Sickness

Hi again,

Our school and classroom has a lot of sickness going around. Please remember that your child must be fever, diarrhea, and vomit free for 24 hours before returning to school to help prevent the spread of illness. We are encouraging lots of hand washing and water drinking here and doing what we can to keep our classroom clean.

Let me know if you have any questions.

-Kelsey

Conferences

Hello!

As you may know, parent-teacher conferences are around the corner. This is a great opportunity for us to connect about your child’s progress, needs, progress reports, and supports in school (without me also doing 9 other things at once;) ). Please e-mail or write a note with your top three conference time preferences. Please also note when/if you have a conference set up with your general education teacher and I will try to piggy back that for convenience. (If your child joins their general education class for multiple academic lessons, I would recommend connecting with that teacher as well. Let me know if you have questions about whether this applies to your child.)

I will preference conference times on a first come, first serve basis as well as convenience with other conferences as mentioned above. I will try to set up times that work for everyone, but with multiple families and schedules please understand that I may have to utilize your back up choices. Thank your for your flexibility and understanding.

Conference times are as follows. Please rank in order of preference by this Friday, October 31. Thanks!

Wednesday, November 12

3:30

4:00

4:30

5:00

5:30

6:00

Thursday, November 13

3:30

4:00

4:30

An Update about the Parents Encouraging Parents Conference from Ms Hull

Hi everyone!

This weekend, I went to the Parents Encouraging Parents (PEP) conference in Breckenridge. Colorado Department of Education holds this conference a few times a year. I learned so much; it was a truly incredible experience. It really gave me, albeit only a small glimpse, more perspective on what it is like to be a parent of a child with special needs. Everything I learned confirmed my perspective of how important parent and family involvement is. In fact, Governor John W. Hickenlooper has proclaimed October Family and School Partnership in Education Month. All of you know your child better than anyone and your insight into his or her education is invaluable.

I would highly recommend both parents and educators to attend this conference if possible. I wanted to share with you some really great resources I learned about:

·      Challengingbehavior.org –> Click on “What do you want to do?” –>browse resources –>Backpack Connection Series

·      P2P: Parent to Parent of Colorado www.p2p-co.org (877)472-7201

·      PEAK Parent Center www.peakparent.org (800)284-0251

·      PEP: Parents Encouraging Parents www.cde.state.co.us/cdesped/PEP (303)866-6846

I also wanted to share a quote that describes why people first language is so important: “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” – Mark Twain

Thank you so much for the opportunity to work with and learn from all of you and your kids, I am enjoying it so much!!

Thanks,

Emily Hull​

PS to the Weekly Update

I forgot to include information about the art fundraiser in my update yesterday. From the art teacher:

Please support our art program at Edison by purchasing your child’s art printed on an item through our Original Works fundraiser.  The money raised through this important fundraiser will go to our art program.  To place an order, fill out the order form and return the form, payment made to Edison and the original piece of art to Ms. Alexander by Oct. 24.  Orders will be delivered to families before winter break, making these items great for holiday gift giving! Thanks again for your support, and please email Ms. Alexander with any questions at angela_alexander@dpsk12.org

Have a great long weekend!

Weekly Update: 10/16/14

Hello again!

We are really getting into the groove over here. It’s awesome to see everyone making such gains in different ways. I hope you feel in the loop about how this looks for your child. If not…just find me and ask.

On Thursdays Ms Cordero and Ms Ashley (our school psychologist and intern) lead a social group during Morning Meeting time. Starting this week, Ms Kalisha is helping to plan and implement this group as part of her social worker internship. They are focusing on strategies to use when you are angry. (It’s ok to feel mad, but not ok to hurt yourself, others, or things). Some strategies they introduced and we will be using in here are:

1. take a break (space from others)

2. Give yourself a hug

3. Take deep breaths

Let me know if you’re able to use these strategies at home and how they work!

Thank you so much for your quick response to our snack request!

Next Friday is Fall Festival. You should have information about this from Thursday folders and/or Edison’s website. Our classroom booth will be a mini pumpkin decorating booth. If you are interested in a volunteer shift at our booth, let me know. Otherwise, come enjoy the fun! This is a fun community event that directly supports our classrooms.

I updated the calendar tab with other upcoming dates.

I wanted to touch base with you again about homework. I have decided that I am very rarely going to send homework home from our class. Rather, I will continue to include general tips, strategies, and things to work on on this website. If you are interested in grade level homework (either to do, modify, or just be aware of), please connect with your child’s general education teacher. If you would like more specific feedback about strategies and supports I use with your child, or ideas about how to modify general education work, please connect with me. If there are certain strategies you’d like to see in the weekly update, let me know that as well. Otherwise, I’ll keep updating with things that we are using.

Thanks for all you do always! Enjoy your long weekend (no school Monday or Tuesday)!

