August Work

We have had an enjoyable first month of school!  Everyone has made a smooth transition about going back to/learning our classroom routines.

We are continuing to do the main academic portions of our day as centers.  Students are grouped into three groups based on skill level/need, each group has 2-3 students.  The groups then rotate through three centers during both literacy and math times.  Right now, we are working for 8 minutes at each center.  Throughout the year the time will increase.  I display a visual timer during these center times as well as most work times.  The students have learned that whatever activity they are working on needs to continue until the timer goes off.  (I imagine this could easily be used for tasks/activities at home too... I use this timer, typically without sound.)

 Here is a look at center time:

Sorting: Money vs. Non-Money

iPad for small groups

Mrs. Frazee is also joining us at center times on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  She runs her own center during the literacy center time.  Mrs. Frazee always plans something fun and exciting for the kids to touch and explore as they work on their speech  goals.

 

We also are continuing to see Mrs. Frazee on Tuesday afternoons during social skills group with Ms. Weston(the school social worker).  The last Tuesday of the month is our game day.  The group games are designed to help the kids learn to play appropriately with peers.  This month we played Duck, Duck, Goose and Red Rover, two favorites from last year!

In the pictures below, we are participating in an activity where the students had to answer, "What did you do this summer?"  Ms. Weston and Mrs. Frazee had lots of visuals ready for the students to pair with speech.

  

Back to School!

We had a terrific first day back to school!  It seems like every year our first day back becomes more and more impressive.

I will be sending notebooks home tomorrow.  Our buses arrived about 10 minutes early today, and I did not have a chance to write my messages in the books.  Everyone had a fantastic day.  We seemed to get back into our routine without any problems.

I can't wait to see everyone again in the morning :)

(Forgive the low-quality iPad pictures today... my camera battery was dead!)

Everyone followed directions quickly and easily today.  Here we are about to do a group activity with letter sounds and words on the big screen :)

Reading Time

A relaxed version of Reader's Workshop today.

Exploring with watercolor paints this afternoon.

Making up their own game during a break time.  It was fun to see our classroom friendships go right back to normal!

Relaxing with the iPad during a break time.

We will be beginning Specials(art, gym, technology, music) tomorrow with our general education classes.  Next week we will begin adding more general education classroom times as well. 

It's Almost Time...

• Tuesday, July 30th from 5:00-6:00pm will be our Turrill Open House.

• Our first day of school is Wednesday, July 31st.
• Take note that the time of our school day has changed to match the rest of the building.  We will now begin school at 8:29am and end at 3:25pm.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone as well as getting to know some new friends who have been added to our classroom.  We are extremely lucky to have all four of our terrific classroom paraprofessionals returning this year, so there will be many familiar faces to greet the students on Wednesday morning!

Spring Happenings

We have been busy, busy, busy enjoying the nice weather, finding exciting ways to get through Spring Fever in the classroom, and preparing to end the school year.  Here is a peek at a few of the things we have been enjoying.

Reading Outdoors
We have taken some of Reader's Workshop time outdoors to enjoy some fresh air and sunshine.

 

Sorting Tasks:
We have been working on visual sorting tasks where the kids are required to sort various pictures by category.  So far we have been sorting items by Food, Person, or Toy and Winter vs Summer.  It has been much more challenging than I expected, but also helped me to realize that this is a skill we need to spend more time working on!  We are also using categorization as we are beginning to work with coins and the concept of money.  We have been sorting money vs non-money (buttons).  I am preparing them for learning the difference between the four common coins (penny, nickel, dime, quarter) and eventually their values next year.

Mother's Day:
I hope you all enjoyed your child's Mother's Day gift as much as we enjoyed making them together!

Cooking to Learn
There is a cooking curriculum program designed to prepare students with special needs for eventually becoming independent in their own food preparation.  The Cooking to Learn program has several picture directed recipes that guide students through the process of creating an easy food item.  The bonus is we get to talk about measuring (which tools to use to measure liquids vs solids), counting, taking turns helping with each step of the recipe, incorporating speech, and many more functional skills.  We have been making our recipes on Friday afternoons followed by a 10 question comprehension activity (with visuals).

