Run…

I had a TEENY bit of “me” time today before heading to an IEP meeting that’s pretty major!  It gave me a bit of extra time to run this morning (one of my own loves)!  I added 7.5 miles to my running shoes.  It was wonderful.  For those of you who have jobs in special education and/or a family member with special needs, you know how precious those few extra “me” time minutes can be!

My newest personal goal is to run a half-marathon that has a meaningful cause.  I have done 2 already and they always have for-profit purposes.  When I heard that Little Friends was going to be partnering with the first Naperville Marathon, I jumped at the chance to register.  I need to raise $200 to register though, and unfortunately $200 is not easy to come by…so I’m on a mission to raise that $200 and register for this race!  My personal challenge will be to finish it in under 2 hours!

Currently, I’ve raised $60, so I have $140 more to go!  I know many of my readers do not know me personally, but I ask you to at least consider donating.  It’s not a for-profit, the proceeds go straight to Little Friends, and it funds many fantastic resources, and classrooms, just like my own!  I really hope to be able to do this and benefit the students and agency that I have grown to love in these last few years.

Click here to donate!

Please think about it!  Thanks!  🙂  On another note, I have so nifty new strategies that I’ve

implemented recently, so I hope to get online this weekend and post them!

Happy Friday!

 

The Help

Sometimes my students can be very self-deprecating, and they will speak about themselves in negative terms.  I want them to remember that we all make mistakes, and it’s OK to remember that even through struggles and slip-ups, they are just as important as anyone else.  I came up with the following solution to help them remember that they are kind, smart, and important!

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I showed my students the following clip of the movie “The Help.”

Following the clip, I showed them the positive encouragement slips I had made.  The slip (pictured below) features the movie quote “You is kind, You is smart, You is important” and a space for a note from me or my teaching assistant.

When my students talk negatively about themselves, or feel down about their abilities, I (or my teaching assistant) give them a slip.  I make them look me in the eyes, and remind them that they ARE kind, smart, and SO VERY important, and then I hand over the slip.

I feel that Asperger’s and Autism can cause so much confusion, angst, and depression in the people it affects, especially teens.  My experience is that they can see the difference between themselves and other teens/adults around them.  When they notice that something is harder for them, takes them longer, is confusing, etc., they begin to feel negative about themselves.  I’ve found this slip to be a fantastic way to put a smile on the faces of my students, and to show them that we are all different, as well as smart, kind, and important in our own ways.

The most important part of that quote to me, and for my students, is that they know how VERY important that they are.  Autism, Asperger’s and disabilities in general hold a special place in my heart, and it is my hope that the individuals I work with or encounter are reminded that they are special and equally important, and that they take that knowledge with them wherever they go!

I hope that this post gives all of my readers an idea for how to incorporate positive encouragement in their classrooms, clinics, and even homes.  Please feel free to use this idea and card as a launching pad for your own positive encouragement method!

Happy Saturday! 🙂

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Disclaimer:  I am not affiliated with, nor do I own, The Help, mettacrawler @ YouTube, or Everything Emily.  I appreciate the ability to use their property and content for the education of individuals with special needs, as well as my readers.

Take A Walk In My Aspergers

I’ve just started a literacy/social skills unit with my students using the book “The Asperkid’s (Secret) Book of Social Rules.”   It is an AMAZING book!  My students agree.  One even called it “hallelujah,” expressing that he’d been waiting for a book like this all of his lofe.

As we progress through the book, I’m sure that MANY posts will revolve around the discoveries WE (the kids AND myself) make.  Until then, I wanted to share the pre-book project that I had them do.

Before we began reading I really wanted to work on some self-awareness and self-acceptance.  I think Asperger’s (and ASD) is awesome!  I am completely obsessed with learning about it and finding new ways to educate that kind of thinker, however my students do not share the same passion about their disability.  I would love for them to though, so we do LOTS of celebrating differences, self-acceptance, and talking about loving themselves for who they are (as they also learn to navigate a world that doesn’t always understand them).

A sweet little interjection: While I was introducing this project I stated that fact that my title was “Special Ed. Teacher.”  This caused many to cringe, and express their feelings that “special” is negative.  I started to explain that it wasn’t, but I noticed a whole lot of annoyed faces, so I switched gears.  I told them that I picked “Special Ed.” because I specifically wanted to work with children who had ASD and I LOVED everything about it.  I told them that because I felt it was “awesome,” I wasn’t going to say “Special Ed.” anymore…I was going to call it “awesome education.”  So from here on out, I’m known as an “awesome education teacher.”

Anyway!  This project was a fantastic turn out.  I challenged the students to be very self-aware and “real” about their disability   I wanted them to approach the project with ALL of their personality.  I asked that they infuse each page with color, pictures (either drawings or printed), humor, and lots of personality.  The projects that I received today were wonderful!  They were incredibly honest and each of them were so different.  If no one had written their names on the project, I would have known who’s belonged to who because each of them emit every bit of their personality and sense of humor.

Below I am attaching a .pdf of the rubric I gave them and above is the cover page of my sample book.  I also would like to mention two things that I would have tweaked about the project now that I have seen it through:

1) I would have said that they couldn’t swear.  This is entirely dependent on the students you have, however mine need to have the same direction given more than once.  I often tell them to put passion into assignments but to leave out swears, however, I felt that I must be a broken record by now, so I didn’t say it this time.  Needless to say, I had to return some pages for censoring!

