W stands for: Wonderfully X stands for: Exciting Y stands for: Year Z stands for: Zip A Dee Doo Da Every year is different and our kids grow and develop and our year is almost over. The kids will have the summer to do more growing and maturing, and when the school year begins again in August we will have new kids plus our "old kids", they will be older, wiser and off we will go. Time marches on. ***Due to continued clean up for a minor flood in our basement, I am finishing the challenge early. Saturday is technically the last day. I hope you have enjoyed my posts for this challenge. We will resume regular programming next week. ~Keep on Dreaming~
V is Village. We have heard the phrase "It takes a village" many times. "A belief that it takes an entire community to raise a child. A child has the best ability to become a healthy adult if the entire community takes an active role in contrib- uting to the rearing of the child." ~~~ Hillary Clinton At school "it takes a village to educate our kids." We welcome the chance to work with our kids, see their goals met, watch them meet their milestones, celebrate with them, comfort them and learn from them. Thanks Karen (Over The Backyard Fence) for jogging my memory on this. ~Keep on Dreaming~
U stands for: Ugly Unable Underdog Understand Unfortunate Unhappy Unique Unite Unknown Unusual Upset Us These are words that could describe our kids at a variety of times. They are used by adults and children who do not know our kids use to describe them. They are very judgmental, hurtful and unnecessary in my opinion. We spend time "educating" the kid's peers about our kids, so they can get to know each other better. So our kids are: Beautiful Able Winners Fortunate Happy Very Unique We UNITE for our kids Well known Remarkable We work very hard to lessen the upsets Us, we, community, group, class ~Keep on Dreaming~
T is for Teacher. A person who teaches or instructs, usually in a school setting. BUT there are many others in our children's lives who "teach." So, at school we have : Lead teachers-- Those responsible for all the fun stuff that goes along with being the lead. Paras-- Those that work as closely with the students as the teachers, they also assist in the classroom with data collection, recess duty, rest- room assistance and much more. In our district, they are assigned to the Special Ed dept. Aides-- They are usually in the general ed rooms assisting with the class activities, covering a class while the teacher is in a meeting and sometimes they get cafeteria duty too. Speech, OT, PT, Music and Vision therapists-- These people are more specialized and focus on a specific need a student may have. Art. Library, Music and PE-- They are another group of specialized group of teachers. Classroom volunteers-- Under the guidance of the classroom staff they assist where needed. First and foremost are Parents-- Our children's first teacher. Children don't come with handbooks so we all do the best we can to provide for our kids. Oh, let's not forget our Grandparents-- They are some of THE BEST teachers we could have. If you know another "TEACHER, " thank them. ~Keep on Dreaming~
S is for Special. I work in the field of Education that is labeled "Special Education." My student's ARE special NOT because their abilities are different from most but because they teach us something different about them daily. They reach goals/milestones. They grasp a concept that you think they'll never get. A sound, word or phrase is spoken after many days of work between you and the student. One day they realize that there ARE other people around them AND interactions begin to occur. So you see WE ARE special for many reasons. ~Keep on Dreaming~
Q is for Quick! In my day to day world of working with my young friends I have found the need to be quick. When looking up this word, I found two interesting definitions. 1. Moving fast or doing something in a short time. 2. (Of a person) prompt to under- stand, think or learn; intelligent. Now when I hear the word quick I think of moving fast. We are quick footed--Sometimes we have to move fast to catch a runner or the child who has a different place in mind than the classroom. Quick minded--Plans change, staff are sick children are absent. Plan B is always an option and sometimes C and D may be used. Quick witted--This is a hard job and we have a tendency to be more serious and forget to laugh and have fun. Laughter is the best medicine especially on a bad day. We have quick reflexes--We never know how the day will go until the kids come in and usually we can tell who might have a rough day so keeping close watch to make sure things stay where they belong and not flying through the air is a must. Also sometimes hands and feet are not always used appropriately so we watch for those too. Never a dull moment in our room. ~Keep on Dreaming~
P is for Peers. I have touched on this in a previous post but I feel very strongly about peer interaction. There are so many benefits to having peers in the room or visit during the day. For our students being with their peers provides them with a way to observe the world around them. When one of my student's goes to his Kindergarten class for two hours in the morning he follows their rules and expectations. Whatever they are doing, he is doing. It may be in a different way but he is going along. If it is a game, someone may need to help him but he is play- ing the game. When he goes to PE, Art, Music or Library he is expected to follow the rules in those classes. For those students who come to our class to help, they learn about our kids, their likes and dislikes, how best to work with our kids, how to react if someone has a meltdown etc. They learn that our kids are cool. They learn that there is more to our kids than they thought. Friendships are developed and our kids come to expect their new friends daily. So fun to see. ~Keep on Dreaming~ ***Note published a day early scroll down for "O."
