Our Unique Adventure--October 09

(Wow! Is it time to plan October already?!?!?!?)

As I'm sure I've stated before, we are using the middle school level of the Unique curriculum this year. I am just finishing up the May unit on Sounds, which took us from mid-August to the end of September. There was so much for us to learn that we won't be able to finish it before needing to move on. Sorry, Alexander Graham Bell, guess we'll have to try learning about you later. And we really don't need to know how to protect our ears and hearing, do we?

So now I'm on to planning for the October unit (notice we skipped September's unit which was mainly about Abraham Lincoln as well as our freedoms as U.S. citizens; this was a team decision as my staff are really excited about the October unit; in addition our state assessment emphasis this year is on science; plus silly me thought we'd get through the sounds unit in August, only to learn that each chapter takes us at least a week). This one, at least for middle school, is about the plants and animals around us and focuses on biomes, specifically the 5 primary biomes of the United States/North America (tundra, deciduous forest, taiga, grasslands, and deserts). This looks like a really fun unit. I haven't made it all the way through the provided curriculum materials yet but have lots of ideas for things we will do. I'll add more to this post as we come up with them. I'm planning on this taking all of October and probably most of November too (6 chapters plus an introductory set of lessons). There is a lot to learn with this unit. I wish the overview section was a little more detailed about what future units will cover so I know how to pick and choose and schedule. In addition to watching my blog, keep an eye on the blogs in my Blog Roll as a number of those folks also use Unique and will be posting their ideas too.

First of all, we will be learning to differentiate between living and non-living things. I just posted an activity on Adapted Learning to that effect (a simple book; search on living vs non-living). We will also do sorting activities using magazine pictures and photo cards which I just happen to have already. I may throw in a quick lesson on things found in nature vs. man-made things too. And we'll do some work on the seasons, especially as we're in the middle of a seasonal change here in Kansas. I love that the easy reader story is about a migrating robin as many of the birds in our area are starting the annual migrations.

Added 10/4/09: We had fun at the nature center checking out living and nonliving things. The museum actually encompasses several different biomes so that was neat too. And we explored a grasshopper we caught and released as well as brought back a few plant and seed samples. They are going into our sensory bin for exploration next week along with a (very dead) locust we found outside the school on our way in.

For seasons we did a fun art project based on the book A Tree for All Seasons. The kids drew four trees (we did the trunks then supported the kids to hold the marker and draw the branches); we left the winter tree bare, lightly balloon stamped light green on the spring tree, balloon stamped darker green on the summer treee, and chose fall leaf colors to balloon stamp on the autumn tree. The kids really liked doing this.

The first chapter has a companion activity about labeling a map with biomes, plants, and animals. We are adapting by using a black-and-white outline map of the US. We will trace on the boundaries for the different biomes. Then the kids will use tactile materials to fill in the boundaries (glitter or cotton for tundra; raffia or shredded paper for grasslands; fall leaf confetti for forests; sand or yellow glitter for desert; mini stamp of pine tree for taiga). We'll also find a way to make our state (Kansas) stand out (maybe outline with dimensional paint?) so the kids can start to recognize that too (we've worked on that before). We'll mount the map on a big piece of construction paper and then have the kids match colors to add the pictures of the biomes, plants, and animals in the right places. We'll use step-by-steps to request materials, switch adapted scissors for cutting, and have lots of tactile fun with the glue and materials.

Added 10/27/09: Support videos for the Seasons topic: Wintermood on YouTube has some beautiful videos based on Vivaldi's Four Seasons (Summer, Spring, Winter, Fall). My kids' favorite is Autumn. Wintermood has a number of lovely videos using a variety of classical and instrumental music. We've been projecting it onto the wall over our swing/sensory area with the music through the surround sound for a fun and relaxing sensory experience. It shows well on an IWB too. For those who can't access YouTube at school, try using Media Converter or Zamzar to convert to .wmv or whatever format works best for you. YouTube also had a number of decent videos related to ecosystems, biomes, forests, etc. available. Many of these were linked from SchoolTube and TeacherTube so try those sites as well.

