The week after Fall Break

This has been an awesome week for all of us in B8. We have continued to work on money and adding numbers with touch points.
One of the reading groups is completing Prince and the Pauper while another is reading stories in Milestone Readers. We have spent time after lunch doing prevocational skills such as learning personal identification and being able to spell family member names. In social skills we did some mock activities that showed the correct and the incorrect way to approach the door of a neighbor as you Trick or Treat. We did a lot of discussing the reasons not to go into the home of someone as they go and get candy for you. It was fun giving each student a chance to role play going to the door and trick or treating. In Art the pumpkins are almost ready to go home. Perhaps after one more coat of paint these pumpkins can find permanent homes with the various students that constructed them. While we are talking about messy classroom activities, I must mention the spelling class that took place this week. In an attempt to offer some sensory input into spelling, we covered the desks with shaving gel and then students wrote the spelling words on their lists on the shaving cream. It was fun seeing the class beg for another word and another chance to write in the mess. The highlight of the week was definitely our bus trip to Memphis on Thursday. The class went to purchase pumpkins. Everyone was asked to bring their own money and use it to individually purchase a pumpkin. Students were able to practice the lifeskill of counting money as they paid for the pumpkin of their choice. We went to Eden's Garden located inside of the Agricenter. The students all loved the various displays and the variety of pumpkins. I have never seen a gray pumpkin until this trip! There was even a gift shop there with Christmas items displayed. The owner of Eden's treated all of us to the best Apple Cider. This Cider was so good that I had to go back and purchase some for my family. We visited about three more booths and saw all kinds of things from fruits to seafood. Everyone was so nice and each student was given a free small pumpkin and a beautiful gourd. Later on one of the vendors made sure that everyone left with an apple and banana. Of course this prompted our own Lottie to burst out in song about "Apples and Bananas!" We may have had cloudy skies and a light rain but it certainly did not dampen the joy that this trip brought to the Community Based Class

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We started off the month of October decorating the classroom with all of our Halloween Decorations. The class had a blast as they went through the box of decorations. We decided that we needed to add to the decor so everyone made their own bats from hand prints. Later in the week we did a hygiene unit on hands and all of the girls were given manicures. Everyone participated in a game of labeling the correct items used in taking care of ones nails. On Wednesday the class used the skill of ABC order to look up homecoming nominees in the yearbook and then vote on the candidate of their choice. This provided an excellent opportunity to showcase the need to learn ABC order. Lottie showed everyone her recent skills at using the guide words to look up information in the dictionary. She is truly taking this ABC order thing to the next level!

We have been working on bowling techniques in the room rather than go to the gym. This has worked out well as they are not having activities in gym due to the resurfacing of the gym floor for basketball season. We are using this down time to ready ourselves for the Olympics that take place on November 5th. Another big physical education activity that we participated in was the walk a thon that took place county wide on the 7th. We walked to the middle school and visited with Mrs. Grandi's Class. It was fun to see old friends and meet the students that will be joining us next year. Later in the week we had a surprise visit from Thomas Hall that was a volunteer in our room last year, Thomas briefly talked to the class about the importance of goal setting and told how it worked for him. He set his goal to attend MS math Institute and is enjoying his first year there. The class love hearing about his experiences so far this year, Friday proved to be the best day of the week. Mrs. Fields had promised the class a "fun day" if everyone mastered tying shoes. Now that everyone can tie their shoes we had to live up to the promise!!! (Moms this means that you should never tie another shoe!) Our day was a bit different. Times were written on the dry erase board and class went as usual. The catch was that when the time on the board came everyone was to grab a scarf and tie something in the room. The first person to make the tie was given 5 cents. This helped us work on time and money in a fun way. The funniest thing was 4th period when Derrick walked in and the time matched the time on the board...everyone tied up Derrick. What a fun time!!

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Make a Smilebox photobook

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!!!

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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.

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