I was so excited to plan my teaching year using themes to base my teaching and learning from. Yes, it is possible to teach this way in traditional schools, especially for Kindergarten and some elementary classrooms. However, it is a lot more difficult to reach all the curriculum goals in each subject once you start to teach Grade 1 and beyond.
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I'm quite sure what I was expecting as my first week as a special needs educator but I was NOT really prepared for the realities of my students. Many of my students are non-communicative, with several of them using a communication devices or only gestures to communicate their needs. At the academic level most were at about a pre-school level as well as globally functioning at a pre-school level, with all being in the Grade 2-3 age range.
My original thoughts and plans for teaching have for the most part, gone out the window. Now, I have a better understanding of my students needs and abilities and can plan my lessons and units more accordingly. This is definitely going to be an interesting year and a fantastic learning opportunity for me. I am excited! Well, due to my hubby's job relocation we find ourselves owning our first home and I have a new teaching job. It has been an eventful summer, full of tearful goodbyes and exciting possibilities for our future.
I was ecstatic when I was offered a job with Renfrew Educational Services as a Gr. 2/3 teacher. However, after the realization settled in that I had taken a job that required working exclusively with students with special needs, I'll admit a slight panic started to set it. What had I done?! I've never worked with with special needs children on a professional level before. But I had never taught a three grade split classroom before either, and I think I did pretty good. So I figured this can't be too much different. I can handle this task. Once seeing the school, my classroom, and the resources available I was put more at ease. Then when my principal informed me that one of the two Child Development Facilitators (CDFs) I would be working with had about 20 years experience with the school I calmed down even further. My other CDF was also new to the school, like myself, but not new to working with people with special needs. After having a few days of training and sitting down and planning with my new classroom staff, I was soon ready for my students to arrive and knew it was going to be a great year. The relationships that were building between the three of us in the classroom were getting off to a strong start and we seemed to all work together well. To compliment our social studies and science curriculum this year, the kindergarten teacher and myself took our classes to the Calgary Zoo for our year end field trip. We had such a blast! The long bus ride to and from the zoo provided us time have fun together singing songs and reminiscing over over our activities of the past year. I coordinated that our school would experience the Edu-Trek: Eurasian Safari. It was such a fabulous experience learning about extra facts of the animals and their habitats that you would not normally get to learn on a self-guided tour. While on our Edu-Trek we also were fortunate enough to take in the Tiger Training session and experience the penguins getting fed. It was also amazing that with the exception of the hippopotamuses, we were able to see EVERY animal we visited. I thought that was exceptional, because often when visiting a zoo, some of the animals are hiding or in positions in their sanctuaries that is not visible to the public. What a better way to end off the year than with a camping themed unit! As the teaching year winds up and all my final assignments are finished that are report card worthy, I thought I'd end my year with some camping. With the help of a good friend, I transformed my classroom into a campsite in the woods!
I found some great ideas from Pintrest, and awesome teaching ideas from Teachers Pay Teachers. I've taken bits and pieces from each to teach in my classroom.
So, it's no big secret that I love to watch movies, especially Disney movies. One of my favourite thing to do after I've finished watching a DVD is going through all the special features. It may drive my husband bonkers, but that's just what I like to do. I'll get to the relevance of this information in a moment. This year I was assigned the task of teaching the Grades 7-9 Art. Another challenge for me. I laughed out loud when I heard I had to teach it, but I was up for the challenge. I'm afraid that my brother was gifted with artistic abilities, not myself, so this was going to be an interesting adventure. It is a whole other ball game teaching junior high art, as opposed to elementary Now, back to my beginning thoughts.. After viewing The Good Dinosaur, I, like always immersed myself into the special features, and Disney never is lacking in special features. Anyways, one of the extra features inspired an art project for my junior high class. Recyclosaurus. Because Earth Day was coming up, I thought, what an excellent project! We have all sorts of materials lying around the school that we could use. I put my idea in motion and unleashed the project. I set similar parameter, in that the students were only given one roll of duct tape and could use any of the items that we found around the school, or that they brought from home. It was difficult for some students to come up with ideas, but the final products where fantastic!
I had the good fortune of attending a PD opportunity provided by the SAPDC regarding The Daily 5, Daily 3, and CAFE. Back in my PSIII, my mentor teacher used the Daily 5 in her classroom Language Arts program. I was really intrigued by it. So when I I had learned that there was an upcoming PD opportunity to learn about the Daily 5 and CAFE from the 2 Sisters close to home, I was ecstatic!
The two day workshop was AMAZING! I kind of wish it could have been longer so we had time to go over what it looks like and how it works in a classroom, or had more practical examples. However, because I attended the workshop I now have a 1 year subscription to their website www.thedailycafe.com which has a tonne of info and resources to help me integrate the Daily 5 and CAFE into my classroom. I am very grateful for that resource. Once I got back from the workshop, I was eager to get this program into my classroom. I got started as soon as I could. My students have been very receptive to the Daily 5. So far we have learned 3 (Read to Self; Work on Writing; Read to Someone) of the 5 Daily 5 components. I have not had an opportunity to formally introduce the CAFE components yet, although the students have learned some of them. I just haven't formally labeled the strategies. My students are excited to build their reading and writing stamina. We are well on our way to getting to 20 minutes of Read to Self time! For our last art project of the year my students created some very colorful and creative clay butterflies. As a of my own classroom and teaching the majority of subjects to my students, I love how you can easily make connections between different subjects and I find that with art being so subjective and versatile it is easy to connect to nearly any subject.
Our field trip to Police Point Park was a huge success and a great way to end our science unit! The weather was perfect, all of my little explorers were present, and we got more than we were hoping for on our safari. Our classroom was blessed with many extras on our excursion. There were two parts to our field trip. The first was our Bug Safari and the second was another little excursion where we ended the trail where we journaled what we saw and did. During our safari, we saw all types of little bugs. We found insects in all the different stages of growth from larva to adult. Along our trails we came across what we found out to be a rare discovery, especially around the park according to our guides. A couple of the students came upon a baby porcupine. It was so adorable and very well camouflaged, especially after it had entered into the thicker brush. The baby porcupine was definitely a highlight! I didn't think we would top the porcupine, but during our second excursion in a different area of a park we got a glimpse of large snake, which was most likely a rattle snake. It was sunning itself on the warm concrete, but quickly scurried away after the hearing and feeling the rumbles and squeals of our class! We were very vigilant after that. Not only that but we had one of our parents who came along found a jackpot of freshly shed snake skin. It was pretty cool. If that was not enough, while we were wrapping up our field trip, one of the other park workers came a cross a small garter snake in the parking lot and was gracious enough to bring it over to us to check it out. It was such a great day! |
GaddzuksI am a dedicated wife and hockey mom, who wishes to educate young minds on the side! Archives
November 2016
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