Week12 (2nd placement)

     It was a great week at ECHO. We have been doing a lot with the topic of spring in language arts and our related services have been trying to cover the same topic along with us. Every morning I do morning circle after we get the students fed, changed, and positioned. As with every other week, they receive related services right after morning circle and then it is lunch. Afternoons are often filled with another specialist coming in and us getting the students ready to go home. I have been working with one student specifically for the past few weeks as a one-on-one aide. This coming week, I will be working with another student. I can already see the challenge he will present. He's a big kid! I am excited to see what I can do with him and what he will teach me too. Sue is going to leave in the mornings completely this week. I must admit I am a little nervous with her being gone with all the variables in the classroom, but the aides are there if I have questions and she is just a phone call away. On Tuesday, I was able to do a springtime craft with the students after spending time reading about butterflies and their life-cycle. They turned out really cute. As my students have difficulties doing anything on their own, it was kind of a struggle to get the aides to just help them and not do it for them. I found that most of the aides just did the craft for the students, instead of taking their hand and doing hand-over-hand. That is somewhat frustrating. I repeatedly keep reminding the aides to help the students, not do it for them. Wednesday we had swimming. I had a new student in the pool and he was very difficult to work with. I have to look out for his safety and my own. He head-butts and hits, so I really have to concentrate on where am I am standing next to him and how I am holding him. He has a g-tube so I had to be really careful to make sure that did not come open while in the pool. We have been working on giving him sensory on/in his mouth because he constantly punching himself in the mouth. We have been brushing his teeth for 10 minutes every day and this seems to really help him. It's so exciting to find something that helps your students! One Thursday we had 1/2 a day and only 3 students. We had time for one related service and then we got them ready to go home. The rest of the day was spent as an in-service for the parapros and work time for the teachers. My teacher worked on her CHI, and I made a book with boardmaker for our lesson on Friday. It has been awhile since I worked with boardmaker, so one of the speech pathologists came in to help me with a few tricks. I have been working closely with one of the O.T.'s. We do a combined lesson on Friday's where she will take half of the class and I take half of the class and then we switch. It has been working out great and I find it more enjoyable to work more one-on-one with the students that way. We have also been working together a lot to find ways to help the student I have been working with. She has come a long way since coming into our classroom. She is now feeding herself with very little prompt. She is also walking better and standing taller. To some people it might not be big accomplishments, but to me and my teacher, we see how she has made great progress. Her mom has even commented on how well she is doing since she moved to our room. That's a big compliment. Friday was our lesson with the O.T. and since it was Friday, we had Friday Fun time in the afternoon, which is always a movie. Sue and I did not really get a break on Friday. We used our break time to ready the classroom for the state inspection on Monday. Although the students get out at 1:50, we have to stay until 3. We use that time to plan for the next day and to talk about what else we can do for the students. On that Friday we planned for what aides we were putting with who while Sue left the room for the mornings next week. I really appreciate how she let's me have a say and takes what I say as valid. I can't believe I got put with 2 amazing teachers in 1 semester! I have learned so much from being with both of them!
     For this week, I am choosing State Standard 1 - Teaching Diverse Students – The competent teacher understands the diverse characteristics and abilities of each student and how individuals develop and learn within the context of their social, economic, cultural, linguistic, and academic experiences. The teacher uses these experiences to create instructional opportunities that maximize student learning.             
        1H) analyzes and uses student information to design instruction that meets the diverse needs of students and leads to ongoing growth and achievement;
I think I have demonstrated this standard by observing my students and reading their IEP's and other documents to figure out what I can do to help them do the best they can. This is continually changing, as finding what works for them best is a work in progress.  We try things and they don't work out as well as we thought, so we move on to another thing and hope that it works better. I have been trying different tools for the past few weeks to find out what works best for my student to feed herself. On Friday, I think we finally found something that works the best out of all of them!