An affirmation...

The current school year has come with many new challenges.  Our new Superintendent began her work with us in July and she came in with a bang.  There is no doubt that our district needs change, but, she really sent us into a tail spin.  We all started this school year wondering if what we were doing in our classrooms were the right thing.  Say what?!  Veteran teachers were beginning to question their pedagogy and methodology.  Greener teachers, like myself, saw this and began to tell ourselves that we had no idea what we were doing and that we definitely weren't going to make it.

No one wants to start the school year that way.  I knew that I wanted to start the new school year on a clean slate and that I wanted to have a great year.  I also knew that with every year I taught I was finding myself as an educator and that I was perfecting my craft.  So, to have these wants crushed before the first day of school seriously put a damper on things.

Today sometime happened that reaffirmed why I had wanted to become a teacher and that I was in fact a good one at that!

Two years ago I was beginning my second year of teaching.  I had been assigned to a new school.  A BIGGER school.  A HUGE school.  A school where I knew no one.  I hate change and I was SCARED.  I walked into school one week before school started and was told that I was going to have a cluster of Autistic students in my classroom and that I had to attend a "workshop" in 15 minutes to learn more about working with them.

The principal left.  I sat in my tiny, bare room and I cried.  This wasn't supposed to be this way.  I only had one year of teaching under my belt.  I AM NOT A SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER!  I CAN'T DO THIS!!!

I didn't know what to do other than cry and to call a former colleague/current classroom volunteer. I cried to her, I told her the situation.  She comforted me, I dried my eyes and I headed up to the "workshop".  Once I found my way to the conference room (this school is so confusing!) I saw two childhood friends sitting there.  I started to feel some relief.  They too were going to be working with Autistic students in their general ed classrooms at other schools.  Both of them had already had some experience with this; I knew I was in good company.

The meeting ended, I found my volunteer in my very empty and tiny room and we got right to work getting that room into shape.  I went home that night and I sobbed in my husbands arms.  He held me and told me that I could in fact do this and that I would be great at it.

The rest of that week I worked on getting my room ready and talked to my friends about working with the ASD students.  I also met the Speech Therapist, the Occupational Therapist and the Behavioral Therapists.  Talk about overwhelming!

Finally, the first day of school arrives!  I am feeling a bit better about things and I finally meet all 20 of those little people.  I see my four students who are part of the cluster.  "Okay, I can do this." I tell myself.  I soon learn that I do not have a paraprofessional assigned to the cluster yet.  Great.  Now what?  Luckily, my volunteer was with me that day and we made it through.  But, not without some challenges.  This is where my friend K comes in.  He was part of the cluster and by far the lowest functioning of them.  He was non-verbal, he couldn't sit on the rug like the rest of the students, he had a lot of stims, his fine motor skills were very limited and he had no academic skills.

Two weeks later I was finally joined by a paraprofessional and she was great!  She had experience working with students on the spectrum and was a tremendous help.  With the help of the para, the speech therapist, the occupational therapist and the behavioral therapists I began to learn more and more about how to teach students on the spectrum.  We made a fine team and by the end of December K was beginning to answer simple questions, sit on the rug with the rest of the students and was beginning to acquire color and shape recognition.  We continued to work hard with K as a team and by June he was able to carry a quick conversation, make eye contact, ask for help, recognize all colors and shapes, write his name and most letters and he was beginning to recognize some letters.  It was decided that he was to repeat Kindergarten and Mom was very adamant that he repeat it with me.

I was over joyed!  I was EXCITED!!  I was PROUD of myself!!!  When September came around K entered like any other student just beginning Kindergarten.  He had the same skill set that they did.  He continued to make huge gains that year and the team continued to work as hard as we could.  By June he knew all letters, letter sounds, numbers, could write his first and last name, could answer complex questions, could read some sight words and could add.  As I watched him get his "diploma" at graduation I stifled my urge to cry.  Although, they were happy tears!  He had come so far.  He did it!  WE DID IT!!

Fast forward to today, in K walks with the para.  He's holding a level 1 reading book in his hand. 