 

Camping Day
For a fun change in routine, we had an entire day with a camping theme.  We followed all of our regular routines, but each of our activities had a camping twist!  Our camping day last school year was a hit, but to keep it exciting I knew we needed something extra special... so, Mr. Bob offered to bring the tent! :)  It was an exciting day filled with lots of smiles and learning.

Piecing together sentence strips with camping vocabulary during Center Time.

Creating a campfire art project - and working on our fine motor skills!

Reading a camping themed book during Reader's Workshop.

Following the Cooking to Learn recipe for s'mores!

Technology in Our Classroom

We have been extremely lucky to have access to an abundance of technology in our classroom this school year.  We have gone from having two desktop student computers to a classroom iPad and eight netbook laptops (aka one for each student!).  For a classroom full of technology lovers, it has been heaven!  We are most frequently using the laptops during our reading/writing center time.  Some of the kids (and my!) favorite websites are:
Starfall - Lots of letter and reading activities.
ABCya - Reading, Math, and Fun games sorted by age level.  We use a lot of the Kindergarten games within the classroom.
Raz-Kids - Log-in under: NWilberding and find your child's name.  The website reads stories at each child's reading level. 

  

We are also extremely lucky to have our own classroom iPad.  This is by far the most beloved item in our classroom.  I use the iPad as part of my whole and small group lessons, and I have never seen everyone so engaged.  It also has been a motivating reward for students to complete their work or for positive behavior.  The best part is that they often will play on an education app during reward time! :)

Some of our favorite apps:

Wet Dry Try - Handwriting Without Tears Writing App

PBS Kids

Puzzle Toddlers

Endless ABC - Fun alphabet matching app, the letters take on characters and make fun letter sounds.

Sound Sorting Beginning Sounds - A Lakeshore Learning App for sorting beginning sounds.

Word Wizard (by Montessori) - MY FAVORITE APP.  You can import your own word lists and drag the letters to spell each word.  It also has pre-entered sight word lists.  I use this more than any other app.

ABC Easy Writer (Numbers)

 

Valentine's Day to Dr. Seuss

Valentine's Day:
The week of Valentine's Day was filled with some fun and exciting activities, as you will see below.  While it was a little strange to not have our own classroom party for Valentine's Day, it was amazing to see every student go to their general ed classroom party.  It was definitely one of my proudest moments so far this year!  Peeking in on the parties and seeing each child interacting with their classmates and displaying their best behavior was so wonderful - I was so proud of each and every one of them!

Mrs. Frazee and Ms. Weston planned an activity where we delivered Valentines to classmates.

During Literacy Centers we created a Valentine book focused on filling in the pronoun/sight word "I."

Working on a Valentine Speech Center lead by Mrs. Frazee.

During math, we sorted and counted colored Valentine Candy Hearts.

Creating our Valentine Bags.

We painted hearts to make Valentines for our classmates.

Creating tactile hearts during a fun center on Valentine's Day.

Mrs. Frazee planned Valentine's Day activities for speech too!

Reading:

Working on sight words and fine motor skills by dotting along each of our words with paint and a pencil eraser.

Listening to books on www.raz-kids.com.

Social Skills Group:
Ms. Weston planned a fun language and turn-taking project for our first group time since returning from the long break.  She read a story about animals in the winter, and then we made bird feeders.  The bird feeders are now hanging on the tree right outside our classroom window.  We can't wait to see our first bird!

Feeling the bird seeds.

Dr. Seuss Week: 
Our first week back from break we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday by working on some Dr. Seuss activities throughout the week.  We read Dr. Seuss stories during our reading time (The Cat in the Hat and Hop on Pop were classroom favorites!), created a printable book which used repetitive text and color words "Lorax, Lorax, What do you see?", and created a Cat in the Hat art project.  On Friday, we ended the week by listening to Green Eggs and Ham and then made our own green eggs and ham.  Everyone enjoyed cooking the eggs, but actually eating them had mixed reviews!

Waiting for the eggs to cook is tough!

These three were NOT fans of green eggs and ham!

But a few people thought they were delicious!

Reminder: **There IS school on Friday, March 15th.**  
This was originally a scheduled day off, but we will be making up a snow day on this day to avoid shortening our summer break.