A Post From Your School Psychologist: Autism Spectrum Support (December 2011)

As a psychologist, I work with students on the Autism Spectrum Disorder.  Always on the lookout for interesting ideas to promote student social skills, academic knowledge, and functional regulation.  

Here are a few easy-to-make Independent Work Station Ideas (reading and math skills).  I like the idea of creating Independent Work Stations (IWS) that cater to the student's interests/motivation (here the example is robots).  Teachers could use animals, trains, cartoon characters, exc...

Happy Winter Break :-)

Letter Matching: IWS or Table Task

Owl Shape Matching: IWS or Table Task

Visual/Motor Practice: IWS or Table Task

Basic (Winter) Addition: IWS or Table Task

Numeration or One-to-One Correspondence: IWS or Table Task

Time Travel: Chicago, New York, San Antonio

Favorite Travel Photos...

Chicago: Boat Ride 2011

New York: View from Statue of Liberty (Liberty Island) 2011 

San Antonio: Japanese Garden 2009

A Post From Your School Psychologist: Science Smarts (December 2011)

Badges!

Outdoor Scavenger Hunt!

Portable "I-Spy"  Maybe for students whom have difficulty waiting (for buses, at assemblies).

A Post From Your School Psychologist: Considering Emotional Needs.

The world is changing.  Often in subtle, inconspicuous ways.  Sometimes in dramatic matters that linger in our selective conscious.  The chaos and trauma of media images fill our daily experience.  In response to shifts of societal mores, parental practices, and cultural norms... education must evolve to meets the increased emotional needs of students.  The emotional needs of our students are varied and complex.  Beyond simple feeling recognition, student needs transcend to social reciprocity, functional skills, and behavioral control.

There may be no other time in our country’s nation where the old cliched adage “it takes a village…” would apply.  Unfortunately, the villages have disbanded.  Families are separated. The human bond of hope, compassion, and integrity have been compromised.

As educators, we find ourselves increasingly responsible for the emotional, social functional, and behavioral growth of students.  Education is far beyond academics.   

I have attached a few fun behavioral ideas (along with classroom management strategies to ponder from the web):
   

1. Post visuals that teach basic routines. Students respond to predictable structure!

2. Have a plan for when students become frustrated.  Steps that they take to "calm down" in a safe manner.

3. Plan ahead: I little creativity can go along way to teach expectations!

4. Reinforce self-monitoring skills:  Children can not yet fully control their behavior. They benefit from positive encouragement to "check over their" work / behavior / perspective / social interactions in a systematic manner.    Make it fun!

5. Start with feeling recognition: Validating a "feeling" with a name is a powerful first step to a child's emotional/behavioral control.

6. Identify your classroom's target concern (big or small) and make a plan to address it. If it will help one student, it will probably help others.  No student learns in a vacuum.

7. Organize, organize, organize!  Brain Break Sticks!!! The more organized the educator, the more sound his/her well-being.  This, in turn, has a direct impact on each student's emotional status.  Remember, take care of your emotions first... all students will feel the impact. 

JMC   

A Post From Your School Psychologist: Early Literacy Ideas (December 2011)

Link words together to make sentences.

"Toss, read and write!" Great way to reach all learners especially those 

students with special needs.

"Sight" Word Alphabet.

Magic "e" wand!

Paint chips to help with reading skills. "Free" idea!

Print, Umbrellas, Faded...

I have always loved the juxtaposition of print and image.  A few years ago, I read, 

"The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image."   The author posited that the 

centuries of gender societal inequality can be traced to the evolution of mankind's 

prejudice towards precise, written word over holistic, visual representation of thought.  

Those whom possessed the "alphabet" hoarded it keeping it revered.  

This, in turn, resulted in a history of social class divisions and religious upheavals.   

Print, in it's linear form,  triggers our brain's "left hemisphere."  

Images reside in the "right" as they can only be interpreted in true gestalt.  

Perhaps, then,  it is only in the marriage of print and image that all 

sensibilities can be fully appreciated.  

My First Post: Education is Lighting a Fire.

Classroom Management Plan

 

I am not exactly sure what I will write.  

Some of it will definitely be about school stuff.

Interactive Calculation Sentence

Classroom Management Plan: Get a Hershey Kiss as a "catch them being good" motivator!

Great way to keep dice from getting "lost."

Another Classroom Management Plan!

Teaching "less than" and "greater than"

Fun with sequencing...