We will also be taking a few field trips related to biomes. The science center in Wichita has a whole section that is essentially about the Kansas biome/s, including an area where you can explore making rivers (complementing one of the provided supplemental activities). There is also the zoo, the nature center, and the pumpkin patch. If I can find a nearby orchard that has apples on the trees (seems there was a problem with the apple trees around here this spring), we might also go apple picking and do a related cooking project.

One of the companion activities is to make a desert plant terrarium. The website referenced by the curriculum also describes how to make a couple of other types of terrariums. I think we'll take the kids to a nearby plant shop that sells really cool plants cheaply and specializes in terrarium plants and try to make a couple of different biomes. Not sure if we can pull off the tundra, but I'm sure we can do desert, deciduous forest (OK, not the trees but the kids should ge the point), grasslands, and maybe taiga. And we might get adventurous and try some water plants too.

The unit also suggests making dioramas. This is right up our alley since it involves lots and lots of choices and we can make it tactile and multi-dimensional. And 5 students means they can each make a different one (hopefully they each LIKE either all different ones or more than one so we won't have overlap).

If we have time we'll do reports on our favorite animals and/or biomes.

I need to go hunting for various smallish manipulatives related to the plants and animals of the biomes we'll be studying to use as math manipulatives, etc. And hopefully we can score some old nature magazines to cut out pictures in order to do same/different, more/less, and sorting.

We'll be using simple and high use words from the reading material as sight words and phomemic awareness prompts to build our vocabularies and work on reading skills.

And there are all the sensory things you can do related to the biomes: cold (I'm thinking about getting some of that "insta snow" stuff; expensive but really neat), water, grass, rocks, dirt, bark, leaves, sand, cacti (not too spiky), etc. And we can certainly tie in weather concepts (yay as that's on our science assessment this year).

Adding all of that to our second annual Mad Scientist Party (check here and here for what we did last year), a birthday party, some inconvenient days off, IEPs, Thanksgiving, and whatever else crops up and it's going to be a B U S Y fall. Just the way I like it.

We Shall Remain

Hello all! No I haven't disappeared. Just been very very busy with a lot of things I can't discuss here. Plus, as I mentioned in my previous post, I've run into "teacher's block" (sort of like writer's block) and just haven't had too much to say. And of course, now that I'm in the mood to post, the little guy I'm doing respite for has decided that he MUST be out of bed and MUST have a snack and some playtime. It's waaaaaay past his bedtime. The stinker. :-)......

OK, problems solved with much giggling and even a couple of belly laughs plus a whole lot of cheese crackers on the floor, much to the dogs' delight. I LOVE this kid! Anyway, I mentioned that I was struggling with how to structure the rest of the regular school year for us and talked about doing something with the PBS series "We Shall Remain." That is indeed what I decided to go with. We got started a bit late so had to do two episodes last week (After the Mayflower, which is about the European "invasion" of America, and "Tecumseh's Vision" about Tecumseh's attempts to unite the Native American tribes into one nation separate from the white man). Both episodes were excellent although I will say we were all more fascinated by After the Mayflower (you mean the Pilgrims are actually the bad guys? How different would history be today if Massasoit had just decided to let those foolish Europeans die from their own ignorance). I'm using both the News-2-You and the website to create synopses of the episodes using Boardmaker which we read during Morning Meeting prior to watching the episodes (we watch during gross motor/standing time). One of my students, whose Dad is Puerto Rican, was fascinated by the pictures of Native Americans that I used and kept pointing to himself and then to the Smartboard, making it very clear that he thinks he looks like a Native American. Very cool. He got VERY ANGRY when the white men treated the Native Americans badly during the first episode and got really into it when the Native Americans fought back in the second. It was so neat to see him responding like this because he is usually completely disengaged from anything even remotely "academic."

