Thursday, April 28, 2016

W, X,Y and Z





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~

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

V




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~

Monday, April 25, 2016

U





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~



Sunday, April 24, 2016

T






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~


Friday, April 22, 2016

S





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~

Thursday, April 21, 2016

R






R---Real

E---Expected

S---Share

P---Patient

E---Extraordinary

C---Care

T---Teach



~Keep on Dreaming~

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Q





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~






Monday, April 18, 2016

P




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



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~





Saturday, April 16, 2016

N






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~

Friday, April 15, 2016

M






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~

Thursday, April 14, 2016

L






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 

forget to 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~


Wednesday, April 13, 2016

K




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~


Tuesday, April 12, 2016

J






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~

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