Tuesday: I missed this week of internship because I did not have a placement. I emailed different advisors about what I should do. Everybody did their best to help me, but we had to wait on hearing from the school to get placed.
Thursday: I still had not heard anything from my school. I was getting frustrated, but I knew everything would work out. I talked to Kevin at the College of Education about making the days up, but he told me that I would not have to because it was the school we were waiting on. I didn’t really mind making up the days somewhere and asked him about going into my first placement until I heard anything just to keep in a routine. He told me that it should be fine. I talked with Mrs. Kelly, and she told me that I am welcome back anytime. I just felt bad for what it might do the the students. I wouldn’t want to confuse them.
Tuesday: I missed this week of internship because I still did not have a placement. Today, I worked on developing interventions for a case study in my reading practicum class. I also tried contacting the placement coordinator for my second placement school. Unfortunately, I did not have luck. Hopefully I will hear something so I can start before Volusia County goes on spring break.
I stopped by Mrs. Kelly’s class during her planning period and talked to her about what was going on. We chatted until she had to pick the class up. I went with her and everybody, well Darren, Terrell, and Lucas, got really excited. I stayed with the class and helped with the rest of the day. Fortunately, everybody was in a great mood.
Thursday: Still no definite word on my placement. I was able to get in contact with the placement coordinator; I am supposed to show up the Tuesday after spring break and meet with him. At that point, he said that he will “hook me up” with my supervising teacher.
After talking with him, I decided to visit Mrs. Kelly’s class, to say and to work with Darren on my case study. We had been making great progress with letter recognition and concepts of print, and I wanted to try some new interventions. When I got to Mrs. Kelly’s class, everybody was excited to see me. It took a few minutes to get everybody focused and remember that I am still one of their teachers. Darren did really well with the new interventions, I made a letter game with flyswatters that he really enjoyed playing. Although, he might have just enjoyed smacking the letter shaped bugs with a flyswatter.
Today was fun, but I was really looking forward to meeting with my new class. My peers were sharing stories about their new classes and I felt left out. Now, I had to wait a week while the students were on spring break. I knew it would be fun to get the students after a week of being out of a normal routine.
SPRING BREAK.. I just wondered how the students would be there first day back. Then I relaxed knowing that I will not have to be in until their second day back.
Tuesday: I didn’t get my teacher until after first period. I had to wait in the office so the placement coordinator could get me taken to my classroom. It was frustrating, but I knew the school faculty had their hands full with a bunch of teenagers that just got back from spring break. After I met with the coordinator, he told me that I would be in Ms. Schafer’s class. I was still unsure of what to expect because I had never worked with Multi in the middle school level. When I walked in to the classroom, I knew it was going to be a completely different atmosphere than I was in before. There was much more freedom with the students because they were growing up and wanted their independence. I was excited about the idea of going on Community Based Instruction (CBI) and seeing how the students deal with changing classes.
At first, I don’t think Ms. Schafer expected me. She almost seemed caught off guard when I walked in the room and introduced myself as her new intern. She made me feel very welcome though and introduced me to the students. There were six students total, Cody, Elisha, Megan, Taylor, Danny, and Robert. This class was much smaller than Mrs. Kelly’s but I would later find out that older students made up for their lack of numbers in size.
Ms. Schafer told me that we were going to be going on CBI today. The class does not go out as a large group. Instead, the first group goes out with both of the paras and the other students stay with Ms. Schafer. In the afternoon, the other group goes out with Ms. Schafer and the other students stay at school with the paras. Ms. Schafer told me to go out both times today to see the difference in style. The first group started out great. Megan, Cody, and Robert made their way down to the Votran bus stop with Ms. Patti, Ms. Adrianne, and me. Megan is autistic, Cody has CP, and Robert has down syndrome. When we got to the bus stop, Megan handed out the bus tickets. She was very cautious with me, but handed me my ticket and waited for the bus. LITERALLY, two minutes before the bus got to the stop, Megan had an episode and got aggressive with Ms. Patti. Our CBI was not going to happen. Ms. Patti said that if Megan is pinching and grabbing her, she will do it in the store. We had to make our way back, the only person that seemed upset though was Megan. Instead of going to CBI, we went to agriculture. It was really fun to watch the students interact with the livestock. Robert watched the roosters, and Cody held a rabbit. I had no clue that middle schools had such impressive agriculture departments.