We didn't do much of a project with After the Mayflower, although there are some nice Pilgrim and Indian crafts at dltk-kids.com and Kate also posted some great resources on her website. With Tecumseh's Vision we decided to make dream catchers. The project on dltk-kids did not work for us. It was designed by a teacher in the UK and we weren't able to lay hands on all the materials, particularly the mesh bags. We used this project instead. This is one of the most fun projects we've done, or at least one of the most popular. The kids enjoyed choosing colors and materials and the adults had a blast weaving (my group of students don't have the fine motor skills to do the weaving but had loads of fun checking the adults' work and criticizing, I mean commenting, on it). I think we have 20 or so of the things floating around the room at the moment. We made small ones. The challenging part was figuring out what to use for the rings. In the past we've brass embroidery rings but they are fairly expensive and we didn't have any in the supply closet (yes, this was yet another last minute project idea). What worked best was cutting the rim off of disposable plastic cups (the white, nearly transparent ones work the best). We also tried the rim off of plastic containers like cottage cheese and Cool Whip, but they were too flexible and didn't maintain their round shape. The rims off the LIDS however, worked great. However, the cups are cheap and there are lots of them available compared to the containers. For the string we used crochet thread (the kind used to make lace) for the smaller ones and yarn for the larger. We have a whole collection of various sized beads that we could string on as requested by the students. For the bottom the kids chose a feather (or 5) onto which we strung 3 pony beads (on the shaft end). These were then tied onto the bottom of the dream catcher either in a group or singly. They all turned out really neat. I forgot to take a picture of them but will add one later.

Next up we have The Trail of Tears, Geronimo, and Wounded Knee. I'm not exactly sure what projects we will do to enhance these topics as I need to keep things really simple. I do know we will be taking a trip to the Mid America All Indian Center which has recently reopened and is doing a bunch of stuff related to the We Shall Remain series. And there are more than a few good movies featuring Native Americans (and no, I'm not talking the John Wayne-type where the Indians are the bad guys). And maybe we can find someone from the Indian Center who would be willing to volunteer some time to come in and do drumming and storytelling with the kids. I also have a collection of Native American music we are listening to.

For those of you who would like to borrow my We Shall Remain Boardmaker adaptations:

Email me OR leave a comment with your email/contact information and I'll contact you about sharing. Some of what I have created uses copywrited materials owned by News-2-You so I have to be careful how I share. I plan to use this unit again in the fall closer to Thanksgiving with more activities.

Voices From Outer Space

We got to do the neatest thing this morning. A little background....

Every morning after breakfast we do Morning Meeting (here is my Morning Meeting routine posted on Adapted Learning). That usually takes 10-15 minutes depending upon what everyone has to say and how cooperative everyone is being. Which leaves us with 10 minutes or so before we start Rotations. During this time I usually put the CNN Student News on the Smartboard for the kids to watch while the grownups organize Rotations, finish bathroom trips and breakfast clean up, etc. Today there was a banner at the top of the Student News page indicating that President Obama was getting ready to speak to the astronauts on the International Space Station. We've just finished a mini unit on the Solar System and Space program so I clicked on the link out of curiosity. Nothing much going on so we went back to the Student News. I left the window open, however, and about 2 minutes later we heard NASA connecting with the Space Station. We switched back and got to watch a very interesting exchange between the President and a group of school children and the members of the Space Station team (listen here if you want). ALL of the kids were enthralled. Very cool. Technology is AMAZING!

Sink or Float?

In my last post I talked about the importance of play. I try to incorporate playing into as many activities as possible. This has been most evident recently during the science experiments we've done. The latest was experimenting with and exploring the concepts of "sink" and "float." The Boardmaker activity sheet is available on Adapted Learning (be sure to sign in). As you can tell from the pictures, we had a lot of fun playing with the concepts of sink, float, wet, and dry while sneaking in some real learning!

Buzzard Day Resources and Activities

Here are some ideas to use with next week's News-2-You issue "Buzzard Day." If I have time I want to do an adapted book about turkey vultures using Intellitools Classroom Suite (haven't used it in awhile as I've been concentrating on Boardmaker), which I will post to the exchange. And keep an eye out on Adapted Learning as there are sure to be lots of good activities posted there too. The News-2-You support group started by Kate Ahern is growing weekly with more and more people starting to get brave and contribute. Check out Kate's awesome ideas for this week's edition of "Water for Africa."

Arts and Crafts

• Vulture paper craft (could extend this activity into writing by hanging clouds from the bottom of the vulture and adding facts about vultures or things the student likes about vultures with either words or picture symbols)
• Vulture toilet paper roll craftVulture Theme Preschool Activities and Crafts

Science/Information

• Compare and contrast the characteristics of turkey vultures to a bird commonly found where you live (I think we'll use turkeys since Kansas is gearing up for the spring turkey hunting season); hmmm...I see a possible Boardmaker activity with movable buttons here
• Talk about wind, heat and thermals: Jumping Coin experiment, Wind Experiment (on Adapted Learning); use a hair dryer to keep a balloon floating in the air or to move a weighted down helium balloon from place to place
• Eek!--Turkey Vulture
• Yahoo kids
• BioKIDS
• Ohio State Parks
• The Turkey Vulture Society

Did You Know?

A group of vultures is called a "kettle"

Turkey vultures are bald so their heads don't get gunky when they pull the guts and other goodies out of dead animals

Turkey vultures pee on their legs to cool themselves off when they get hot and to clean off their legs after walking through dead animal carcasses

Geography Ideas

• Study about deserts; compare the desert climate to where you live; this article ties in to last week's "Water for Africa" story
• Learn about Ohio; try this one too

Cooking

• Vulture Vegetable Bites (if you don't have an oven these can also be done in an electric skillet)
• Since vultures eat mainly meat, why not try taste testing different types of cold cuts from the deli? Interesting choices would be liverwurst, (cooked) bratwurst, hard salami, etc. Be sure to be aware of any religious dietary issues (I have a student who does not eat pork products). You could easily modify my Great Green Foods Taste Test activity to accommodate a meat taste test.
• From a quick Google search I learned that people also actually cook and eat turkey vultures; lots of tips for keeping the meat from getting stringy (UGH!)

Motor Skills/Games/Sensory

• Lay prone on a scooter and "fly" across the gym floor
• Do the same thing while holding a towel or sheet like a sail
• If available, use an Airwalker swing or swing platform to "fly"
• Use large plastic tongs to pick up various small items (like a vulture's beak)
• Go on a "bird walk" now that spring is arriving; how many birds can you count?
• Use chopsticks to eat a snack like mini marshmallows
• Alternatively substitute a pincer grip with fingers for tongs or chopsticks
• Play a game like Operation (my kids can't play by themselves but they love the buzzer and "blinky light" so we pair them up with peer buddies and give them voice output with appropriate comments; loads of fun!)
• Fill a bin with various textures of feathers
• Get creative and fill bins with various "body parts" made from food items (spaghetti for intestines, cottage cheese for brains, etc.; look here for more ideas)
• Listen to the sounds vultures make

The Great Green Food Taste Test

I just posted The Great Green Food Taste Test activity to Adapted Learning. Log in and check it out! The activity contains an interactive graph; simple, intermediate, and advanced communication boards (or at least how we define simple, intermediate, and advanced in my classroom), a cut apart board, and a Read Me page that explains how it all works.

Scheduling update

I posted awhile ago about how our schedule was going to change drastically at the start of second semester when my program morphed into a dual middle and high school program. So far our crazy, chaotic routine is working well for us.

Our mornings always start the same with breakfast or peer time/leisure skills followed by Morning Meeting at 8:30 (you can find my Morning Meeting routine on Adapted Learning; log in to access the specific file).

After Morning Meeting we launch into two hours of Rotations. Each staff member not going on community outings has a "specialty" area: Academics/Cognitive Development; Computer Instruction; Assistive Technology; Physical Therapy/Gross Motor Skills; and Structured Sensory-Leisure/Assessment (this one is my area). Communication and Fine Motor Skills are embedded into the other areas. Rotations last 20-30 minutes depending on if we have 4 or 5 that day because of community outings. This is intensive 1:1 time for the kids and the short, highly structured sessions seem to be working well. And because of my "specialty" area, I can usually free up time to work with individual staff members within their areas AND I don't have to worry about training everyone on how to take state assessment data.

Rotations take us to lunch programs. I have 4 out of 6 students who prepare their own meals; the other 2 use g-tubes and have medication and other issues that result in the need for an extended rest break at about this time each day. Following lunch the kids get a 30 minute Independent Leisure break while the adults sneak in lunch.

