I'm having a wonderful time in my last week. We had a good-bye party, and an awesome teddy bear's picnic where I had parents involved. There is no way I could ask for a better wrap up!
As far as which strategies worked and which didn't, I was really glad to have a kindergarten class, because you can experiment with everything and they don't mind. Also, their minds are very open and they seem to respond well to every tactic. It's even better though to see two groups of kindergarten, as you can see what works on one does not work on the other all the time...I found it quite funny.
My favorite tactic was to make up poems or songs with instructions...such as "Everybody touch your toes, everybody touch your nose, everybody wiggle twice, everybody standing nice" or "sitting on your bums is great hands in laps to concentrate" (to the opening tune of twinkle twinkle). They just come to me on the spot, and the children respond very well for getting attention and quiet. Some thing that I did a lot, was paint. We painted many things, but my children responded well to that. Many felt colouring large images was daunting and it was murder pulling work out of a few of them, but they all did their best when we painted. My favorite activity was one that I just did this week, a scavenger hunt. The children separated into groups with parent volunteers and answered clues all around the school, trying to the the first group back. Obviously I had to get teachers to help and agree around the school, but no one seemed to have an issue, and my cooperating teacher made me leave my clues behind so she could use the activity next year! Also, dressing up like a guest speaker and coming in to tell stories and play games was tremendously fun for the children. They almost wet themselves I'm sure. Mr. Bear (the Russian bear) may be asked to return next year as well.
My least favorite management method was the clapping method. My children are still learning body patterns, and it was hard for some of them to follow even the simplest phrase, and therefore, the clapping was never in sync. Not my best work, we did not clap after that. I also did an activity which was a little much...we had different sizes of teddy bears and each group had to measure different areas...however, placing your finger at the bottom, and then moving the object to the other side of your finger to keep the place and count how many fit, was very difficult for them to grasp. however, the lesson was to understand that you can measure anything with anything, and so, we did accomplish that goal. It was kind of funny really.
Anyway, it's been a blast.
As far as our little guy with Autism, It saddens me to say that in the position of the school, I don't know what I would do. I don't know if I would try to get him to leave, or take the abuse here. The real shame is that we do not have what he needs and we are not giving him the best care for him...he cannot learn, he cannot grow in the place we have set up. Therefore, we spend a whole years income on setting up a special system, or, we let him get through school untouched. I know there are places that give better care to autistic children, and it pains me that mom doesn't want that, however, I'm at a loss to say that given the circumstances, the only thing I could do differently is put more of my yearly money to getting him help, and less of it to the rest of the school, which, is controversial too. It's all so confusing, and has helped me realize, I do not want to be a principal when I grow up.
Thank-you for taking the time to read my blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment