Christmas Tree

While we were busy in the JK - grade 3 room, my co-worker, Ms. Holland, decorated the Christmas tree with the grade 4 - 8s. What a lovely Christmas tree!

Front Door Decorations

The outside of the rooms were decorated as well by all of us! Here is a wreath of hands on one of the doors...

...and a paper Christmas tree of hands with a present drawn on the paper underneath the hand. When you lift the hand up you can see the many ideas of presents that the students, Ms. Holland and I made.
(I couldn't rotate it upwards :-) so please look at it sideways!!

Let it snow...let it snow...let it snow.....

Thanks to the students at the Before School programme we decorated part of the room with snow flakes!

Some decorations that my co-worker and I created with the students are here!

When you put them together it contributed to a lovely atmosphere in the room - take a look!

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in our Teaching Community

I found an interesting article the other day about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome that I thought I would share with you entitled Designing Behaviour Intervention Plans for students with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Programming Considerations and Strategies: Beyond Behaviour.  This resource influences my thought and practice about the condition significantly because it divides the problem up and lists strategies that I will be able to use in my teaching. I can see similarities of strategies that are used with other disabilities that help teach to students with them. For example, to use manipulatives and concrete examples is a common strategy used with many learning disabilities. This article helps me deal with the condition and this is important because I know that it is on the rise. From researching this subject I discovered that there are approximately one in every 100 live births that have characteristics that are attributed to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Studies have shown that it has increased over the years and is continuing to increase. This article influences my practice because it better equips me with the tools that I can add to my skills set to make me a better teacher.

Website for this Article: http://bit.ly/xxOkTQ

 If you cannot access this website I have pasted Table 4 below:
 Table 4 CONSIDERATIONS AND STRATEGIES FOR TRANSITIONS IN THE LEARNING DOMAIN
PROGRAMMING CONSIDERATIONS
• Assess amount and type of transitions, identifying diffi cult areas and transitions.
• Assess staff needs and re-assign, if necessary, to transition points. Train staff in recognizing diffi culties in transition and in cueing student
through transition times.
• Modify demands of transition and/or provide peer or adult support throughout transition.
SAMPLE STRATEGIES
• Provide visual cues for transitions, such as clock faces, picture of next environment, cards with time remaining shown, signal cards with
colors/actions on them, large calendar of daily schedules.
• Review daily and weekly schedules with students throughout day, pointing out changes, when they will occur, and expectations for each
period. Post small version of daily schedule on desk and large version on wall of classroom.
• Devote time to rehearsing the behavior expected for transitions and future events.
• Provide visual and concrete organization tools, such as charts, folders, notebooks, pictures related to transitions (e.g., pictures of books to
take to next setting, how to walk to music class). Paste a chart in student’s locker, if student transitions to other

Tribes

Tribes training for teachers would create a positive learning environment which would include all students and ensure equity because it is a process developed to create active listening, mutual respect, the right to participate/pass and appreciation/no put downs within the community of learners. The success of Tribes’ process is based on reflection and energizers whereby students are required to reflect on a social connection that they personally made as well as the information they learned. The energizers are to stimulate the brain, cerebral cortex, where the higher order thinking skills occur. This works because research shows that students learn best when personal previous connections occur and students actually feel as though they can think better. This process brings students together for a sense of belonging and it brings them out of themselves and into the lesson for active engaged learning. It includes all students so that each and every student feels comfortable because they learn how to get along and to work together in collaborative groups. It ensures equity because there are no put downs and everybody appreciates each other. It develops interdependence and connection with others for continued success. For more information about Tribes please visit http://tribes.com

Rememberance Day

Thanks to Benedict, Dhillon, Benjamin, Natalie, Joshua, Jefferson, Hayden, and Daniel for putting their ideas together to make a quilt for Rememberance Day 2011. We worked hard on it all week and completed it today with Dhillon and Benedict sewing the last piece of yarn this afternoon after school. Lest We Forget.

Special Education

I am currently taking an Additional Qualification course in Special Education and we are learning about the many learning disabilities that some students have related to behavioural, emotional, and physical well being. Here is a newsletter that I created based on Learning Disabilities for Teachers:

Learning Disabilities and How to Teach to students who have them   by Karen Plumb

What is a learning disability?

In general students who have learning disabilities demonstrate difficulty with some or all of these skills and abilities with some consistency over a period of time:

-          receptive language skills (listening, reading);

-          language processing skills (thinking, conceptualizing, integrating);

-          expressive language skills (talking, spelling, writing);

-          socio-emotional maturity;

-          ability to sustain attention.

Does Your Student require support in the following areas?

- understanding and following directions;

- interpretation of language and/or extent of vocabulary;

- reading, comprehension, and mathematics;

writing, spelling, grammar, and/or oral - - -expression of language;

- organizing and sequencing thoughts and ideas;

- the social use of language;

- consistent performance;

- strategies for reception, storage, and production of information;

- long- and/or short-term memory;

- focusing attention and/or initiating tasks and sustaining concentration;

- generalizing learning or transferring skills/knowledge from one setting to another;

 - producing answers in spite of mastery of content;

- solving problems and/or dealing with multiple tasks;

- social skills;

- self-esteem and/or anxiety.

                                                                             

What is Differentiated Instruction?

Differentiated Instruction is when the teacher is able to differentiate his/her teaching according to  - content (what the students learn); process (activities the students do); and product (the outcome based on the learning)! Teachers should tailor the teaching plan to specific students based on the students’ needs, strengths and weaknesses. The teacher needs to change the focus of his/her teaching to student based pedagogy by making accommodations and modifications to meet the needs of the student. This enables the teacher to incorporate the interests of the students into his/her lesson and teach to the different levels of ability in the classroom.

  

Some general teaching strategies for students with Learning Disabilities  include:

-          Use visual cues, concrete examples, and outlines for the lessons

-          goal setting; adjust the learning goals to suit the ability of the student

-          check in with the student regularly

-          praise and rewards for good effort and improvement

-          allow short breaks for those who have difficulty with attention

Differentiated Instruction Tips: Use open ended tasks; Provide many different examples and questions; Use Parallel tasks; tiered assignments

How Do I Teach Social skills?

-          provide opportunities for positive self expression

-          teach students how to initiate, maintain and conclude a conversation

  Differentiated Instruction Tips: Encourage effective group work by using a class profile; allow multimedia for presentations

                                                           

How Do I Teach Good Organization Skills?

-          encourage the use of lists and personal planning organizers

-          help the student with time management

-          use outlines

  Differentiated Instruction Tip: show the student how to use graphic organizers

               

How Do I Teach based on Motivation?

-          provide opportunities for co-operative learning

-          encourage checking his/her own work

-          involve the student with the format of an assignment

  Differentiated Instruction Tip: Scaffold concepts according to students’ zone of proximal development; use positive reward system

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/ocup/documents/speced2002.pdf

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/speced/panel/speced.pdf