At 12:30 the kids do chores (laundry, dishes, wipe tables, etc.) then we gather for a Group time activity (art, cooking, literature, game, etc.). Group generally takes about an hour, and then it's time to do bathroom trips and get ready to go home.

We also have each day categorized to make sure we cover all the academic areas, everything on their IEPs, and essential State Assessment skills. Mondays are dedicated to Math related skills, Tuesdays to Writing, Wednesdays to Reading, and Friday is still Sensory Fun Day.

Sounds pretty straight forward, huh? EXCEPT we also have an active Community Based Instruction program:
On Mondays ALL high school-age students (grade 9 and up) go to a nearby high school to participate with same age peers in Circle of Friends activities. Currently that involves 2 students and staff. In the afternoon 3 students go grocery shopping for their weekly food supplies (the fourth student who does meal prep follows a somewhat strict diet so his mother provides his supplies).
On Tuesdays two students/staff go swimming in the morning at an area YMCA on a rotating schedule. In the afternoon all high school students age 16 or older (currently 1 student) go to the Skill Development Center to work on a variety of Home Living and Vocational skills. We also have Speech in the afternoon.
On Wednesdays the 16 and up group goes to the Skill Development Center in the morning, prepares and eats lunch there, then goes to an area YMCA to participate in an exercise program.
On Thursdays the whole class goes out into the community, sometimes together and sometimes in groups of 3 students/staff. We go bowling, to a special movie showing dedicated to patrons with unique special needs, to the video arcade, to the mall, to a nail salon, etc.
On Fridays we stay at school BUT this is our "peer day." It is also "therapy day" as we have both Speech and Physical Therapy. Peers come one class period in the morning for "hang out" time (these kids are from the alternative learning class and work to earn the opportunity to join us) and right after lunch for slightly more structured activities (currently they are helping with Wizard of Oz activities).

This schedule is hectic and makes a lot of work for me in planning, organizing, and preparing materials, but it's been good for the class. The kids don't get stagnant and bored with their programming, the adults are on their toes all the time, and everyone gets a break from the over crowded conditions of our classroom at some point in the week. That goes a long long way to reducing the inevitable tensions that arise when people spend so much time in such close proximity (believe me when I say that is a whole other post!). I'll admit it's been hard for me to release so much control. Up until now I've always been everywhere the kids are. We pretty much did everything as a group and I knew what was going on all the time. Not that I don't trust my paras, because I absolutely do, but it's just not the same as me being there. However, the "release of power" has been good for me too. Other than when I have to go to start new programs, solve problems, or evaluate success, life is actually a bit less crazy for me. Or maybe I'm just used to it by now. Who knows?

Follow the Yellow Brick Road...

Part 3 in our journey through Oz...

This week we have had a blast doing Oz activities. We read a story synopsis that I created using Boardmaker and liberally pirating the illustrations from Pete Wells' sensory story. It has sound effects and everything. Combined with a few tactile props for my visually impaired kids and we had a hit. The most popular part of Part 1 was the tornado. I made a tactile/visual version in a water bottle half filled with crystal beads. And EVERYONE got 100% on the comprehension questions. How cool is that?

We also started writing our own versions of the story. Each page of the book has a story prompt with three choices, basically a choose-your-own adventure. They've had lots of fun choosing and reading their books. I'm still waiting to hear back from Pete about whether or not it's OK to share these activities since I've used his work to create them. Hopefully he'll get back to me soon. This project was so popular with the kids I'm going to have to come up with more.

This afternoon we started the Wind Experiments. Between being short handed for staff, running late, and uncooperative kids, we didn't get very far. Only one student finished the experiment. The others variously protested, went on strike, or were too distracted by the other kids to concentrate. In retrospect I should have done a lesson on weight (heavy vs. light) and let them explore the objects as a group and set up the "wind" at a separate station in another area for individual use. The blow dryer was a real distractor to the kids who were still making choices or working on concepts. Not to mention that we were right on top of each other in our rather cramped space. That's how we'll set things up tomorrow when we try again.

We'll also do the Part 1 sensory story with our peer buddies tomorrow. If the response of my home bound student is any indication, it should be a lot of fun. Then our buddies can help us make tornado bottles.

