Mall Trip

Friday, December 13th was our annual Life Skills trip to the Joliet Mall.  TRAILS, STEPS, and PATH all did their Christmas shopping.  I believe this was the 4th mall trip and I dare say it was one of the best trips!  The kids and teachers had a WONDERFUL time!

The Grinch

I found this super cute Grinch writing activity on Pinterest over the weekend, and I was super excited for the kids to make their Grinch and write what they would do to make the Grinch laugh.  Here are two examples:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Before we left for break, we read a Scholastic News about how wild turkeys are coming into towns/cities because their forests are being cut down.  The vocab words "tom," "hen," and "poult" were in the news.  The kids learned that a "tom" is a male turkey, "hen" is a female turkey, and "poult" is a baby turkey.  One of my students really enjoyed this article, because he made a family of turkeys to decorate our classroom.  He was able to tell me which was the tom, hen, and poult.  I loved that he was so excited about what he learned, that he went home and made his own turkeys! :)

Mrs. Carlson passed this along to the teachers the other day and I thought I would share it.  It's great advice from a great kid! :)

http://ht.ly/rcD1k

Bowling and Morris Diner

Our TRAILS, STEPS, and PATH bowling and diner trip was a great success!  Bowling was a great activity and lunch was yummo!  I was very proud of my students on our trip: good listening, ordering lunch, paying for bowling/lunch, and following bus rules.  I think a great time was had by all! :)

I have some good bowlers!!!

Reptile visit

Look who came to CCIS today!!  Bill Bradley came to school today with his reptiles to educate and show the students.  He was AWESOME!!!  He told the kids about the animals, why they looked they way they did, what they would do in the wild, where they come from, and more.  It was wonderful to see the students excited to learn!!

Reading projects

We have been talking about nouns for several weeks now, and the students are doing a great job of identifying and explaining nouns.  We are "Nuts about Nouns!"

We also made Sight Word Trees.  To differentiate this activity for a student, she had lower case letters instead of  sight words.

Happy Halloween!

Have a safe night of Trick-or-Treating tonight!!!

Thank you parents for coming to Parent Teacher Conferences and Annual Review meetings.  It was great to see you all and brag about the awesome things your child is doing in the TRAILS program!  :)

TRAILS has been talking about nouns for a few weeks.  The students are able to tell me that a noun is a person, place, or thing.  For something fun, we made Noun Pizzas!  The students cut a person, place, and thing out of a magazine and glued those onto the pizza as the pepperoni!

What a busy week we've had at CCIS!  Monday was the start of Fire Safety Week.  Tuesday the CC Firefighters came to school to talk to our students about Kitchen Fire Safety.  Today, the CC Firefighters came back to school with firetrucks and ambulances to show our students the vehicles, what they have, and what they do.

Today was also a cooking day for the TRAILS program.  When we went to Berkots 2 weeks ago, our shopping list included apples, marshmallow fluff, caramel, and peanut butter.  Today was a yummy day of taste testing all these delicious dips with our apples.  The results of our taste test are as follows:

Marshmallow Fluff: 2
Peanut Butter: 2
Caramel: 5

Caramel was the top winner among the students/teachers in the TRAILS program.

Tomorrow finishes up this busy week.  Enjoy this 3 day weekend.  I hope the students enjoy the weather, get some rest, and come back to school on Tuesday ready to rock and roll!! :)

Today TRAILS went to the HS to see the MS production of Annie.  What a show!  The MS/HS students were AWESOME!!!  Nothing to do this weekend, take your family to see Annie at the HS....you won't be disappointed!! :)

Last week TRAILS had some cooking fun!  Hand washing, apple washing, supply identification, preparation, tasting, and clean-up were all part of our cooking class.  All of the food we used we bought at Berkots on our community trip a few weeks ago.

We did some apple taste testing: red, green, and yellow.  The students know there are 3 colors of apples, but had they ever tasted them?

Have you ever wondered about Special Olympics?  Students can start participating in SO at age 8.  We have several students from Coal City who are active in SO sports/activities through Special Connections of Grundy County.   If you and/or your child are interested in participating in Special Olympics, please look at Special Connections of Grundy County.

http://specialconnections.org/

First Community Trip

Friday, September 27th was our first community trip.  It was a beautiful day to walk to McDonald's and Berkots!  Everyone did a wonderful job ordering their food and cleaning up while at McDonald's. While at Berkots, the students had a list of 10 items they needed to locate.  After they located all the items, each had items they were to find for our classroom.  I was proud of the students for being safe as we walked to/from school.  I hope all of our community trips go as well as Fridays trip! :)

Homework Chart

Starting Monday, September 23rd, I am going to have a Homework Chart for the students.  The chart is a jar of beans they get to color.  To color a bean students need to return:
1. Assignment notebook
2. Reading book
3. Math ws (if they had one)
4. Folder

When the jar is full the students can have a choice of a few fun things: iPad time, prize from the treasure box, etc.

I will explain this to the kids this week and get things rolling on Monday.  Please remind your child and have them be responsible to make sure all the items listed above are in their bag for school.

Here is a copy of the Homework Chart.

Today was the 12th anniversary of 9/11.  Like most of you, I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing, and who I was with when I found out what happened.  I know none of my students were born at that time, but it is an important date in our history to talk about.  Yesterday we made mosaic American flags to display today.  News-2-You had a short article about Patriot Day (9/11) and what it stands for.  The article mentioned how flags fly at half staff on Patriot Day, so we took a short "field-trip" to the flag flying out front of CCIS.

I was talking to a teacher friend Saturday night and I said "I wonder how the school year started for the faculty, staff, parents, and students at Sandy Hook Elementary?"  Then today, Dr. Bugg emailed this article.  I can not even begin to understand how the students, parents, or teachers feel/felt about what happened last December, but this mother's letter sounds like she and her family are trying to move forward with their lives and support the school.  This is such a beautifully written article, that it made me cry.

I am thankful that you allow me to spend the day with your children each day.  I am hopeful that you trust me to keep your children safe while in my care at CCIS.  Thank you for your trust and support! :)

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/09/06/03marquezgreen.h33.html?tkn=VZTF3CYMOTTIb%2Bzy2iBQTvgKvVFKEdGpv3Vv&cmp=ENL-EU-PROMO

I found this article on my Facebook news feed this morning, and I wanted to share it with you.  It talks about how important relationships between children with special needs and children who are typically developing are.  The mother in the article talks about how it will take work on the parents part to get these relationships going, but worth it in the end.  My favorite part of the article in when they say that "they are children first."

I know my students love to be in specials, lunch, and recess with their typical developing peers.  The kids will ask questions about my students because they are curious (as most children are).  Myself and my assistants always answer the kids with honest explanations and try to explain that my students are MORE alike them than they are different.  :)

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7152646714024333274#editor/target=post;postID=2380170887525126546;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=link

How do you get through your day?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAP04cc6qc&list=PLGQfj8pKWXeioLMJ1ISN5sAEHr2mfuNui&index=5

People who are differently abled can do anything with family support and self determination!

Reminder:

NO school today: Labor Day

Early dismissal (11:35)  Wednesday

Enjoy your time off kiddos! :)

TRAILS Behavior system

Awesome choices

Good choices

Ready to work

Make better choices

Not good choices

Students start each day on “Ready to work” and can move up or down depending on their behavior.  Students can work their way back to better behavior if they started out with negative behavior.  Student’s can earn Vahle $’s each day (chart below).  Each Friday the students “buy” rewards that are posted each week.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Awesome choices= 2 Vahle $’s and free time at end of the day

Good choices= 1 Vahle $ and free time at end of the day

Ready to work= students start each day on green

Make better choices= 1 Vahle $, no free time

Not good choices= Students give me 1 Vahle $, no free time


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First week of school

Tomorrow closes out the first full week of school.  I think it has been a great week!  My new/returning students and assistants are learning the ropes and getting into the groove.  I'm sure the kids are tired...I know I am, but learning is hard work!  I'm excited to jump into reading and math next week and have the kids show me what they know.  I have some hard workers, and I know we are going to have a fantastic school year! 

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Welcome!!!

Welcome to the 2013-2014 school year!  I am excited for this new school year with our new program name: TRAILS: Teaching Responsibility And Independent Life Skills.  This is going to be a great year of working, learning, and fun!  Please contact me if you ever have questions or concerns.  Let's work together to make this a great year for the kids!!