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.

Works for Me Monday: Staffing Assignments and Scheduling

OK, I know I'm not the best at keeping up with my blog post schedule. In my defense it's a super busy time of year between 6 IEPs in 7 weeks (and anyone who works with kids with multiple challenges knows those things can be monsters, especially as the kids hit transition age) and some BIG things happening in my personal life, which I may post about in the future. In any case, this Works for Me Monday is about how I assign duties to my paras, which I thought would be an appropriate post for Labor Day.

Paras are essential to success in my classroom. I am fortunate to have 1:1 staffing (including myself) for my students. This makes it so much easier when someone has to be gone (I have one para on maternity leave at the moment; she will return just in time for a second para to leave for the same reason). We also have a complicated schedule with at least one student out in the community every day. I'm still trying to figure out how to work in out-of-the-room inclusion opportunities as we have a huge burden for state assessments, making it difficult to find the time in the kids' schedules.

I firmly believe in every staff member being able to work with every student. They all know they are expected to not only know and be able to meet the needs of each student but also be able to conduct all of the various programs. This benefits the students, who learn to work with a variety of people. As adults they will seldom if ever be in situations where they have the same staff for long periods of time. They need to learn now that it's OK to work with new people. For the staff, this policy prevents feelings of "ownership" for one student. Instead we are one big, mostly happy, family. And the staff can easily "trade off" when struggling with a difficult or frustrating teaching session.

Last year I ended up with an entirely new staff so I started doing what I called "Rotations." Each staff member was assigned a specific curricular area where they showed special skills or interest: Cognitive Skills, Assistive Technology Use, Physical Therapy/Adaptive PE, Sensory/Nielson's Active Learning, Computer. I set up the lesson plans and after Morning Meeting the kids rotated between staff members every 25-30 minutes, depending upon the day. This seemed to work well for us last year and we were able to accomplish quite a lot. The drawback was that my paras started to become so specialized it was difficult to fill in when someone was absent. In addition, they started to get bored doing the same tasks every single day. I tried switching things up but had one staff member who refused to give up her territory. In addition, it was difficult for me to make sure the kids were working on all their goals and to get around to each staff member to make sure they were correctly following programs.

Over the summer my middle/high school paras were pretty much on their own as I had to spend quite a lot of my time working the elementary students in our summer program. They revamped Rotations a bit and started all working on the same tasks at the same time so they could support each other. They still rotated kids around though. After talking with them we decided to leave that schedule in place this year. This has turned out to be a good decision since the state made significant changes in our requirements for assessments this year. We have added two new pieces to our curriculum: ALL and Unique (I'm still looking for a good early math skills curriculum; ideas anyone?). That means I need to take back the "leader" role in instruction and provide much more direct and hands-on support to the staff since most of these activities are new to them. So now we do math and reading every day (last year we focused on math on Mondays, Reading on Tuesdays, and Writing on Wednesdays; Thursdays were community and Friday was Sensory Fun/Therapy Day) with either science or social studies in the afternoon (depending upon the Unique unit). The students are basically in three groups by ability/interest and two staff members "specialize" in each student, although so far everyone is doing a good job of working with every student. The most challenging student to staff is my 16 year old who is out and about every day as there are some limitations on which staff can go with him. So this year, so far, my schedule looks more like this:

7:40-8:30 Arrival, ADLs, breakfast or peer time, positioning, leisure skills
8:30-9:00 Morning Meeting
9:00-10:30 Academics: Reading, Math, computer time, assistive technology use, ADLs as needed; also several of the kids do positioning programs and/or walking within these activities; 16 year old goes on walk about if schedule requires or does Life Skills/work bin tasks
10:30-11:00 Repositioning and stretches for everyone; ADLs as needed
11:00-12:00 Lunch preparation (3 do this) or meds and tube feedings (2 do this) paired with leisure choices or finishing earlier work
12:00-12:30 Break time for students and adults (kids work on independent leisure skills)
12:30-1:00 ADLs as needed and classroom chores
1:00-2:00 Afternoon group activity (science or social studies); 16 year old goes on walk about if scheduled or participates in group
2:00-2:30 Journals, ADLs, repositioning, get ready to go home
2:30-3:00 Departures
Monday is "Hear new concepts/words/numbers" where I introduce new material, the letter/sound of the week, the number/math concept of the week, etc. This is more focused on listening
Tuesday is "See new concepts/words/numbers" where I introduce visual/tactile vocabulary and we start asking the kids to identify and differentiate new knowledge from previous knowledge
Wednesday is "Use new concepts/words/numbers" where we start asking the kids to apply their knowledge by answering questions, doing simple writing tasks, cooking, art projects, etc.
Thursday is Community day for the whole class
Friday is Sensory/Therapy day with swimming for two kids in the afternoon; I also use Fridays to assess kids on how well they are doing with new and old concepts so I can determine where to start the next week (do we need to stick with what we are learning now or are we ready to move on)
I'm still working out the kinks in all this new-to-us stuff and figuring out where everything fits in. However, the overall consenus from both adults and kids is that we like the new challenges.

So, that's What Works for Me when making staffing assignments and setting my daily schedule. What works for you?

