Learning update: Jan 31

Thank you to everyone for reading your child's IPP and report card and meeting with me to discuss and review. I always learn so much about my students from talking to their parents, and when home and school work as a team our children are so much more successful!

I spoke with many of you in our meetings about the success we've seen in gym class for our students. They are doing things they never used to do, and are taking risks and challenging themselves. I wanted to share some photos from this week that demonstrate some of the types of things students do in gym.

We are continuing our "core word of the week" in class, and last week our word was "see/look". We listened to songs, watched videos, and did activities related to this word during circle time.

We also chose "Brown bear brown bear what do you see" as the book for our predictable chart writing lesson. Here are the sentences we wrote together after reading the book.

Something exciting coming up next week is our puppetry residency! Wendy Passmore from WP Puppet Theatre is coming to Cambrian Heights School to work with all students over a period of several weeks to design puppets and teach the students how to put on puppet performances. Check out more info on her website here: https://wppuppet.com/about/#.XjSDOS3MxQI. Our students will be pairing with the Paced Learning Program (PLP) classroom to learn about puppets together. Stay tuned for updates!

Learning update: Jan 29

Today the students enjoyed doing a winter art water colour painting project. They were given white pieces of paper with white trees drawn on them with white crayon. The students used blue and pink water colours to paint over the trees, leaving the silhouette of a tree left behind.

Afterwards, students were given the option to continue painting, and they created their own masterpieces!

Learning update: Jan 26

Last week the cold snap was finally over and we got to go back outside for recess. The students were very happy!

Our core word of the week last week was "go", and this upcoming week our word is "see". The activities we do during circle time and the stories we read in our literacy block target these words so students are getting repeated exposure.

Report cards and IPPs were sent home last Friday. Please take some time to read over them both and send back the signed envelope and signature page from the IPP. The rest is for you to keep. I am going to send an email shortly with available times I am booking next week after school to have IPP meetings. 

Eni finding the letters for his puzzle in a sensory bin

Rim playing with shaving cream during sensory time

Xiane shooting hoops in gym class

Learning update: January 17

Last week we started introducing a core word of the week into our learning. Core vocabulary refers to the most used words in the English language. For example, words like "can", "do", "put", and "open" are all core words. The image below is of a core board, which we use with our students to support their receptive and expressive communication.

Last week's core word of the week was "like". We read stories during circle time that allowed us to model the use of the word "like" while pointing to the "like" picture on the core board. Anytime during the day when we used the word "like" we would reference it on a core board for our students.

Next week's core word of the week is "go". We are going to read the story "Go, Dog, Go!" and model usage of the word "go" on our core board. We are going to tie this learning into our predictable chart writing lessons by having our shared writing lesson focus on things that go.

Predictable Chart Writing - Jan 13, 2020

Today during our literacy period we read the story, "Today is Monday" by Eric Carle. After reading the story, we watched the Youtube video of the song that goes along with the book. Check it out here: Today is Monday song

After listening to the song, students came up to the Smartboard one at a time to choose their favourite food from the choice board. All the foods listed were foods from the story. Together we wrote our sentences on the chart paper.

The 8th sense: Interoception

I came across this interesting article and thought I would share it with you. Enjoy!

Interoception and autism: body awareness challenges for those with ASD

Jan 7: Back to school!

I hope everyone had a restful holiday! The first two days back the students have had a bit of adjusting to do to get back into their routines, but I'm confident by next week we'll be back to where we were before the break. Long breaks away from school can sometimes be challenging for our students, so we adjust our expectations and are easing them back into their school schedule slowly.

Eni and Danny on the swing together today at recess

Rim and Danny enjoyed playing in the water table together today

Yesterday we got right back into our predictable chart writing with the book "If you take a mouse to school". The students made a choice of what their favourite school activity is and then we wrote our sentences together.

Tomorrow the students will cut up their sentences into individual words and glue them into their scrapbooks.