy.  It was great.  I wonder if he takes requests.

We also did a jungle collage.  I cut up pieces of construction paper and aluminum foil, but then I got really crazy.  You know those paper plates you use to put paint on for kids when they’re painting a picture?  DO NOT THROW THOSE AWAY!  Set aside and let them dry because they can be an awesome addition to another craft later on (I learned this trick from the Firehouse Art Center).

Here are some examples:

I thought my flower/stars looked pretty awesome, but only a couple of kids used them.  Maybe they were too abstract and unrealistic.  All well, I’ll try again some other time.

 

French Impressionists

I asked the kids to paint a jungle.  This is what I got.

Those brownish/blackish spots on the top middle picture are monkeys and the red lines are snakes.  The picture on the top left is of trees – there are no animals in his jungle.  The one on the top right kind of looks like a rhino, but I don’t think that’s what he was going for, maybe an elephant?  I don’t know.  The middle right picture is also trees.

Watching the kids make these paintings was the highlight of my day so far.  I honestly don’t see anything remotely resembling a jungle in any sense of the word, but they did have a lot of fun making them and that was the main purpose of the activity anyway.

I did it!! No one died!! But one girl does cry blood…

Today was the first day of summer school and I accomplished my goal!  I ended with the same number of kids I started with!  Granted only four showed up and there are three adults in the room, but I still did it!

I got to work before all the kids got there and was setting up the crafts while the computer guy worked on getting one of my two laptops to work, when this mom walks in.  She said “Hi, I’m so and so’s mom.  I just wanted to tell you that she just had eye surgery and so if she gets upset and starts to cry she’ll have blood in her tears.”

 

EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSEEE MEEEEEEE?!?!?!?!?!  What did you just say????  YOUR DAUGHTER CRIES BLOOD???  I just tried to put on a smile and be like “Oh, okay.  No problem.”  Thus, my second goal for the day: DO NOT, under any circumstances, make her cry, because tears of blood are the stuff of nightmares.

 

That was really the only significant event in the day.  Two of the kids that showed up are really calm and easy going and easy to have a conversation with, and the other two are …. not.  But there weren’t any fights or tantrums or tears of blood today.  A lot of that is probably due to the fact that I didn’t take any data on them or ask them to do any work.  I just wanted to get to know them so we did crafts and games.

 

Here’s how the animal stick things turned out.  I’ll have them put them in the jungle after I greet them.  I still need to add more stuff to the jungle, but you get the idea.  Notice how there’s only one gorilla.  I was the only person to make one.  Weird.  I did get one kid to make an imaginary animal, except he really just copied what was in my imagination and added two extra eyes, and a banana.  Still a victory in my book.

 

Oh, and I can’t get this song out of my head.  Enjoy.

Challenge Denied

So, with the encouragement of my coworkers and the help of a stranger’s shoulder surgery, I decided to TEACH (as opposed to being a teaching assistant like I have been all year) summer school, aka ESY.  My anxiety level is just under completely terrified.  When I got the email saying I was hired as a teacher and not a TA, all I could think was “Oh my gosh.  What have I gotten myself into.  I’m pretty sure I can’t do this job.  This is going to be a disaster.” I’m certified to teach secondary social studies, not elementary special ed.  What am I doing.

Yesterday was the orientation for all teachers and TAs doing summer school for special ed in the district.  They started off with the rules and procedures, and then moved right along into a splendid little convo on how to administer Diastat to a child having seizures, to which I politely replied “No thanks.”  I don’t really feel comfortable going into how one is supposed to administer Diastat, so I’ll just give you a short list of things I would rather do:

1. Change my major my senior year

2. Coach cheerleading

3. Eat my own hand

4. Watch The Wiggles

5. Hang out on the edge of a cliff…oh wait…I’ve actually already done this one…twice.

After that traumatizing experience (of Diastat demonstrations, not hanfing off of cliffs) we broke up and went to our school sites to meet our TAs, get the information on our kids, and set up our rooms.  The level of un-organization was appalling.  I think I almost had a panic attack.  I couldn’t process anything that was going on because I was so disturbed by the piles, the stacks, and all of the running to and fro.  Anyway, by the end of the day I had gotten organized enough that I was able to calmly and rationally process my thoughts and intellectualize about my situation.  All that came out was “Oh my gosh.  What have I gotten myself into.  I’m pretty sure I can’t do this job.  This is going to be a disaster.”

And that’s where I am today.  I will have seven third graders, two girls and five boys.  All of them have a disability of some sort.  Some of them have Down Syndrome, some of them have Autism, and some of them have learning disabilities.  But they all need to be taught and they all need to be taken care of, and for some reason someone thinks I can do that.  I’m so glad that I have Acts 2:21 “And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” and Romans 10:12 “…for the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all who call upon Him.”  All I can do is lean on my dear Savior, because without Him I can’t do anything.