What Works For Me Monday: binder rings

I've been busily adapting the May Unique unit on Sound. Between the books, picture symbols, word wall cards, sentence strips, and worksheets there is a lot of stuff to keep track of. The picture symbols are so easily lost, misplaced, or separated from their materials. Word wall cards and sentence strips get mixed up. And where is that worksheet when you need it? So....we needed some sort of organizational strategy. Here is what I'm doing:

Each of the books gets printed on cardstock, laminated, and comb bound. I put both the easy and advanced versions of the book in the same binding since we use both fairly interchangably. My kids can typically handle the content in the higher level material but need the lower level for vocabulary and literacy instruction.

I make a set of PCS symbols for key vocabulary to go with each book. Mine are 3" X 3" to accommodate groups and low vision issues. Each symbol has a hole punched in the upper left corner and are strung onto a binder ring. The ring is then clipped to the comb binding on the book. We use the symbols while we read to reinforce visual vocabulary as well as to talk about the book, answer questions, etc. The symbols are always with the book and I make duplicate symbols as needed for additional books so we don't have to "borrow." I prefer separate symbols to the preprinted communication boards (which are included with the unit) because it's easier to accommodate the needs of my students. I can attach them to a velcro board, hold them up in pairs, display them one at time for assisted scanning, remove incorrect answers for errorless learning, etc. Some of my low vision kids also require us to move the symbols to gain their visual attention. And some of my student prefer to pull off their answer rather than point/touch. Of course, those kids who have AAC devices will have appropriate overlays prepared as needed.

Sentence strips receive the same treatment as the symbols. I used the sentences from the simplified book for our sentence strips. This year we are learning about how words are used and how they make up sentences or messages. We are also working on our sight vocabularies. I used the Symbolate feature on Boardmaker for my sentence strips, reducing the symbols to the key concepts contained in the picture symbol cards.

Word wall cards are key words and sight words from the sentence strips. To some words I add a picture symbol to aid in recall. Other words (Dolch words) I want to teach as just sight words or the picture symbols are far too abstract so we might as well just learn them as words. We will use the word wall cards throughout the year, adding to them as we go. They will be used for vocabulary, sight word reading, alphabetics, phonics instruction, and anything else I can think of. These are put into their own collection on a large ring binder in alphabetical order so we can easily find and pull the ones we want to work on. I'd like to find a way to display them on a true word wall in my room but there are space issues as well as problems with my one ambulatory student constantly pulling them off to use for picture exchange (he gets the idea of exchanging a symbol for something he wants but he doesn't really care what the symbol is, any one will do; so we have to be careful what symbols we leave within reach, which would put the word wall way out of reach of the other students visually and physically).

I make a master copy of the worksheets that go with each activity and place them in page protectors. While we are within our copy budget we can copy them for student use. Eventually we may have to start writing the questions and answers into the kids' data notebooks. The worksheets go into a 3 ring binder. I also print and laminate picture symbols matching the choices on the easy worksheet. These are placed in a zippy bag and slid inside the page protector. I have two sets of questions: easy and advanced. The advanced questions are based on the question prompts at the bottom of the pages of the advanced reading material. These do not have picture cues as my students who use this level either use auditory scanning and/or yes/no responses to answer.

The 3 ring binder also contains the activity guide from Unique, my own notes on activities and adaptations, and any additional activities. For instance, with the sound unit we will be doing an experiment with vibrations, comparing loud/soft/high/low sounds, polling peers about favorite types of music, and traveling to Barnes and Noble to listen to different kinds of music. This binder will also contain assessment notes for the kids, notes on the activities for future use, photos, etc.

At the end of the unit all the materials will go into a 2 gallon (or bigger) zippy bag for storage and future use. We use picture symbols in our library cabinet for self selected reading so the books from the Unique units will be available through this format for selection. The picture symbol list lets us include physical books, audio books (on our ipods or CD), and computer books.

We also use binder rings to create portable communication symbols sets for our students. These might be transition cues, wants/needs, I'm upset and this is why, fringe vocabulary for particular activities, restaurant menu choices, etc. Most of my kids who use picture symbols have at least one set of cards with yes/no/more/stop and other important-to-them messages attached to their backpacks. We have also used them for "what to do when __ happens" cards to cue staff, to create photo dictionaries of sign language/gestures, etc.

So, binder rings work for me when I'm organizing materials. What works for you?

A Unique Opportunity

News-2-You's Unique Learning System is offering their summer curriculum for free! I have always been impressed with the News-2-You and have been curious about Unique. A couple of the elementary programs in my cooperative have been piloting the curriculum this year and I'm curious to hear about their opinions of it. Because of the price tag I was a bit hesitant to jump into the deep end so to speak. However, the support materials tagged on to the end of the first News-2-You issue of the month have been intriguing and I think the opportunity to explore an entire unit over the summer at no cost is just what I need to make my decision for next year. I signed up for the middle school level curriculum, which is entitled "It's a Beach Party." The curriculum will focus on water-based ecosystems, especially the ocean. This is perfect for us as a few years ago we did a 3 month long unit on the ocean and I have lots of support materials. And we have several summer birthdays in our group so the beach party culminating activity should be a good way to celebrate both the birthdays and the end of the summer session.

Other grade level offerings include:

Primary (K-2): "Sunny Days" with a focus on Earth and space science

Intermediate (3-5): "A Picnic in the Park" with a focus on insects

High School (8-12): "Summer Vacation" with a focus on popular vacation spots