We are a busy bunch! This week we're linking up with Kelly's Korner for "A Day in the Life". For those of you we haven't yet met, welcome to our blog! To get to know us a little better, click here.
You've heard a lot about some of the activities we do on a regular basis, but today you'll get a bird's eye view of a typical day in our room. I'll be splitting this post into two parts so as not to post the longest entry in the history of the blogosphere ;)
We start our day a little bit earlier than the rest of our building because we're overachievers. Because our classroom is part of a special education cooperative, our students come from two other districts using school buses from those districts.
We get ourselves settled, turning in our homework and communication notebooks. Then we do our morning work, practicing our personal information and putting our calendars together.
We have a morning meeting where we talk about our calendar and schedule. We practice greetings with each other and talk about any special events that might be happening.
Next we use our nifty overhead projector to complete a language arts/social studies activity. We use an online curriculum called Unique Learning Systems, reading a chapter together and answering some comprehension questions. Because the students in our class have different different language and cognitive needs, we differentiate (individualize) like crazy! For example, I may ask one student "What color is the bird?" while I ask another "What do birds eat?" and yet another "Touch the bird". This way we're meeting all of the diverse needs in our class while working on a lesson that is based on state standards.
After our group lesson, the kids complete independent work while we take turns pulling them out to work on their individualized goals (for example, one student might have this goal "When presented with a coin, student will identify the name and value in 3/4 trials on three data days" while another student's goal might read "when presented with a visual clue, student will answer wh- questions with 80% accuracy on three data days").
At 9:00, we head off to specials... I mentioned in a previous post that our class splits up to participate in different general education classes like art, music and wellness (the fancy new name for PE).
After specials end at 10:30, we head back to our room and have a snack. Sometimes our speech therapist joins us to practice using our manners and communicating appropriately (asking others to pass food, making conversation, answering/generating wh- questions).
I read aloud from a chapter book for about 15 minutes - right now we're wrapping up Pippi Longstocking. Some other books we've read include Where the Red Fern Grows (not the best choice for a Lifeskills read-aloud!), any and everything Kate DiCamillo has written (Because of Winn-Dixie) and Frindle.
After reading, we work on our interactive sight word wall. Our wall has 18 words that change every month. The words are part of the Unique Learning System monthly units we study. We usually do two or three different activities then take a MUCH NEEDED break!
We head down to lunch where we grab our food and chat with our FABULOUS cashier, Miss Kelley. She always brightens our day (and I'm pretty sure we brighten hers too!).
That wraps up our morning~
thanks for checking it out!
To be continued...
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