Fire Safety

We are very thankful that Garden Spot Fire Rescue took the time to visit us at Blue Ball Elementary. We were able to see the giant firetruck, watch a firefighter get dressed in all of the gear to keep them safe, and even hear the horns and sirens! The firefighters were also gracious enough to give us our very own firefighter hats and coloring books! Thank you, Garden Spot Fire Rescue for taking the time to teach us all about what you do and how to be safe in the event of a fire. img_2694 img_2698 img_2700 img_2702 img_2704 img_2706 img_2708

Fall is here!

We have been having a wonderful start to our school year! The students have adapted and adjusted well to their kindergarten or first grade year. Many new friendships are being developed! It’s so enjoyable to watch the children interact with one another, smile, laugh, and enjoy being at school. It’s been so fun and exciting working with each of the students and getting to know their personalities. I am so impressed with how hard each of the students work day in and day out. I can truly tell that each student is giving it their all! I am truly thankful to have a job that I love and look forward to coming to every single day!

We have been moving right along with our Equals Math Curriculum. This month, we have learned about the color orange and the shape of a triangle. We have had many fun experiences through music, videos, art projects, and hands on activities.

Last week, we had our fall school picture day. While it was a bit tiring and overwhelming, we made it through! Tomorrow we have hearing screenings and then our fire safety program from the firefighters at our local fire department. It’s always neat to see the big fire truck and all of the equipment that the firefighters use to keep us safe. I will be sure to take some pictures tomorrow!

 

A New School Year Begins!

We are so excited that a new school year has begun! We have been busy working hard these first four weeks of the new school year. All therapies have now begun so we are eager to grow and learn new skills. We have already had three assemblies this year! The first was on our school wide “High 5” Positive Behavior Support Program. The students get to earn “High 5 Coupons” throughout the day that can then be redeemed for prizes! Students earn these tickets by demonstrating any of the 5 traits of good students– Be Responsible, Always Try, Do Your Best, Cooperate with Others, and Treat Everyone with Dignity and Respect. Our class will be going to the High 5 store on the first Monday of every month. Our second assembly was fun, engaging, and interactive. We got to see the Science Explorers come to our school to do a presentation about science and experiments. It was REALLY fun and exciting! Our final assembly was all about our PTO Fundraiser this year. The PTO does so much for our school- it is super important that we help support them by participating in their fundraiser. This year the PTO is sponsoring an in house field trip/assembly just for our MDS classrooms! We are REALLY excited and anxious to plan something fun just for our class! Please consider supporting the PTO and their fundraiser.

Below are some pictures from our first few weeks of school. Enjoy!

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Spring is here!

We are so happy that Spring is here! We have had some really nice, warm, sunny days! When those days are here, we take full advantage of spending time outside. We love going outside on the playground- both the “small” playground outside of our classroom and the “big” playground with the other classes here at Blue Ball. The students love going the swing, the slide, the teeter-totter, or even just soaking up the sunshine!

We have been busy learning! It’s hard to believe we are almost all the way through the letters of the alphabet- this week our letter of the week is letter x! It’s been exciting hearing the students attempt to make the sounds of the letter, identify the letter, doing art projects, and just having exposure to letters/words. We LOVE learning and trying new things! Of course we have been busy with our therapies, IEP work sessions, and Unique Learning lessons.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks of school!IMG_2176 IMG_2179 IMG_2203 IMG_2206 IMG_2249 IMG_2260 IMG_2268 IMG_2324 IMG_2338

Winter updates!

Hi all!

I apologize for the lack of posts lately. Things have been so busy around here! We have been busy learning new skills and improving on our current skills! We are definitely ready for warmer weather so that we can start going back outside for recess.

We enjoyed all of the holiday concerts and assemblies that we had back in December. Our MDS team team even decided to join in the craziness as “Seven Swans a Swimming” during our holiday sing-along! We had a lot of fun!

Enjoy the photos!

