September 21, 2009

Great News!!! The camera has been returned thanks to Mr. Murphy, one of our principals. The young man that took the camera out of my office made a confession and returned it. While I am still a bit shocked that someone would stoop so low as to steal from this type of class, I guess nothing surprises me anymore.

We will be taking pictures of classroom activities this week and hope to have some great items to upload.

Week of September 14, 2009

This is a difficult post for me to make. I actually look forward to my Sunday evening posting. I reflect on the fun things that the class has done and try to plan fun learning opportunities for the upcoming week. I love editing the pictures and reliving the excitement of my students. Things are very different tonight. There are no pictures to upload as my personal camera was taken out of my office and I cannot view or share the pictures with you.
Needless to say, the pictures on the memory card are priceless. I have pictures of your children as well as my child's sixteenth birthday memories. We had such a fun visit on
Wednesday to the dental office of Dr. Evans. His staff was just awesome with the students. If anyone had fears of the dental office they no longer do. We took so many great pictures to share with you and now that cannot be done. Our class was selected to be filmed as a commercial for the Excellence in Education Grant. We even took pictures of the photographer that came to make the video of us . It will be awhile before I can replace the camera. As soon as I can purchase another camera we will be up and running again. I only wish I could replace the priceless pictures.

Week of September 7, 2009

This was a busy week in the CBC. Tuesday morning we began our day making and serving breakfast. This was an awesome chance to work with some very functional reading words. The class loved flashing cards as they asked for various food items. We celebrated Sara's birthday with cupcakes and singing in the afternoon. We were able to do a lesson on hygiene and the importance of flossing. This was much needed since everyone had chocolate smiles after the cupcakes! The cupcakes offered a big change from our study on nutrition and healthy foods:) Art focused on the concept of healthy foods as we got a chance to paint with various vegetables. I must admit the fun of it all was watching the students as they shucked corn to paint with! Later in the week we worked with the vocation work boxes and began timing the tasks. During this time students practice working at speed on task and staying focused. We did a group reading lesson this week to commemorate the 9-11 events. Math wise we have begun working within our groups on fractions. The class is having fun learning how we can divide items to form fractions. Of course the highlight of the week was Thursday when we got to go to Horn Lake to compete in Special Olympics. Everyone did well in their events and had a blast. We are proud of all of the athletes, and especially Keeshun. We knew Keeshun was fast but wow! He placed second out of the entire participants for soccer dribble! Way to go!!!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We have an out based learning event scheduled for Wednesday of next week. The class has been invited to the office of Dr. Evans to view a dental office and go over the various instruments used. This outing will conclude the dental part of our hygiene unit.

The week of August 31st

This was a fun week here in the Community Based Class. We are working hard in our hygiene unit. We have focused on dental care. Thanks to all of the parents that reinforced what we do here at school by going over our lesson with your young adult and sending in the date of their next dental appointment. We practiced correct brushing using the circle motion with those that have sent in a toothbrush to keep here at school. Mrs. Simmons shared with us that Wal-mart has a neat toothbrush called the "Firefly" that lights up to remind a student to keep brushing. These are so neat and very inexpensive. In Daily Living we are working on tying shoes with those that need to master that skill. We are also working on learning the proper way to vacuum a room. (Put these skills to use and let you young adult help you with the house work.) Science was fun this week as we did a lab experiment and learned about molecules and diffusion. The class loved watching the red food coloring (molecules) move thru hot water and then thru cold water. The school held class officer elections this week. We decided to explain the election process and then have our own class ballot and vote casting within our community. We are proud to announce that Sara Briggs has been elected to the office of Class President. After our social skills lessons on self awareness, each of the students were able to get up before the class and state something that they can do successfully that would make them worthy of the title class President. Sara won on the ticket of organized and trying her hardest. She stated that she wants us to do more Math and less Reading this year. (Remember the President represents the people not the IEP objectives. HA HA

Here is a neat website that we discovered this week in class. (Computer is such a fun time of our day.) www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/gamesforkids.htm

Reminder: Special Olympics is Thursday. Everyone is very excited about getting to go to this event.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com