How We Roll

Since I'm just starting to share our journey in the blogosphere and some of you might not be so familiar with my program, I thought I should share a little bit about how my Lifeskills class runs and what we do on a daily basis. Bear with me as I take you through the nitty-gritty. I promise the next post will be more 'fun'!

Right now our class has six students, two full-time assistants, a speech therapist and occupational therapist (our therapists service more than just Lifeskills, but we spend TONS OF time picking their brains!). We are housed in a traditional classroom and are one of two Lifekskills classes in our middle school. Between the two Lifeskills classes are a kitchen, two bathrooms and a sensory room. Pretty nice setup, right?

We spend most of our time in the main classroom; this is where all of our academic instruction happens. We cover all of the subjects you'd find in a general education class - math, language arts, science and social studies. We also spend time focusing on functional things like social skills, communication, behavior, vocational skills (jobs) and what we call self-help/adaptive behavior (things like brushing teeth, etc.). 

Our classroom instruction is tailored to meet the individual needs of each student in Lifeskills. Each child has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that contains goals and objectives that are aligned to state standards. This means that ALL students in Lifeskills are working on state standards just like the rest of the students in the building. I'll fill you in on our curriculum and daily activities soon!

Our kitchen is used to help students learn important functional skills that will help them become more independent adults. We practice preparing meals, doing laundry and completing other household chores like sweeping, doing dishes, vacuuming, etc. 

We looooove our kitchen! Not only do we practice all of the skills I mentioned above, but this is where we p-a-r-t-y. We have group snack with our awesome speech pathologist. During group snack we practice our social skills; we work on having polite conversations, passing food, making requests and using our table manners. Important stuff, wouldn't you say?

The last part of the Lifeskills 'suite' is the sensory room. Last year the other Lifeskills teacher and I wrote a grant for sensory equipment - we were awarded a whopping $2000! It may look like a lot like a room full of balls, etc., but this room is a CRITICAL part of our program. Some of our kids have needs that can be addressed through visits to our sensory room. For more information on sensory supports, click here. Some of the things we purchased with the grant money are not shown in the picture (swing, tunnel, lights). We have all sorts of activities and items that help our kids self-regulate calm down and focus.

Well, that wraps up today's tour of Lifeskills! Thanks for visiting us and drop us a note anytime; we love making new friends!