Monday, September 12, 2016

Happy Monday Students, Parents, and Carers!

It was an exciting morning meeting three of our new teaching assistants, Ms. Balroop, Ms. Monika, and Ms. Josephine. Everyone was very talkative and energetic to introduce themselves and get to one each other.

Before we began our morning exercise, I noticed that everyone was discussing and looking at how tall they were in relation to their friends. We decided to use our math skills and put the class in order from tallest to shortest without any adult help. It was a bit tricky but the class demonstrated great oral communication skills, social problem solving skills, math skills, and teamwork.

I decided to create a morning exercise where we got to know each others' names, something we like, and where we had to use our listening and memory skills. First, we got into a large circle and Mr. Jacob went first.

"I am Mr. Jacob and I like to bust a move" (I danced silly and the rest of the class had to follow along). The next person in line then had to say my name, what I like to do, and then share their name and something they like to do. This continues around the circle, making it much more difficult for the people at the end of the circle who have to remember everyone's name and thing they like to do! It was a lot of fun and I was impressed with how much everyone was recalling and using their memory.

Today was Mr. Zachary's day to play teacher. He went over the month, date, day, year, weather, time, feelings, and some rules for our new TAs. 

After our morning circle we played two fun games involving turn taking, number sense and numeracy, language and communication skills, and social skills. Students played a fun Dice Game and Fortune Teller, both of which involved sharing fun facts, interests, and likes of all our classmates.

Here are some great photos of co-regulation at work!

After recess we all got to work on some fine motor skills. We used bingo dabbers, geoboards, play-doh, and shaving foam to make patterns, shapes, photos, and words.

In gym class today we played Scooter board Capture the Flag with our friends in Ms. Andrea's and Ms. Jessica's class. Everyone demonstrated great auditory processing skills, hand-eye coordination, teamwork, sportsmanship, motor planning, fine and gross motor skills, proprioception skills, vestibular and bilateral movements, and balance and coordination. 

During our "Mindfulness" today we used a fun exercise involving frogs to work on calming exercises, deep breathing, stretching, drama, and regulation. Afterwards, we went on a magical journey through a forest, river, and climbed snowy mountains while listening to a relaxing narrative.

In the afternoon Ms. Christine had Music Therapy with half of our class at a time. While one group was having fun in the music room, the other half got to have fun on the runway! Students had to create their own character, dress up, choose a theme song, and then walk the runway and dance in role playing and drama scenarios. It was a blast and we have some great photos.

Fireman Sam

Minnie Mouse

Hannah Montana

Seal Man

Black Shadow or Black Widow

Knight

Magician

Fireman

The Pink Panther

In the sensory gym we worked on our hand-eye coordination, teamwork, sportsmanship, motor planning, fine and gross motor skills, proprioception skills, vestibular and bilateral movements, math, time, phonics and rhyming skills, and balance and coordination.

For our last activity of the day we got to go on a scavenger hunt. Students were placed in two separate groups and given a list of objects to gather. They then had to sort, count, and place the objects in an array. An arrangement of objects, pictures, or numbers in columns and rows is called an array. Arrays are useful representations of multiplication concepts. It was a lot of fun, and we even used our imaginations to create a magic potion from all the objects for Ursula's formula (The Litle Mermaid! 

Have a great evening everyone and see you all tomorrow! : )

Mr. Jacob