O is for Openness. When one works in the Special Ed field one MUST be open to ANYTHING! Because it is not for the faint of heart. :) But there is so much to get out of working with this population and I have touched on those in the several previous posts. "A wonderful gift may not be wrapped as you expect". ~~~ Johnathan Lockwood Hule "The soul is healed by being with children." ~~~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky "Life provides chances to open your heart all the time." ~~~ Amy Leigh Mercree ~Keep on Dreaming~
N is for Noise. In the world of a child with special needs noise is a "NO, NO!!" LOUD noise in particular (made by someone or something else.) They can make as much noise as THEY want an it does not appear to bother them BUT if someone else a noise they usually look like the child in the photo above. A good majority of our kids are noise sensitive. You are thinking, well most people don't like loud noises either but you have to understand that we know how to cope with the everyday intrusions in life and they don't. Another skill for us to teach among many. Some of the things we do at school to keep noise to a minimum. *Quiet conversations *Music or video sound low to medium *Headphones help a lot to block out white noise around them. Helps them focus better. *Whisper or lower voice when speaking. If you have someone in your life who is sensitive to noise try one of the above. Hope- fully it will help. ~Keep on Dreaming~
M is for Milestone. A milestone is an action or event that marks a particular eventor change in development. Remember when your children were growing and getting bigger? You had milestones that you looked forward to--right? The parent's of our student's have milestone's they want their kids to achieve too. They just come a little later in the game for some. Here are some of the milestone's we work. At school we call them "goals" though, Academic Social--with peers, classmates and adults Speech /Language OT/PT Personal Care/Feeding Achievement of these milestone's or goals are celebrated whole heartedly. As I am sure you did with your kids when they were young. ~Keep on Dreaming~
L is for laughter. Have you had a good belly laugh lately? Have you heard a child laugh recently? Has something tickled your funny bone lately. Sometimes life gets so serious that we forgetto just let go and laugh. I mean the kind of laugh that afterwards your stomach hurts a lot but you feel like the weight of the world has gone away. We are lucky, the majority of our kids find something that is funny to them at some point in their day. It is so much fun to hear that laughter. Find some time in your day to laugh, read jokes, watch a funny show, be silly, spend time with your kids or someone else's kids and have fun. Be a kid again!!! PS: If you are seeing two colors, I apologize blogger would not let me change this to one color. ~Keep on Dreaming~
K is for Kindness The act of being generous, friendly and compassionate. We are taught from an early age these qualities. For children with special needs these are "concepts" that are achieved a bit more slowly. This year we have been working closely with the general ed pop- ulation to be "peer" models to our kids. As I spoke about in the integration post, those of our kids that can spend time in their grade level with their peers do so. We have had sixth grade "helpers" in our classes working with the kids on a variety of things-recess, PE and activities within the classroom. Being in class with their peers gives our kids time to observe, interact, play and learn from each other. It also gives the peers time to learn and understand that our kids aren't scary. For some this is their first experience with a child with special needs. Our "helpers" benefit from their inter- action they have with our kids too. This is where generosity, friendliness and compassion come in to play. Again they come to realize that our kids are not bad, mean or yucky. Yes, they make noises, they act differently, they don't seem to listen or understand anything but as time goes by our kids prove them all wrong! With this post I post I do have a request: when you or your family are out and about and one of my kids is near give them a smile it will make their day and if they are with their parents they will appreciate it too! Thanks!! ~Keep on Dreaming~
J is for Jewels. Our students are our own jewels in our "jewelry store" of life. Their CUT is different. We have males and females. Each group is equal in size. Their CLARITY is different. Each of our students picks up concepts at their own rate of speed. Some need more or less help with concepts. Their COLOR is different. We have a virtual melting pot in our three rooms. Males and females. adult's and kids. Caucasion, African American, Hispanic and we have a variety of abilities and disabilities in our rooms. ~Keep on Dreaming~
