Special Education - Rooms 3 and 11 will post resources here – Special Education

Ms. McD and Mr. Duncan are excited to be able to bring you tools to use at home during this interesting time in education. Please check back often as this page will be a work in progress for a while. As always, we're available by email until we get some other tools up and running. We miss you and hope you are all staying safe and healthy!

Click on our face below to visit our individual pages!

OT NEWSLETTERS

Please enjoy these newsletters. They are full of great ideas for supporting learning at home, as well as fun activities for the whole family to enjoy.

GENERAL ADVICE FOR WORKING WITH YOUR CHILDREN AT HOME

Several of you have asked for ideas to make learning at home a more enjoyable time for you and your child. Here are a few tips to help you out:

1. Keep a set schedule. Everyone has different needs and routines in the home setting. However, keeping a similar schedule day to day will help the process feel more routine and less of a chore.

See some examples below! You can drag these to your desktop and print, or just write out on paper.

2. Set time limits. Use a timer to show your child how much time they need to spend on a given subject. This will give boundaries and feel more manageable and less like "it's taking FOREVER!!!"

Click on the pictures below for some links to FUN online timers!

3. Link work time to privileges. Just like you might do for completing chores at home, link work completion time to time spent on their favorite activities. For example, 20 minutes of math might earn 10 minutes of video game time or whatever else if fun for them.

See some examples below on how to visualize this!

4. CHOICES. Many of us feel like we are not given a lot of choices right now. Children are going to feel this even more, as most of them don't even get to leave the house. Providing choices whenever possible is going to result in more willingness from the child and less power struggles between you and your child(ren). This can be choosing the order you do the subjects in that day, choosing where to work, or choosing what's for lunch. The key is that whatever choices you give, you can live with. If you give choices and cannot follow through, it will not work.

See an example below on how to visualize this!

5. Make it fun! Any time you can make an activity or subject more fun, feel free to do so. A simple math problem can turn into a silly story. (51+23=? So I had 51 zebras and the zoo gave me 23 more. Now how many zebras do I have?)

Make it fun!

6. Breaks! If/when you are frustrated, take a break. If you can, reach out to someone who can listen and support. All of us teachers are here for you. Email one of us and we can chat via video or phone. Call your best friend who is also in the same situation. Find anyone who can support you and feel free to talk it out. Being cooped up with our families is not the time to bottle our emotions. Again, remember the teachers are here for you. Good luck and stay safe!

Click on the picture for break videos, or contact us!

READING

We are currently working to compile resources and provide access to what we know will work best for our challenged learners. In the meantime, remember that reading to your child and asking questions about the story is also a great learning tool. I know families are busy, so an easy way to do this is through the website StoryLine Online. Various actors lend their voices to stories, making them fun and engaging. One way to multi-task is: You can let it play while you are preparing a meal and discuss it during the meal. As always, email one of us if you have questions. More resources will be arriving soon.

Click on the logo to visit StoryLine

Just Right Reading Passages

MATH

This is an online math game. Students have individual logins to their own accounts and we (the teachers) get data about how they are progressing through the skills. We tried to get account information sent home before the break, but if it did not get home for any reason, drop an email to your child's special education teacher and we'll send that to you. It's a fun and engaging way to practice. Thank you to those who have been helping their student to access it already.

If it asks for the classroom code for room 11, use 39E54F

Click the logo to visit Prodigy

MOVEMENT

This is a link the GoNoodle for home use. It's a fun website that provides silly videos to get kids moving. They're also in Spanish! Tambien estan en espanol! There's a quick sign up process and then you can get moving and grooving. They have made more things available due to so many people staying at home - including videos for cleaning house. Enjoy! :)

Click the logo to visit GoNoodle

HANDWRITING

Hello Families! For those of you with access to a tablet, one way to practice handwriting is the app Writing Wizard. It is free to use some of it, but for $4.99 you can access everything. I suggest giving it a try before you buy.

Click on any of the pictures below to visit the app store!

Amazon.com: Writing Wizard Premium - Kids Learn to Write Letters ...

Writing Wizard - Handwriting - Apps on Google Play

Learn your letters and numbers in Writing Wizard - YouTube

There is also Dexteria Jr. It supports Fine Motor skills as well. Again, try before you buy as it supports pre-writing skills more than letter formation.

Click on any of the pictures below to visit the app store!

WRITING

At this time, writing prompts can be as simple as describing what they see out the window or how they feel about all the changes happening in society right now. For some, it's helpful to draw pictures about what they are thinking to separate ideas from the process of writing words (sound it out, remember how to write that sound, remember what word I was writing, sound it out again for the next word). Because writing can be tedious for some, feel free to have them draw a picture and then write 1-3 sentences about it (depending on age and skill level). Biggest piece of advice, try not to make it into a chore. It's ok to work on it for 10 minutes and come back to it later. Let's face it, most people don't like to write, kids are not any different. It's up to us to keep it fun and as engaging as possible. Most teachers will have more supports for this as we get our Google Classrooms up and running. Stay tuned!

In Room 11, we use these steps!

#1. BRAINSTORM: Divide a blank sheet of paper into four squares, and put your topic in the middle. In each of the four spots, just put some simple notes on some details of what you are writing about.

#2. SENTENCES: Using the sentence frame in the picture above, each square in the brainstorming will be turned into a sentence.

#3. INTRODUCTION/CONCLUSION: Using the sentence frame in the picture above, students create an introduction and conclusion sentence.

#4. WRITE. Students then combine their sentences together on lined paper to create their rough draft.

#5: EDIT. Make sure that every sentence starts with a capital letter, words are spelled correctly, and there is punctuation at the end of each sentence.

#6. FINAL. Re-write with the edits, and you are done!

HOW TO ACCESS GOOGLE CLASSROOMS

Hello Families. Here's a link to a video (less than 5 minutes) that teaches students and parents how to access Google Classrooms. That is where many teachers will be posting assignments. As always, email or call a teacher if you have any questions. Remember, we the teachers are learning this right along with you. We are all going to be patient with each other. :D

Click on the logo of Google Classroom below to watch the video!