Abi Happy Charlie Christopher Group 1 Keira Noah Seven Swans a Swimming

Be well!

Increasing Communication

As you may know, I LOVE reading blogs by other special education professionals. I just came across this blog post that shares 5 ways of increasing communication at home. I think these are great, simple ways to increase communication skills, whether these communication skills are in the form of verbal, gestural, or using devices. These are things that we often do in the classroom to help build communication skills. Let me know what you think and if you do or try any of these ideas at home! 🙂

http://www.friendshipcircle.org/blog/2015/11/04/5-strategies-to-create-communication-opportunities-at-home/

Pictures!

I wanted to share some pictures from our first few weeks of school! Obviously I didn’t take too many yet as we have been so busy just getting used to our classroom schedule and routines! We have a great group of students! They are really starting to warm up to one another and engage with each other. 🙂

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My favorite blog

I wanted to share with you all a blog that I absolutely love! It’s called Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs. The author posts many great ideas, strategies, and resources for working with students with special needs. She also has many links to other great blogs and websites. I’ve been following her blog for over a year now and I am still finding out new things from looking back at her previous posts and hyperlinks to other sites. The website is http://teachinglearnerswithmultipleneeds.blogspot.com/

 

Check it out and let me know your thoughts!

 

A New School Year!

Welcome to the start of the 2015-2016 school year! We are excited for another year of learning, playing, and growing together! We have many new faces in our Primary MDS classroom this year. We have a total of 7 students in our class this year. We have 4 kindergarteners, 1 first grader, and 2 second graders! Miss AJ is back again as our MDS classroom nurse and Miss Heather is back again as the classroom paraprofessional. I am happy to have two wonderful ladies working with me to form our awesome classroom team!

These first couple of weeks we have been spending time getting to know one another, our new classroom, and our school! The students have started attending their Special classes each day and really seem to be enjoying them! The therapists have also begun seeing their students so things are moving right along!

We started our Unique Learning curriculum this week. Our theme for this month is leadership. This week our story is called “Follow the Leaders” and it focuses on different people who lead different places or activities. The focus is on parents, teachers, principals, mayors, governors, and the President! Each week I create a Power Point presentation that includes photos and videos that tie into our story for the week.

Hopefully the cooler fall weather will arrive soon so that we can enjoy time outside on the playgrounds! Within the next week or two we will also have sixth grade helpers joining our classroom for a period in the afternoon. The students will be getting to know our class and will help lead activities. It will be a wonderful experience for all involved!

Take care and enjoy these lovely September days!

Spring is finally on its way!

We are so happy to have made it through the winter! Fingers crossed we will not get any more snow. We are so eager to be able to go outside for recess and play on the playground!

We have been very busy working on our goals and learning about new things! We had a blast at The Hands on House Assembly last week. We were very disappointed that two of our students were absent that afternoon so they did not get to enjoy the fun. Hopefully next year everyone will be here to enjoy the fun! The theme was “Senses Safari” and they had lots of fun, hands on activities related to animals and their senses. It was a lot of fun! Thank you to the PTO for bringing in that event! We LOVED it!

We also had fun participating in “The Big Read” here at Blue Ball. Every day in morning meeting we listened to a chapter from the story. We also had fun celebrating Dr. Seuss’s birthday! We heard lots of different stories and songs, and did fun art projects to celebrate!

Here are some fun pictures from our last few months at school. Enjoy!Early Spring 2015 046 Early Spring 2015 049 Early Spring 2015 062 Early Spring 2015 063 Early Spring 2015 067 Early Spring 2015 068 Early Spring 2015 082 Early Spring 2015 107 Early Spring 2015 113 Early Spring 2015 114 Early Spring 2015 116 Early Spring 2015 128 Early Spring 2015 131 Early Spring 2015 133 Early Spring 2015 137 Early Spring 2015 139 Early Spring 2015 152 Early Spring 2015 158 Early Spring 2015 159