The rest of the day went by fast. We went to lunch, every student is self sufficient, even Cody. He is able to sit up on a bench and eat with a fork and spoon. He does have an adaptive bowl, but other than that, he does not need much help. After lunch, we went on CBI with Danny and Elisha, Taylor was absent today. Danny is autistic and Elisha is aphasic and does not retain short term memory. On CBI, we went in the community to work. Ms. Schafer set up with Beef O’ Brady’s for the older students to come in and roll silverware, clean tables and fill the ice bin. The students really enjoy the work, and when they are finished, they are given a soda.
Thursday: Taylor was absent again. Today we tried CBI with Megan, Cody, and Robert... only to get the same result. Ms. Schafer told me that lately Megan was displaying more aggressive behavior and had to have an FBA redone. When we came back in the class, Megan did not want to sit by the class, she wanted her desk to be away from everybody. Ms. Schafer allowed her to work away from the other students, and the rest of the class worked on community signs.
Before lunch, the students have PE. Ms. Schafer asked me if I wanted to see what the class did during PE. When we got into the gym, the students went right into routine. Everybody got their basketball and worked on dribbling. There were some students that were pretty amazing at handling a basketball. After PE we went to lunch.
During sixth period the students work on motor skills with different art projects. The last period the students have as leisure because many parents pick their children up and come a little early. It was cool to see what each student chose to play with during leisure time. Ms. Schafer is very big on the students playing with age appropriate toys. Danny and Cody played on the computer, Megan looked at a book, and Elisha and Robert built a tower using legos. Megan’s mom came about twenty minutes early and Robert’s mom was about five minutes behind her. Ms. Schafer told me that they go to therapy Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays.
When we were heading out for the day, Ms. Schafer reminded me that the class was going to a Daytona Cubs baseball game on Tuesday. She told me that it will be an all day affair and that there would be other schools in the county there as well. Needless to say I was really excited because I am a big baseball fan.
Tuesday: Today was really fun. Unfortunately it was a very small class, Megan, Taylor, and Robert did not got the the game with us. Taylor and Robert were supposed to, but they were both sick the day of the game. When everybody from our small class got to school, we went in the cafeteria for breakfast. All of the students were excited and ate their breakfast quite fast. After me went to the classroom to drop of backpacks and use the bathroom, we headed to the bus stop.
Today was the first time I had been on a city bus in probably 20 or so years. The students were pros though. They knew to wait to let Cody get on first because he is in a wheelchair. They rode quietly and just looked out the window. When we got the the game, I was surprised with how many students were attending. There were schools from all over the county at the game, so I was glad that we had a small class today.
The game was fun, I don’t think the students enjoyed the baseball as much as me, but it was really cool seeing them cheer for the Cubs. The stadium provided all of the students lunch with their tickets, hotdogs, chips, a banana, and bottled water. When the game was over, we headed back to the bus and made our way back to school. A few pictures from the day are after this weeks posts.
All in all, the day flew. It hardly felt like it had been 9 hours!
Thursday: Today went by very fast also. It was a normal routine for the class. Taylor came in for the first time today though. She is a trip. She has such a great personality and can crack anybody up. She asked me if I would help her with her morning classwork. I agreed and began working with her on writing her name. After classwork we went to PE and then lunch.