His para announces that he came to read to us.  My volunteer happened to be in today.  We were in luck.  We were going to need tissues.  Lots and lots of tissues.  K sat down next to me and he began to read.  He read every single word in that book.  He needed some coaching every now and again.  But, HE READ THE BOOK!  HE READ THE BOOK!!!!! Tears started to fall from my eyes as I gave him a big hug.  My volunteer rewarded him with two stickers and a hug as well.  I thanked the para for bringing him in to read to us.

That little visit reaffirmed everything for me.  I reminded me that I am a good teacher and that I do know what I am doing.  I feel blessed.  I feel so proud.  I feel like a true educator.

Elf Journals Cont.

Yesterday we found Rosabelle on our cabinet with a note from Santa.  Here are two writing examples from yesterday:

The students copied the sentence from the whiteboard and had to draw their own picture.  The first example is from one of my regular ed students.  She has super handwriting and she is very detail oriented!  The second example is from one of my ASD kiddos.  He is a repeater and has worked so very hard last year as well as this year and he is doing so well!

The day before yesterday, Rosabelle was on the shelf.  How appropriate!  She was sitting beneath the palm tree and next to the luau pig!  The examples here are from the same students shown above:

Again, the students had to copy the sentence from the whiteboard and draw their own picture.  The students are doing really well creating these sentences together as well as copying them from the board.  They are putting their sight word knowledge to good use!

Here is what Rosabelle was up to today:

She made a mess of our name card on the chart and she added her own name!  I'll post some student writing examples tomorrow!  Rosabelle might be staying in the North Pole tonight as the kiddos were a little out of hand today. 

I Love Starfall!

  I was first introduced to Starfall when I was still in Graduate School.  I thought it was an excellent resource and I couldn't wait to use it in the classroom!  Today we had some extra computer lab time, so I set the students up on Starfall and they were working away.  I find that this website is especially great for those of my students on the spectrum.  Watching one of my ASD students was singing along to the alphabet song and was guessing all of the letters correctly in the alphabet maze; it was great!

  I also love the Starfall ABCs iPad/iPhone app.  My daughter has been using it for a while and she loves it. It is just the alphabet portion of Starfall but it the exactly the same as it is on the computer!  They also have a Learn to Read app as well as 4 other themed apps that are also on the Starfall website.

  Another neat thing about Starfall is that they have free downloads.  I love to use the ABC Printouts with my kiddos when we are learning letter sounds.  It's really great because the correspond with the pictures and words used on the website/app as well. 

  If you haven't already go check out Starfall! You'll love it!

Finding Something They Like

  One of my ASD students is a repeater.  He was with me last year as well.  He came in without any language/communication skills, distracting stims and no basic preschool knowledge/skills.  By the end of the year last year, he was carrying conversations, wasn't stimming and was able to identify shapes and colors.  Unfortunately, he needed much more than that to go on to first grade.  This year I knew that we had to get him to master letter recognition, letter sound recognition, number recognition, etc.  I first wanted to tackle letter recognition. Last year, I had sent home a set of flashcards.  They were just handmade oaktag flashcards with just the letters on them.  This year, I had a great idea.  He loves superheros; all of them!  From Spiderman to Batman to the Incredible Hulk; he knew and loved them all.

  So, I jumped on Google and started searching.  I was very excited to have found a wonderful set of Superhero Alphabet Flashcards on TeachersPayTeachers!  If you'd like to check them out yourself, click here.  I printed and laminated two sets of the uppercase set.  I kept one at school and I sent the other set home.  He has been using them for almost a month now and he has gone from recognizing only 3 letters to recognizing 16 letters.  It has been AMAZING!  I am pretty sure he's going through a growth spurt because he can also recognize numbers 1-6 (numbers we have covered thus far) and he can also recognize all of his color sight words as well as the word "the".

  Myself as well as the other support staff keep marveling at how much he has changed over the last year.  It has been such an amazing transformation and he often brings tears to our eyes with his accomplishments.

What Are You Thankful For?

November is a month to reflect on what we are truly thankful for.  I center my Thanksgiving lessons around this as well as the history of the holiday.  Every year I have done a "Thinking Thankful Thoughts" lesson.  I begin the lesson with reading Thanks for Thanksgiving.

  Then, I discuss with the children what I am thankful for.  Once I have given them my list, I have each student tell me one thing that they are thankful for.  Sometimes this can be a difficult concept for the students on the spectrum, but, with the help of our para and some visual cues from the book, they can usually tell us.  After we have all taken a turn, I introduce the craft that we will make.  It begins with a piece of white paper that has been cut into a circle to fit on the inside of an orange paper plate.  This is where the students will draw what they are thankful for.  Once they have drawn their picture, they will then explain to the teacher what they are thankful for.  We write in their responses and help them to glue the paper into the middle of the paper plate.  When they are all completed, we put them out in the hallway into a pumpkin patch.  It ends up looking like this:

  So, there you have a fun and simple craft to display what the students are thankful for! 

How to Make a Small Classroom Work

  Another down side to being a new teacher is not having a permanent classroom.  In my last post I explained that my classroom is an added classroom.  We have such large enrollment numbers at my school that we have 5 Kindergarten classrooms!  So, with that being said, I also have the smallest of the 5 classrooms.  My classroom isn't even technically a classroom.  But, that's fine by me!  While everyone else has wall to wall carpet (yuck!), I have a nice tiled floor.  The room is a lot brighter and stays a lot cleaner this way!

 Last year, I was thrown into the classroom with only 5 days before the K students were to start school.  As I mentioned before, this wasn't being used as a classroom.  So, that meant I had to find tables, chairs, a computer, etc.  Once these things were in the room, with the help of my volunteer (who is fabulous by the way!), we put the room together as quickly as we could.  We didn't really have the time to stand back and assess the space.

  Here are a few shots of my room last year:

   It looked cute and seemed like a good set up, but when the 21 students were in the room it was quite cumbersome.  This year, I had more than enough time to adjust the classroom, and I knew what worked and what didn't in this room.

  So, here is how it looked in August:

  Here is what it looked like just before school started:

  Over the summer our school suffered a small fire.  Due to that fire, it misplaced some of the summer ASD programs and they ended up using my room while the were repairing the fire damaged rooms.  So, I now have an air conditioner in my room!  It is in the only window in the room which is where my desk used to be.  I ended up moving my desk because there was no way I could sit in front of the a/c.

  As you can see the room is too small to have centers, so we rotate centers at the tables each day.  Each of the tables are color coded (red, blue, green, yellow) with a strip up duct tape down the middle and a corresponding basket.  Our calendar/whiteboard area is the main focus of the room.  This is where we spend a lot of time learning!  There is also a kidney shaped table that is used for teacher directed group work as well as a desk for our volunteer!

  I promise to posted more updated classroom pictures in a future post with further details of each area!

Being a New Teacher...

Being a new teacher in the district definitely comes with its downfalls.  Until you have three full years of teaching under your belt in our district, you are pretty much a free agent within the district.  So, what does that mean for me?  Well, it means that at the end of every school year, I have no idea what school I am going to be at or what grade I will teach until the end of August.  Unfortunately, at the end of my first (half) year, I did not get a call back until the beginning of October.  It was then I began my first year teaching Kindergarten.  It was at a smaller school in the district; they needed to open up a third K classroom to accommodate such large registration numbers.  Because I didn't start teaching on the first day of school, this year does not count toward my professional status, just toward seniority/retirement.  Does that make sense?

  At the end of that first year, I was called back on the first day of school (beginning of Sept.) to a different school in the district; a much larger school.  The too, needed to open another K classroom due to large enrollment numbers. If being at a new school wasn't overwhelming enough as a new teacher, I was told that I would be the inclusion teacher and that I would have 3 students on the Autism Spectrum.  It was about that time that I freaked out inside!  I had no experience with this!  But, let me tell you, it was the best experience ever!  I truly learned a lot and I loved seeing the progress my ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) students made!

  Fast forward to the end of that year, I received my call back at the end of August!  Just in time to make a full year!  It was at the same school, in the same room and I was one of two inclusion K rooms!  So, if you've been able to keep track, I've officially been with the school department for close to 3 years.  Unfortunately, after completing the current school year, only 2 of those three years will count toward my professional status.

  What is professional status in my district you may ask?  Well, the only appealing thing about obtaining professional status is gaining the ability to bid on open positions at the end of the school year.  So, until then, I am at the will of the school department.  Who knows, next year I could be teaching 5th grade at another school.....