Today was the first day of our
Extended School Year. I'm lucky to have such a job! Despite the fact that there really is no budget for materials, and I work in a different school away from my stuff, and the children and parents are a little nervous, it is turning out to be a lot of fun. I'm making new friends, meeting new kids, and am challenged professionally by the severity of the communication difficulties the children are experiencing. Some of the children are returning from last year, and I'm amazed that they remember my room and toys (and ask for them)! I guess I do make an impact!
I'm working with two occupational therapists this year, and also have a graduate student speech intern from
UNC with me. We all came up with a beach theme for this week, and the first group of kids made jellyfish. Actually, they watched a short jellyfish video, made a jellyfish out of paper plates and streamers (did I mention that there is no budget for materials?), and then we all read a sea animals book. They did great--they used the word 'tentacles' and 'jellyfish', answered questions, filled in missing words, wrote their names, and cut with scissors perfectly!!! I can't wait to do this tomorrow with the next class. The next class has some children using more
AAC, so we will add communication boards and
Proloquo2Go to the mix.
These next shots are screen shots of the
Pictello app for the iPad--used to make step by step jellyfish direcetions. Only a few of the steps are pictured here. There is also text-to-speech capabilities with this app. It's very nice!
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| My biology major daughter advised me that jellyfish actually don't have eyes. Oh well! |
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| The sweet boys! |
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| I took words out of the book---amazingly, they were able to fill in lots of them with no prompting! |
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This was a great first day and a fun class. I'm looking forward to continued adventures in ESY!
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| Did I mention that Ms. Sandy is the teacher for this group? She's great! |
Hug my boys for me!
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