St. Patrick's Day Craftivity

Next week is state testing for my 3rd-5th graders.  It's a week of wonky schedules, proctoring, and pulling the kids I can when I can.  So I need an activity that is relatively easy to throw together, quick, and meaningful. Additionally, my Olympics themed bulletin board has run its course.  The social worker and I usually care for this bulletin board together, since it is outside of her office.  We have another one down the hallway that I put Mia McDonald's Idiom of the Week up.  

Say goodbye to the Olympics!

It has been a brutal winter here, so I want to start thinking Spring!  As always, thank goodness for Pinterest.  I found this cute free craftivity from The Teacher Wife.

Photo Credit to The Teacher Wife

With my 3rd grade and up groups, we could get the activity done in 20 minutes.  My K-2 kids need closer to 30 for the cutting and writing parts.  But it's a great activity to model sentences with, talk about feelings, follow directions, and really brighten someone's day.  I sent this picture to one of the teachers in my building when her 1st grader came up with this response:

Photo taken by my student. Can you see his sleeve in the corner?

If you are looking for a quick craftivity that you can use with a wide variety of students, I would strongly suggest this one.

May your day be touched
by a bit of Irish luck,
brightened by a song in your heart,
and warmed by the smiles
of the people you love.

And may we have no snow days to mess with state testing!  :)

A little bit of structure going a long way

Oh boy! A whole month has FLOWN by!  Somewhere in there, I had Spring Break, which was lovely, 10 IEPs, and LOTS of evaluations.  The weather here has been vacillating between beautiful sunny days and dreary cold rain, which hasn't been very inspiring, and the caseload at my PRN position has been high, so I am spending more time there after school.  Busy busy busy!

With all the testing and the meetings and the end of the year fast approaching, I feel like I have spent much of my time putting out fires.  You know, the student who holds a sit-in in the office because he just doesn't want to be in class today? The student who has been doing fine all year at the end of the day, but suddenly starts having meltdowns about cleaning up and packing up?  My world has been filled with social stories on the go, and attempts at problem solving to figure out why things are the way they are, and what to do next. Most of the changes are relatively small, and usually involve changing the environment and adding just a touch more structure.

Here's what I whipped up today for a student who is struggling with the end of the day.  Last week, we added in a break after cleaning up so that he had the opportunity to unwind a bit.  That helped some, but when I observed him, I saw that he was using his time inefficiently. While many of his classmates made only 1 trip to get their coat and backpack, he made two.  And three trips to his mailbox!  So it seemed like a bigger task because he was doing so much more work!  Enter his end of the day checklist.  For most of us in speech, visual aids are second nature, so this is probably nothing new.  But I always like to see how people are using things in the real world, so I thought I would share. 

Given that it's the end of the day, I didn't want something that he had to write, because his pencil pouch should be away.  However, since I love the feeling of getting to check something off a list, and only imagine that others feel the same, I did want to give him the satisfaction of "crossing something off", which explains the flaps.

As you might have gathered, he's a big fan of a certain web-slinging superhero. 

I started by taking pictures of his afternoon routine.  Then, using powerpoint, I put all the pictures into a table, and added some words at the top (mostly so an adult can prompt him if necessary).  While he can read more than he realizes, written words often increase his frustration, so I wanted him to be able to rely on pictures.  I made another sheet with some webs and Spiderman, so he is motivated to flip down the flaps.  I laminated it.  When he completes a task, the flap comes down and is secured with velcro.

I tried it this afternoon, and it was great! He was the model student- referring to the pictures, doing what he needed to, and then flipping it down all by himself.  He was one of the first to sit back down on the carpet, which is HUGE when you consider that last week, he was 10-15 minutes late getting picked up because he was struggling so much.  Here's hoping that the trend continues.

What I really love is that adding a little bit of structure (in this case, a short break in preparation for a transition and a visual checklist) not only makes things run a bit more smoothly, but it increases the student's ability to be independent and successful, which can be a huge confidence builder. Now that he's learned how to use it, I asked the teacher to just make sure it is on his desk every afternoon so he can start with it (it lives in his seat sack during the day).

I am always on the lookout for different ideas.  What do your visual checklists look like? How do you help with transitions, or dealing with activities/transitions that may be challenging for a student?

How real events can change your lesson plans.

Some days the kindergarten teacher comes to you at lunch about a student in your next group that is having trouble making friends at recess.  He is (for the first time all year!) branching out and trying to play with the other kids in his class. Unfortunately, he attempts to include himself through pushing into other kids and trying to throw snow at them.  In turn, when he is pushed back/has snow thrown in his direction per rules of the "game", he suddenly feels very threatened and returns inside sobbing.

So, what happened?  Well, it's layered.  First of all, throwing snow and pushing are two things against the recess rules, so that issue is dealt with by the teacher for all parties.  But the underlying issue for this upset student is that he tried to put himself out there, and ultimately felt rejected. 

Enter the SLP, since the fundamental problem was that there was a breakdown in communication at a few different levels.  My student didn't properly initiate the interaction, which led the other students to assume he understood and consented to the game rules.  Furthermore, when he didn't consent to the game rules, he didn't stand up for himself and tell them to cut it out, walk away from the situation, or figure out some other way to cope with his situation.  Instead, he became upset and frustrated, and it led to him feeling rejected and, for lack of a better term, harassed.  It was an excellent opportunity for an SLP or Social Worker to step in, and I happened to have a longer standing relationship with the student, and we have been working together on social stories and various other social language issues that have arisen recently.  He was also to be seen by me in about 18 minutes.

So I started with something basic: a sort for good ways to make friends, and not-good ways to make friends. The idea was simple: I needed to rule out if he understood that there are ways to initiate a friendship that are successful, and others that are not.  Because I wanted it to be a little jazzed up, but didn't have time for graphics, my trusty eggs were employed. 

I left out most of my pink ones, since it's a group of boys. In the end, neither wanted the pink one, so I ended up opening that one.

Into the eggs went my little slips. 

The students enjoyed picking an egg and deciding if it was a good egg (good idea) or bad egg (bad idea).  I wrote the sort up on the whiteboard to help visually differentiate the good ideas and bad ideas.

 


The good news is that my student seemed to understand (in theory at least) which ideas were good and which were not good.  It means my next step was talking with the teacher to make sure she gives him some ways to "get out" of playing with kids at recess if he doesn't feel comfortable with what's happening. Either through some script practice or working something out with the adults who are outside with him during recess.  At the same time, I will reinforce those ideas and help him practice the skills he needs to be successful.  And of course, fill the social worker in on what happened so she can offer suggestions for him as well.

If you could benefit from this quick mini-lesson for your students, you can grab it here for free.