This project has been wonderful for state assessment data for the portfolios. That's always a nice benefit. Interested in what we've done? Drop me a comment.

Next week, in Part 2, we meet the Munchkins, Glinda the Good Witch, and the Scarecrow. Lots of singing planned too. Goodness knows we've listened to the soundtrack enough. HA HA!

Other projects include:

• Bubbles (for Glinda); so much fun and everyone is always motivated to talk; think I'll break out our bubble machine and hook it up to the powerlink


• Magic wand craft to add to our story props


• Scarecrow craft, although I think we'll use up some of the multitude of fabric scraps we have in the closet rather than neckties; this is a nicely tactile project with lots of choices


• And of course the adapted story and the sensory story

The plan is to eventually post pictures of the whole project. I really liked the Voicethread Kate Ahern shared on her blog. I haven't explored Voicethread yet so this might be the perfect opportunity. We also have an Open House type night coming up at the end of the month. The first floor of the building (where my room is) will be opened up to parents and patrons during a home basketball games and we're all being encouraged to put up displays. I think we'll do a Yellow Brick Road timeline on the wall outside our room and put up the projects we've done, or photos of them.

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

Part 2 in our Wizard of Oz journey...
Next week we will launch into Oz activities in earnest. This week we have listened to the sound track about 3000 times (did you know the song "We're Off to See the Wizard" is repeated about 30 times on the soundtrack? It's repeating and repeating in my head, that's for sure!), worked on some vocabulary, and pretty well put all the materials together for the unit (now that I have my own laminator--YAY!). We also worked some on Kansas facts and did an Oz art project (chose between making a Toto or a Dorothy; Dorothy was a small paper plate with a choice of yarn to create hair, a choice of hair style--pig tails or braids, and choice of wiggle eyes). Tomorrow I think The Girls are going to spend some time creating the Emerald City, a Yellow Brick Road, and maybe some other Oz scenery.

For week two we are planning the following activities:

• Tornado activities: tornado in a bottle from Pete's Oztastic unit as well as Wind Experiments (look it up on Adapted Learning) and "tornado" sensory bottles (see below)
• Read Part 1 of the Sensory stories (oops! Just remembered I forgot to order the Vortex cubes!)
• Listen to the first part of the audio book
• If we have time we'll design our own magic slippers too

Tornado sensory bottle
Materials:
Empty water bottle with label removed, filled 2/3 with water
Glitter, confetti shapes, small items
1-2 drops food color if desired
Strong glue (we use Gorilla glue; hot glue tends to break)

Procedure:
Student choose items to put in their bottles
Glue the lids on the bottles
Shake the bottles and watch what happens; what happens when you swirl the bottle vs. shaking it?

Adaptation:
For visually impaired kids, make sure to use objects that they can feel hitting the sides of the bottle
Some visually impaired kids might respond better to a bottle partially filled with pinto beans or small beads (pony bead size) so they can feel and hear what is going on

Adapted Learning

I was able to squeeze some time in today to play around on Mayer Johnson's new Adapted Learning site. Very cool although it took me a little bit to figure out how all the features work (I know, I know, that's what the "support" button is for). I was able to make a couple of friends and join the Yahoo group. I also saw a number of boards I'm interested in so I marked them in My Files although I haven't had time to download them yet. I did find the file browsing function a little frustrating but I'm sure they'll work that kink out soon. Kudos to all the beta testers. My goodness what a huge amount of work they went to to have so many boards up and ready for sharing. Every one of them had to be "zipped" and uploaded. I'm contemplating sharing a few of mine but I'm going to have to find the time to "proof" them, remove personal info, and zip them. Maybe over Thanksgiving break? Or Christmas? Or....??

I'm looking forward to backing up all my BM files (and those of my students) to the site. I have one student using BM at home so I think I'll try forming a "group" for him too so Mom and I and the SLP can communicate more easily and share boards back and forth and work on them without having to fight over the jump drive (or forgetting to upload or download to and from the student's computer).

Look for me on the forums. I'm "aodom." Feel free to ask me to be your friend. We can all use a buddy here and there. :-)