After lunch, Ms. Schafer took Elisha to CBI to work. She asked me if I wanted to stay with the paras and run the class. I was excited and a bit surprised that she was that willing to let me take over the class. While Ms. Schafer was gone, we went over community and road signs. The students took turns telling me what each sign meant and then we discussed why we need to follow each sign. After the whole group work we worked on a worksheet that had the students match the words of the sign to the picture.
Week 6: Full Week 4/19 - 4/23 (**All student names have been changed)
Monday: I can believe that my time at Silver Sands is already almost over. I am disappointed that it will be over so soon, but I am glad that I got to experience so many different things in such a short time.
Today, I went with Cody to Physical Therapy. I was really excited because I was originally going to school for Physical Therapy. Overall, I was kind of disappointed with it, but I cannot comment too much because it was over rather quickly. I am glad that I decided to move onto a different area of study though.
After the students went home, Ms. Schafer gave me about thirty books to look over. She really has a lot of information to pass along, and I am glad that I met her.
Tuesday: Ms. Schafer changed the weekly schedule around so that I could witness the students in the kitchen. I am so glad that she did because I really wanted to see what their cooking activities looked like. I consider myself to be a pretty good cook and definitely the cook in our house, so I was excited to work with the students in making their lunch. The class voted the Thursday before and decided to cook camper’s special, a class favorite. They went on CBI on Friday and purchased most of the supplies needed to create lunch.
First, I wanted to say that this is nothing like cooking in elementary school. I could not believe how independent the students are in the kitchen. Elisha was able to slice and saute potatoes. Danny chopped the onion and garlic and Taylor sliced the potatoes and onion. Megan sliced strawberries, although she ate quite a few when she thought nobody was watching. Cody helped with the sticky buns and Robert set the table. Elisha is the oldest, and was in charge of serving everybody as well.
The lunch was awesome! Not only did I have seconds, I also took the recipe to use at home for later.
Wednesday: Today was a new experience. I was in articulation meetings with Ms. Schafer all day. I was happy that all of the parents we fine with me sitting in on the meetings because I really learned a great deal about transitioning from level of school to the next. There were three meetings total, the first was before lunch and the second two were in the afternoon.
I did want to mention that I learned how important it is for parents to go to IEP meetings. It is unbelievable how different the meetings are when parents are not present. Also, it is scary how fast a student can lose services when a parent is not there to advocate for their child. All in all, it was a huge learning experience.
Thursday: Today I did a lesson on Earth Day. The students knew something was going on when they saw all of the gardening materials. We waited until after they had gone through their normal routine. When it was normally time for Agriculture, the stayed in and worked with me. The lesson was a fun hands on activity to introduce the students to gardening. They really enjoyed getting their hands dirty and digging the holes for the seeds. Pictures of their sprouting plants will be posted in next weeks entries.
Friday: Today I made a large display of the community and road signs. It was a bit tricky hanging some of the signs, but I made sure none of the students were around when I stood on the furniture. After displaying the sign, we went over their meanings again.
Also, we went to the year’s final articulation meeting for her student. Elisha is going to high school and the meeting was to determine the services he was going to be receiving at Atlantic High School.
Week 7: 4/27 & 4/29 (**All student names have been changed)
My last week, and everybody is finally getting used to me...
Tuesday: Megan came in and was in a great mood. I think she is finally starting to get used to me. Too bad I will be gone, officially, at the end of the week. I told Ms. Schafer I would like to come by and visit though and she said it would be great if I did.
Today I worked on Connie Comments with the students. Connie Comments is a social story that explains the importance of responding appropriately in different conversations. The students really loved the story, but they were not thrilled when I tried to deliver it using technology. They were very distracted and did not respond as I would have hoped.
I also talked about getting Robert more involved with lessons. She told me that he really enjoys water; so I suggested creating a lesson that has Robert sort coins, but in order to get the coins he had to reach into a bowl of water. I was hoping that the water would make him resist less to participating in the activity. I will let you know how it went on Thursday.
Thursday:
