Week 26

I just realized that I had posted TWO week 24s--oops! So sorry if that was confusing for anyone. :)

This week we...

...practiced our Joint Attention skills. This skills helps students to focus on something that someone else is showing them. First they look at the person talking, then they look where that person is looking or pointing and finally they listen to what the person is saying. This is an important skill for school, as well as for building social skills and sharing meaningful moments with friends and family. They did really well with this. To practice this, we played I Spy. This was a good game to practice with because, initially, students tried to guess objects that were behind the "spy-er" or clearly out of his/her view. I reminded them to a) watch where the person was looking and b) listen to the clue he/she gave to describe it. They got much better at this as we practiced. You can practice it at home by playing this game, too!

...took a science test. In past units I've had students present a poster or small project as a wrap up to the unit because this is great for practicing social skills, but this time I opted for a 1-page vocabulary test to help us with our test-taking skills...and everyone failed miserably! :) All of us teachers were surprised at this because everyone was able to answer a variety of verbal questions about rocks and minerals when asked, but they all struggled to perform as well on a test. So we practiced for another day and encouraged them to do their very best with some incentives (somehow that always seems to work!) ... and they re-took the test and did beautifully! Nearly everyone got a score of 80% or higher and many many students scored 100%. We were so proud of their hard work and they were very proud of themselves. On Friday we began our unit on plants. I think this will go along perfectly with our recent change in weather.

...created a thank-you video for Mr. Rencher. We will show this to Mr. Rencher at our professional development workshop on Monday, but I will make sure to post it on here as soon as the surprise is over with.

...began an adorable St. Patrick's Day craft. It is not finished yet, but think rainbow, pot of gold, etc.

...continued with some catching drills in P.E. This week we got out small basketballs and bounced them on the ground and then caught them. I was surprised at how many students picked up the balls and just began dribbling.We have some athletes in our class.


A few notes: A HUGE thanks to all those parents who brought in snacks this past week. We seriously have snacks coming out our ears and the kids are all up in arms over the variety they have to choose from. I really could not thank you enough for all the support you've given us this school year. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

No school on Monday, March 10th - professional development day. Enjoy another day of sleeping in!

Homework Heroes:

Justin

Hannah

Carson

Kai

Student of the Week:

Carson!!