Mrs. Drzayich's Class: Week 18: Welcome back!

It's good to be back at school. I must admit, I waited for the buses on Monday morning with a little trepidation--usually kids have a difficult time getting back in to the routine after over 2 weeks without school. But our class has been very unusual! Everyone has seemed excited to get back in to the swing of things.

Here’s what happened this week:

A Christmas apology. I am so sorry—I enjoyed my Christmas break so much that I forgot to post anything from week 17! I’d like to give a HUGE thanks to all the parents who contributed supplies to help make Polar Express Day and our class party so great. The gift exchange was so fun—I could tell that many students had been really thoughtful about the gifts they bought for others and all were almost as excited to give the gift as they were to receive a gift! At our class party we played some Christmas games, made candy Christmas trees, read some Christmas stories and made angel Christmas ornaments (I hope they gave them to you…). It really was a fun celebration. Pictures from the week are on Ms. Rigby’s camera still, so you can look forward to them next week, but here is a short goodbye video we made with Mrs. Boman's class for Mrs. Leah that is sure to make you smile:

Meet Mrs. Krissy. Mrs. Leah left us to continue her education, so we’d like to welcome our new aide, Mrs. Krissy Shields! She has been around Forbes Elementary for a few years already, helping some of the general ed teachers. We are very excited to have her in our class.

Superhero Social Skills! We have finished our time with social skills practice in drama. This was great for practicing role plays and imaginative play, understanding and articulating feelings, and appropriate interactions with peers. With the new year we are moving on to a more advanced social skills program called Superhero Social Skills. This is an accredited program made specifically for young people with autism. Each week students will focus on a new skill that will help them function better at school and interact more with their peers. Each week they will have homework involving watching the three SHSS videos online (see the new tab above) and filling in the blank spaces in a comic book they can take home and read with you. For many students, it would be very beneficial to watch the videos more than one time each week—every day is recommended by the program. The more you do this with your child, the better it will reinforce important skills.

This week we did an introduction to Superhero Social Skills and Lesson 1: Get ready, so they have double the videos to watch and double the comics to complete. Don’t worry—from here on out there will only be one per week. Thanks to the parent who commented about the videos not working—I will fix them right away and you will be able to access them as often as you’d like. The kids seemed really motivated by this new program and attentive throughout the lesson, so I am looking forward to lots of social skills progress over the next few months.

Money Money Money. This month we’ve begun an economy unit in social studies (we do either social studies or science each month). This is a part of the fourth grade curriculum, but I love how practical this unit is and I think it’s important for all our students to learn about. This week we focused on needs vs. wants—an important concept that is a little abstract and difficult to understand. By the end of the week the kids really seemed to get it down.

Another big thank you to all the parents who have donated snacks and classroom supplies—you always seem to know right when we need them.

Homework Heros: