My New Favorite Blog

While I was perusing educational blogs this afternoon before class, I stumbled across Miss Allison's Class blog and was blown away by some of the stuff she had up. It is rare that I find blogs that garner my attention, let alone special education blogs that pique my interest but Miss Allison's really did.

Not only does she have some AWESOME ideas and blog entries (taco recipes and a blog on paraprofessionals...sounds vaguely familiar!) but she also put together a resource packet that had my jaw on the floor as I was looking through it!

The majority of students coming into my classroom have speech and language impairments, but this year I have two students who are diagnosed with autism. And while I've worked with students with autism before in both the private and public sectors, I am at a loss at what to do with one of the students in particular, who seems to be having sensory issues.

Low and behold, I come across Miss Allison's blog and find that she has created an entire "must-have sensory supports" packet, including pictures (for us visual learners!) Hallelujah! I immediately printed it out and will be taking it into my classroom tomorrow!

If you're a special educator and want some great ideas, I suggest browsing Miss Allison's blog. The least you will come away with is a slow-cooker recipe for chili chicken tacos!

RtI

We began RtI this week at my school campus and although I'm a special education teacher, my class has the opportunity to participate in RtI with the other kindergarten classes. Each kindergarten teacher - including myself - takes a group of students to work with and sends some of our students out to the other classrooms.

While RtI is mandated for all kindergarten teachers, what we do for RtI is completely up to the individual teachers. We aren't necessarily doing "interventions" in the sense the special education community would think of interventions, but we do work in small groups with specialized instruction.

I like RtI because it gives my students the opportunity to mainstream into the general education classrooms. Of the seven students that are currently in my classroom, four of them go out into one of the other RtI groups...which I think is pretty darn good!

Being the "skilled special education teacher," I get to take and teach the "super low" group of students. I only have two of my students stay with me for the RtI rotation and have about 7-8 other students from the three general education classes.

For my RtI group, I'm working on very basic skills such as learning to write their name and letter recognition and sounds. Our activities include singing a couple of different ABC songs and an alphabet sounds song and usually completing some sort of hands-on activity or worksheet.

This week we are working on the letter "A" and I had the kiddos complete an activity where they used magazines to find different "As." They then cut and paste the "As" onto the worksheet I made for this activity. (So, they're working on fine motor and phonics - double whammy!) Here's what the worksheet looks like...if you want a copy click here.

Hope y'all like it! I will try to post my next activity for RtI, if I can remember. Have a wonderful weekend...TGIF!

A Tale of Instructional Aides

My classroom, like many other special education classrooms, can only run smoothly and efficiently when all components are working cooperatively and effectively together. This is especially true in regards to classroom staff.

I am very fortunate to have three aides working in my classroom - two of which who have been working in this particular classroom longer than I have. From my four years as instructional aide and from working with aides now in a supervising teacher role, I have come to the conclusion that they are an integral part of my classroom and in order for my classroom to run smoothly, so must my work with my staff.

Although I have one new aide this year, my two "veteran" aides are wonderful. They provide the support when I need it, take initiative without direction, and ensure that things go according to plan...even when they don't. They go above and beyond and I feel very blessed to have such wonderful co-workers.

However, everything wasn't always peaches and sunshine in my classroom. I started my first year teaching working with an aide who had worked in this classroom for several years. I was the sixth teacher in six years, and I could understand how the aide felt entitled to the room. However, she did not make my first few months of teaching easy. She tried to assert her opinion at every turn and told me point blank that "this was not how things were run last year." She was very confrontational and the tension in the room was palpable. Although she was great with the kids, her professionalism was seriously lacking and it made for a very difficult work environment. Needless to say she did not last the year in my classroom.

I'm always amazed at the different teacher-aide dynamics that I have witnessed while working in the public school system. When I started my first year, I wanted to make sure that my aides knew what was expected of them in my classroom and that I had the same high expectations for them as I hold my students accountable to. (Not such a difficult request, right? Apparently it was though.)

I never made demands of my aides that I didn't think they would be able to accept. I showed them respect and consideration and I tried to make them feel that their opinions were always valued. I wanted to make sure that my classroom support felt a sense of ownership for our classroom...because that was a huge thing for me when I worked as an aide.

I always try to be the best teacher I can be, not only for my students but also for the other adults in my classroom who are watching me. I hope that I'm proving to be an exceptional role model...someone that they can respect. Because really, without that you have nothing.

The Good and the Bad

I have been really bad about blogging lately, and I'm kind of ashamed to say that with all the craziness that has been my life lately, updating my blog hasn't been high on my priority list. (Sorry, faithful readers!)

However, I did have time this evening to work out some of the design kinks in my blog and to post an update. I don't know what Blogger's deal has been but they need to get their business together! I was checking their Known Issues site and found that I must not be the only one experiencing issues with HTML edits and proper saving of changes. It makes me cranky that my blog doesn't work right and isn't esthetically pleasing!

In other news, this past week has been CRAZY at work! I had a new student start during the last week of September and he's been really tough...and I mean REALLY tough. He's thrown a major tantrum every day that he's been in class. And these aren't your average, run-of-the-mill, crying and screaming tantrums...these are the "grand Mal" of tantrums! He throws himself on the floor, will kick and hit anyone in close proximity to him, he bites (he's already drawn blood from one of my aides), he spits on my staff and myself, he uses profanity (he's only four and he uses the f-word and "bit*h" - among others)...all while he screams at the top of his lungs.

Now, I've had students in my class before that have thrown tantrums and who have been behavioral challenges. This new kid surpasses all the rest. Although the child was absent from school on Friday, I had an anxiety attack over the weekend just thinking about coming back to work yesterday and having to go through this whole ordeal again. And I consider myself a pretty tough cookie when it comes to dealing with stuff like this! This new kid is really stressing me out. Argh! I'm trying not to think too much about it because then it's only going to stress me out more. (Trying to think happy thoughts here!!)

In other news, I have officially become a "new leader" with the teacher-student travel ambassador program that I applied for. I have several information meetings that I need to attend and help out at, but I'm glad to get the opportunity to meet other teacher leaders and get "face time" with the company. My supervisor also said that there is still room on two trips for next summer - one to London/France (and surrounding cities) and the other to Australia - and she's going to slip me into one of those spots. Yay! Something to look forward to at the end of this school year! I'm really excited and cannot wait to get started.

Anyway, I will try to update on a more regular basis...and include some new freebies! Until then, think happy thoughts!

Under Construction

I don't know what's going on with Blogger! It's not allowing me to update my background and HTML and the stupid background is NOT the one that's scripted in the coding.

I blame Blogger for this. Until I figure things out, please forgive the mess.