Week 11 (2nd placement)

     This week was really short. I was sick on Monday, so I was only with the students for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday was an in-service day for all of the teachers and teacher’s assistants. This week was pretty much the same routine. We try to start out each day with morning circle, position the students, feed, change, and care for them. On Wednesday, I again was able to do swimming with a few of the students. When we got to the pool, one of the students started having seizures, so we waited awhile to see if she would stop. We didn’t want her to not be able to swim. She ended up being able to go in the pool. It’s a lot of work to be in the pool with the students. We have to get them in, put flotation devices on most of them, and then do therapy with them. We have to know each student and what sets them off and take care with them in the water. The student that I usually work with has a lot of sensory stuff going on and if he gets water past his mouth, it causes him to throw up. Then we have to get our students out of the water, which often takes longer than getting them in. For our one student, we have to use a lift to get her out. That was the first time I got to see the lift in action and it was really cool. Some of the technology that they have come up with to make things simpler is amazing. On Thursday it was very hectic. We have conductive ed. in the morning at all separate times. One of my students had been acting very strange all day. Right before Dr. Powell showed up for observation, he projectile vomited everywhere. That was extremely unexpected, but it finally made sense why he was not acting himself. It was sad to see. He had been laying down when he threw up and was not breathing, so they had to put him on his side and pat his back. He did start breathing and was okay after that. We think it’s because his mom gave him benadryl and that mixed with his seizure medicine did not mesh well together. We did a lesson the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I felt that it went really well, especially for the end of the day. There was a student or two, who were not willing to participate at times, but for the most part, they showed good looking and feeling, and smelling. We did a few tasting things, but only one student can eat by mouth. I made all of the parts for the book and laminated them and velcroed them so we could stick them to the board. I also made a caterpillar out of pom poms. I really liked this for my students who are blind and/or deaf. They were able to feel and use their tactile senses to follow with the story.
     On Friday, I went to a FIESTA in-service. Fiesta training was basically coming up with a way to make the classroom more of a functional learning environment. They encouraged work-stations, having up schedules for each individual student and the class as a whole, and having the IEP goals of the students available for the people in the classroom. Someone also suggested having a binder for each student separated by related services so that all of the information was in one place instead of scattered. For the second half of the day, I spent about 10 minutes in a seminar about fading prompts, but then got called out for a meeting for our CARE program. Care is the lowest program of the school, the one that I am in. Although I did not have much to add to the conversation, as it is not my place, it was interesting and educational to be in a meeting with the principal, vp, related services, and the teacher’s for the CARE students. They were trying to figure out what to do for mine and Sue’s classroom. We have a new student coming on Tuesday with a nurse. Our room is very cramped and we already have 8 students, which the CARE program caps at 8 students per classroom. One of the other classrooms also has 8, but the other 2 have around 3-5 because not all of their students ever show up. I’m not quite sure we have come up with a solution to the problem, it’s kind of a work in progress. After the meeting, Sue and I talked a lot about some options and thought of ways to rearrange the room for our new student and nurse. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out on Tuesday. The in-service day lines up with IPTS 10G. participates in professional dialogue and continuous learning to support his/her own development as a learner and a teacher. At the conference, I talked with other teachers and support staff about ways to improve our classrooms. Together we worked to grow and get ideas from each other. We want to do the best that we can with what we have to provide the best environment for our students.