Goodbye!

I have accepted a new position at a new school and will no longer be teaching the adapted curriculum or using the Unique Learning System.  As this saddens me to be leaving my blog, I'm excited to direct you to a co-workers blog that will be blogging about the same thing!!!!  Please head on over to her page:

http://adaptedcurriculumclassroom.blogspot.com/


and sign up to receive great updates!  I will miss everything about this blog, class, and curriculum, but I'm having to move on :( 

I hope everyone has a fabulous year!

~Jessica

VACATION!!!!

I have been on vacation for the month of July and loving it!  I'll get back to blogging at the beginning of August!  Enjoy the last couple of weeks of summer!

~Jessica

Incorporating music in the classroom

Do you incorporate music in your class?  What kind of music do you like or use?  When do you incorporate it?

While students are transitioning or during work sessions, I'll play a Baby Einstein album on my itouch.  During morning meeting, I incorporate  movement music and playing rhythm sticks. 


This is the current CD we are using for our movement portion of morning meeting:

Here is our rhythm stick basket and the CD we use:

I would love to hear more about how you incorporate music!

~Jessica

Coloring in the lines

We all know that this can be very difficult task for students with fine motor problems.  Here is a picture of a work sample where the student struggles with coloring in the lines. 

With this particular student, I decided to use Wikki Sticks as barriers for coloring inside the lines.  When just a raised bump on the paper won't work, these Wikki Sticks really do the trick.  The next picture is what the Wikki Sticks look like on the paper.

This picture shows the picture colored with the Wikki Sticks still attached.  You will notice in the upper left corner of the paper some stray marks.  This student was still in the process of learning with Wikki Sticks so we had some stray marks :)

This picture is the final product. 

Wikki sticks can be found here:

http://wikkistix.com/

or

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=wikki+sticks


~Jessica

Blogger app

I am having a bit of trouble with my blogger app on my android phone.  I've had several posts that I thought went through, but did not!  I will have these posts up tonight!

~Jessica

Summer unit extension books

Some of the books on the extra reading list is hard to find in our school and local library.  Luckily in our leveled book room, I was able to find some additional books that were not on the list, but may be in your leveled book room at school.  I wish I had wrote down titles and authors, but didn't.  If you can't make it out from the picture, let me know and I'll go back to my summer unit box and pull out the books!  Happy Reading!

~Jessica



Summer Unit Homework pack

This year has been a learning year for me as far as homework and the Unique Curriculum goes.  There are no homework options provided with this curriculum, so everything I send home is put together by me.  I'm still tweaking the format of homework assignments (do you even give homework?), and will need to for new students coming up to me this coming year.  Here is what I did for the summer ULS unit.

I provided a pacing calendar, an index of all items in the packet, cover for the unit, and a large ziploc bag for the contents to call home.

I created (using Boardmaker) a simple matching activity that had 2 levels.  One was a picture to picture match, and the other was a picture to word match.  I laminated the half size papers and sent home a washable marker. 

I created a Dominos game for the kids to play.  This helps them with their visual discrimination skills as well as vocabulary from the unit.

This is a cut and paste math worksheet.  This focuses on quarters and "buying" items needed for a picnic. 

Picnic Collage direction sheet.  Students were to look for pictures that realted to a picnic from magazines and the internet.  They then took the pictures and made them into a collage.  I have to admit that this was probably one of my favorite assignments.  I loved seeing their projects, and the students were so proud of them. 

This activity was a very simple writing assignment.  I gave them a sentence starter and they had to fill in one word of what they would take on a picnic. 

These were just a few of the extension activities that I created to go along with the unit.  I added in copies of their reading materials and sight words.  After surveying the parents, they all really liked this format.  Next year I will have more students that need hands on activities and communication boards to go home with their homework. 

Yes, it is a LOT of work, but you can do it!  It is worth the growth that you will see in your students come year end!  Once the new school year gets started, I will be making the intermediate grade band extension activities that I create into word documents and will post those also. 

~Jessica