2) I gave anyone willing to present their project to the class 5 extra credit points.  I was amazed to have over half of my class volunteer!  I made no rules to their presentation other than:

1) no swearing (I had learned my lesson!)

2) They could skip parts they didn’t want to share, but they could state (out loud) that they were skipping.

My hope is that at least ONE of my readers will implement this project and level of disability awareness and acceptance in their classroom!  Disability is really just DIFFERENT ABILITY!  We are ALL a little different and we need to accept those who have disabilities the same way we accept anyone else!  Those that I know who have ASD are AMAZING people and I hope that many get to feel the joy that I feel having them (students and others) in my life!

Enjoy the assignment!  Please share!  🙂

Click below to see the .pdf file of the rubric I created for my students!

The Rubric for Grading

Making Predictions

This is my latest journal assignment for the kids…

Making Predictions

I have this sitting on the stool in front of my room…

Instructions:

1) Touch, feel, lift, etc. the bag
2) Make mental notes about what you feel and form a prediction about what’s inside.
3) Return to your seat and take out your journal or a loose-leaf paper
4) Write a 5 sentence (or more) paragraph in your journal about your predictions. Be specific. Explain what you think the item(s) are and WHY you think that. Tell which senses you used to make your predictions.
5) Turn in your journal.
6) At 9:20 we will open the bag and see if you we’re right.

“Mature” Reactions

Disclaimer: “Expected” and “Unexpected” language has been adapted from materials found at www.socialthinking.com

Mature has recently become a buzz word in my classroom.

• “I want to be mature like Tommy.”
  
• “Oh please don’t make us do that.  It’s not mature.”
• “I just want to have a mature lunch.”

However, as happy as I am that the students want to be mature, and don’t want to be caught doing anything immature, their definition of mature was pretty off.  For example, I’ve had students refuse to use the pink rubber erasers because they perceived it as not “mature” or some were cowering and covering their eyes when the group voted on an old episode of Spongebob as their rainy day 30 min filler activity.  One was even telling me that you are only “mature” if you don’t show any emotions at all!  What?  I decided we needed to un-teach all of these crazy definitions of mature that were floating around and THEN teach the reactions that society IS expecting from them when they think of “mature.”

I started by using my Smartboard to write up the dictionary definition of mature.  We discussed what mature people do in their lives, ages people are generally considered mature and what society expects mature people to be doing during the teens years, and also adulthood.  Following this discussion, I created a Smart Notebook file to go through several emotions that we feel at different times.  I wanted them to come up with a situation where you would feel the emotion…then what reactions would be Socially Expected in that situation.  We also listed reactions that would be social unexpected.  We labeled those reactions hot or cold.  Hot reactions were ones that were too extreme for the situations.  The cold reactions were those that are an under-reaction, or not strong enough for the situation.  I came up with this category to specifically speak to the students who felt like “stoic” was the only reaction or emotion they should ever display when acting “mature.”  I added a slide show of the Smart Notebook file below.

This was a FANTASTIC lesson and we are going to be revisiting it soon!  There was so much learned from each slide and we discussed it for 5 weeks, spending much detail on the reactions.  I also had them role play different reactions so they could see how “immature” or “odd” some of the unexpected reactions were.  I even role played with them!  We had a great time, and because the lesson was serious, yet fun, they absorbed SO much more from it!  I really hope others can benefit from this lesson too.  It’s been one of the best so far, and one of my favorites I’ve developed!

Please feel free to give me feedback if you try it or tweak it!  I’d love to hear how it works for you!

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Music Box

In my classroom I’ve found that my students are calmed by music, and not necessarily calming music, but their favorite tunes too. I made an iTunes account on the classroom computer and I asked the kids what they wanted to listen to. I used their initial requests to generate a starter play list. Then I made the Room 302 request box for new tunes that they wanted. I keep the box in the front of the room at all times. To teach a life/rec leisure skill about out community I made the new tune or new playlist introduction schedule be on Tuesday’s. To get songs I downloaded from iTunes or ripped songs off CDs from fellow co workers and the library. It’s been such a hit! [insert cheesy cymbal for my wonderful pun 😉 ] we play the music in the background everyday! It’s a great addition to our room and I really hope is is an idea that people borrow!

Have a great week!

Thinking Outside The Box (revisited)

This simple illustration was used to help kids understand how to things outside the box, or go beyond their preferred interests. I created this lesson for my Smartboard, so we could work on thinking outside the box as a group. However, this lesson would work individually or on a white board too! I printed images/slides 4-6 and stapled them together to make a worksheet packet to complete the activities on. See below for slide images.

Some ways to use the “outside the box” topics:
-Help them expand their conversations by writing questions/scripts with them
-Role play conversation about those items
-Assign a journal free write and require them to select one of their “outside the box” ideas as the topic
-Pair students and have them tell each other about some of their favorite “outside the box” things, and have them explain why they are their favorite (as shown in lesson)

Enjoy!!
Ps I finally posted on time! Yay!