-Ms Wales

Two Quick Updates

1. You may have noticed that Ms Hull (our intern) has taken times in the teacher role lately. She is now with us full time until the end of the semester, and throughout the semester will be taking over more and more of the teaching. She has started writing notes home and will likely often talk to you before or after school like I normally do. I am still obviously here to talk or answer questions, but I do encourage you to talk to her too as she learns more about the different roles of a teacher and practices different aspects. I just wanted to connect with you about this, especially since you may have noticed the notes haven’t been from me the past few days!

2. We are in need of classroom snacks. If you are willing/able to donate snacks that we can use during our class snack time (feel free to ask me if your child participates in this time), we would love to add to our classroom supply to share with all students.

More weekly update info coming later this week!

Have a great day:)

DonorsChoose Thank Yous

Hi there!

You may remember that last year we had a DonorsChoose project funded (http://www.donorschoose.org/project/kids-will-be-kids/1205535/?rf=link-siteshare-2014-10-teacher_account-teacher_1039164#materialsList) which brought a lot of great resources into our classroom. Because this happened near the end of the year, I wanted to write our thank you notes at the beginning of this year, once everyone got a chance to really enjoy the toys (including the new students!). As part of the thank you package, we are asked to include pictures of the project in action. Please fill out the DonorsChoose photo permission page I’m sending home today. It is ok if you do not want your child included in these pictures, just let me know. I must have a completed permission slip in order to include them.

Thanks!

-Ms Wales

PS-If you are new and unfamiliar with DonorsChoose, check out the website and/or let me know if you have questions. This has been an amazing resource for our classroom!

Weekly Update: 10-8-14

Hello! So many updates this week. Here we go!

1. Pick up routine-In an effort to make the end of the day and pick up a bit smoother, starting today we are implementing a new end of the day routine. When you arrive students will be at their desks where they have completed an end of day reflection activity (this part is a work and progress and will become more meaningful as we get the routine down). Students will stay at their desk until you come to them. (This will be a great opportunity to practice waiting and self-control!) Like all things, this may be updated as I try it and find new needs. But I’d like to start today with the goal of more structure, organization, safety, and hopefully communication opportunities!
2. Special Education Parent Handbook-I am updating the “Parent Resources” tab to include some resources I got from the Special Education department and that Lee got from the Special Education Advisory Council last night. Take a look at these and let me know if you have questions. Please also let me know if you’d like a hard copy of anything!
3. Autism Conference-This conference was amazing! I feel like I learned so much and got so many ideas! I’m going to share two major ones that hopefully can be tips at home too!
   1. Be quiet and slow down-This is something we kept coming back to! Many students with autism have processing needs. It takes a lot of students longer to process something than others. When we keep talking, quickly saying one thing after another, they are constantly playing “catch up” to try to understand what we are saying. This could lead to confusion, frustration, or “checking out.” Also, when we talk and talk we can contribute to sensory overload, especially if a student is already having a tough time. I loved this video as an example of what it is like to have too much information going to the brain at one time…we all struggle when that happens! Just “too much” looks different for every person. http://vimeo.com/4999228
   2. Busy body, busy mind-When my body is busy, my mind is busy. I had this discussion with a few students this week. If my body is busy, it is not a good time to talk to me because my mind is busy too. If you want to talk to someone, and their body is busy, you should wait until they are still or look at you so that they can really listen. This is a good strategy to help students think about what others are thinking about. This theory of mind is something that is tricky for a lot of kids on the spectrum.
4. Sea Shells-I starting to get our progress monitoring “making waves” board up and running. The purpose is to get students more involved in their goals and monitoring their growth. This will look different for every student. I do not have all goals or all students ready yet. However, I wanted to give you a heads up about the sea shells you may find in your child’s backpack. If they meet their goal for the week, they get to pick out a shell to take home!
5. Penny Harvest-Please send your spare pennies to class for Edison’s Penny Harvest! More info about this in Thursday folders tomorrow or Edison’s website.
6. Low Sensory Mornings-check out this museum resource if you haven’t already! http://mychildsmuseum.org/events/Low-SensoryMornings.aspx
7. Please send to school-We are always in need of plastic bags if you have some. Also if you have any recommendations for in-home behavior supports of consultations, I would love to add these to the “Parent to Parent” section of the website.

Well, I think those are some good items to at least get started:) Let me know if you have questions!

-Ms Wales

No Ms Wales Thursday-Friday

Just a reminder that I will be absent tomorrow and Friday as I will be attending the Autism Conference with two other teachers from the building (http://www.aepconnections.com/pdf/DenverMoreInfo2014.pdf). There will be a sub both days, but on Thursday Ms Hull (my intern) will be doing most of my roll. I’m hoping this will help things go more smoothly Friday too as the sub sees what we do!

Let me know if you have any questions. I’m excited to share what I learn!