And Now The End Is Near

As my final day in my PDS approaches, I find myself having mixed emotions. On one hand I am very excited to have finished my first semester of my graduate year. On the other hand, I am very sad to be leaving my mentor teacher, my students, and the classroom aide. Through my internship, I have become very close to my students and am dreading not being able to see them every day. I also feel that through my internship, I have learned the most. I have learned not only how to modify and implement effective lessons to students with disabilities, but also how to deal with the "bumps in the road" that they bring. With that said, I have also been re-assured that special education is where I truly belong.

Yellow, Yellow, Everywhere

This week is the last week that I will be implementing my Action Research in the classroom. The color of the week this week is yellow. The first few days this week have not started off to a good start, but it was to be expected. Since the student I work with has Autism, I anticipated this being a hard week for him after being home from school all last week for the holiday. On Monday, the student was very agitated and would not focus at all when we attempted to explore through the color i.d boxes. On Tuesday, we worked on a computer game in which the child began on a good start, but soon became unfocused and wanted no part of the game. With that said, he can identify that a banana is yellow, but needs to be prompted to say the color "yellow". I usually prompt him with the beginning sounds. I also noticed that when asked what color a yellow object is, the student would respond with "banana" as the color. Although he was unable to state the word "yellow", I was happy that he was able to identify the color being the same color as a banana. I feel that it is at least important for him to be able to identify the color with the surrounding world.

Orange Ya Glad Thanksgivings Next Week?

The color of the week for my action research is orange. So far, the student that I have been working with has been doing a great job and is progressing very well. The colors we have worked with so far include red, blue and green. He is able to identify blue and green pretty well when asked but we still have our set-backs from time to time. For example, sometimes instead of looking at the object, this student will just respond with a color...it is always "green". When this occurs, I have to remind the child to focus and look at the object that we are discussing. Also when this occurs I try to get the child off of his "fixation" that he is currently having with the color green. Students with Autism often get fixated on certain objects or ideas. I feel that often occurs with this student because "green" is always the color of choice.

Although this student has been doing well, he refers to orange as "grenorange". I take this as his way of saying green but also including the orange into the mix. I hope by the end of the week to have him saying simply "orange".

What'd Ya Say?

This semester I have had the privilege of working in a special education classroom. With this semester quickly coming to an end, I have been starting to really reflect on my experiences and things that I have learned. Without a doubt, this semester has been one of the best and most rewarding experiences of my life. Not only have I learned so much about being a special education teacher but I have also learned a lot about myself.

In my elementary placement, I have had the privilege of working with great students. One student in particular, is a student that is non-verbal and autistic. This student is very bright and is capable of completing a lot of activities. When I first began this placement, the only word that this student was verbally speaking was "bye" at the end of the day. At this time, she was using a device in which she could press different buttons and the device would speak for her. Then, a blessing in disguise occurred when her device broke. 8 weeks later (still without a device), this student is saying her alphabet, potty, bye, good and also stating her spelling words. It goes without saying that this has been amazing to watch. Our next goal is to teach this student how to respond to yes or no questions without being prompted. I can't wait to see what the next few weeks will bring and better yet, how much progress she makes when I return for contract hours next semester!

Action Research

For the past two weeks I have been working on my action research with one of my students. The focus of my action research this semester is how differentiated instruction will influence a 2nd grader with Autism to self identify his colors. Through my research, I am beginning to find that although the student has a hard time self-identifying the colors, he is able to match objects according to their color. For example, today I had planned to have the student identify the color of the week (blue) through illustrations in the story If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Due to the fact that he was very distracted and not focused on the story, I changed my plans and instead had him pick out all of the blue dinosaurs and place them into a blue box. While doing so, I had this student repeat me as I said "Blue dinosaur" or "Blue box." Immediately after him repeating, I would ask, "What color is the dinosaur or the box?" Although he had just correctly picked out the blue dinosaurs from the pile, he was still unable to state that the dinosaurs were blue. Next, I assisted him on an interactive color website where he was to sort the objects according to their color. Since the color of the week is only blue, I just wanted him to find the blue objects. This student needs assistance when working on the computer, so at first I just had him point to the blue objects on the screen. Since there were so many objects on the screen to choose from, he was easily distracted by all of the objects so I instead began to ask him to find the (for example, Blue Mailbox). When he would identify the correct object, I assisted him in using the mouse to drag that object into the blue box. Once he identified the object correctly, I had him repeat "Blue ____". Immediately after, I would then ask him what color the object was. Although he wasn't able to identify the color blue for some of the objects, you could tell that he was thinking really hard about the answer when asked. I found this to be a really great sign because in the past, I was receiving only blank stares and no indication that he was focused. This student did the best when identifying the mailbox as blue. I am very eager to see what else I will learn through the rest of my action research.

Happy Harvest Week

In the upcoming week, my class is hosting a "Happy Harvest Week" with our students. Throughout this week, the students will participate in a specific theme and also complete different activities involving pumpkins. Our "Happy Harvest Week" begins on Monday when we will count the different seeds found in a carved pumpkin. On Tuesday, the students will participate in a school-wide hat day in which they will have to pay a $0.50 donation that will go to the United Way. In our classroom, we will also be having Tell & Show Tuesday (Show & Tell) as well as doing an activity where the students will be weighing their pumpkins and graphing the results. On Wednesday, we will be dressing for Wacky Wednesday and I am very excited to make my hair a little crazy and wear different shoes! We will also be doing an activity to see whether our pumpkins will float or sink. Thursday will be Thankful Thursday in which the students will bring in something that they are thankful for. Through this theme, we are hoping to promote the school-wide positive behavior support plan where the students show compassion and respect for something/someone meaningful to them. Our pumpkin activity of the day will require the students to measure their pumpkins with a ruler from the bottom to the top of the stem. They will also have to measure their pumpkin with cubes. For our final day of our "Happy Harvest Week", we will be having Fan Friday in which the students will dress in their favorite team's colors! Our pumpkin activity will involve the students finding the circumference of their pumpkins.

I am very excited to participate in "Happy Harvest Week" because I think that it will be a great way to get the students excited about learning. Due to the fact that the students are unable to dress up for Halloween, I think that these activities will allow the students to be excited about the entire season of Fall rather than just the Halloween day.

Whatcha' Packin' Sugar?

The topic of study in science this week for one of my students is the food pyramid and deciphering between healthy and unhealthy foods. After giving a brief presentation of the food pyramid, I allowed this student to play a game in which she was expected to drag the different foods into the correct food group. I was surprised to find that the shape of the food pyramid had changed into a plate rather than the well known pyramid. The student that I was working with has Autism and is non-verbal so it is often hard to read what she is thinking. Through this activity though, she was fully smiling throughout the entire activity which allowed me to know that she was enjoying it.

The end of my lesson involved this student participating in an experiment. First, I laid out 4 different snacks and explained that we were going to be sorting them according to healthy and unhealthy snacks. In order to complete this activity, I gave her a science log and had her write down her hypothesis of what snacks she thought were the healthiest through the unhealthiest. The snacks I provided were alphabet cookies, fruit roll-ups, apple sauce and a Reese’s cup. After her hypothesis was completed, I had her (using a tea-spoon) measure out the amount of sugar that is included in each snack. Due to the fact that conversions are too difficult for her to solve, I had converted the amount of sugar (which was presented in grams) into teaspoons so that it was easier for her to measure out. After measuring out the sugar in each snack, we compared the piles to determine which was the healthiest. My student had a blast with this activity and it really was eye-opening as to how much sugar is actually in each of the foods that we eat.