One Person at a Time

I completely and utterly love my job and my world and my students and my world. I know teachers rarely say that, much less post that, but I truly, truly do. I love seeing the growth in my students. I love the new phrases and questions and knowledge that I experience each week. I love watching my students move beyond their parents'/previous teachers'/world's expectations and grow in leaps and bounds.

This sounds like a complete, ridiculous love fest, but alas even love fests must end. I worry weekly, even daily, about the state of education and particularly special education. I worry about the amazing teachers I read about who are leaving education in general. I worry that one of the "good guys" who I thought would always be in special ed is leaving. I worry that children like those I teach and love, and like my son, are being taught, for 5 years at a time, by people who don't feel the passion I feel, who don't work the hours I work, and who don't prepare students with special needs to be independent the way I do. What would parents and government do if all students were taught by the same teacher for 5 years? Would they continue to accept mediocre teachers? Would they continue to push amazing teachers out of education? I do not think they would.

I have, totally, gone off topic. After another great week (too close to summer - yes, I really feel that way) my husband and son #4 (the reason for my passion and perspective - if you are just joining us, my fourth son was born with significant disabilities {agenesis of the corpus callosum with significant developmental delays}) went to dinner tonight at one of my favorite (amazing, locally owned and operated #bin303rocks #chefMatandBreean) restaurants, and on the way out the hostess said, "Because of you, I changed my major to occupational therapy". This seriously MADE MY WEEK! I feel I talk constantly about the amazing world I teach and live in and try to convince others to join my world every time I can. When, occasionally, it works and someone decides to change their path to focus on people with special needs, it seriously makes me SO HAPPY GIDDY! So, even though it is May and today was field day (exhausted), I wanted to share my amazing moment with you guys! Keep pushing the passion! #onePersonAtATime #passionAndPerspective

Has it really been over a month??

I do not know how it has been so long since I posted!  Okay, in reality, I do.  Setting up my classroom, starting back to college (masters degree here I come), organizing 10 students on 5 grade levels and 10 learning levels into a smooth fairly smooth schedule, presenting the behavior plan to all the teachers in my school, child in hospital (he is out and doing well), household effected by horrible stomach virus and suddenly a month has flown by. 

Good news is that the classroom is up and running and according to my calendar display, we have been in school for 9 days.  I was rewarded by an incredible morning on the first day of school when the 8 students I had last year came in ready to work.  True story - within 10 minutes of arriving a student raised his hand and asked where his work was!  I was in shock.  It was like 10 weeks of summer hadn't happened. 

The positive reinforcement behavior plan that is on its third year, was well received by new staff and remaining staff alike.  Teachers who are struggling with specific students are asking me for ideas.  The general vibe in our school is good.  So, all in all, the year is off to a great start! 

I will take some pictures next week and post about how I have used a simple solution to make write/count/solve the room activities quicker to change out!  I am so excited!  So, stay tuned!

Christi

My First Official TPT Sale!

My little TPT store is so young that I haven't even been in an official TPT sale!  So, I am a little pretty excited about it!  I have seen tons of TPT sales and always loved how people make ads about the sale and share them with others.  And, I secretly always envied anyone who had a place to put those cute little ads, so...look - I have a place!  

Oh, yeah, this is supposed to be a blog post about shopping in my store during the sale, not how easily amused I am.  Please take a look in my store (Teaching with Passion and Perspective) and see if there is anything you need.  Most of my products are differentiated because my classroom (with 10 students of varying abilities) is the land of differentiation.  

Christi

My Former To-do List

Summer is coming to an end, so I have looked back on my summer to-do list.  I accomplished those things, but I do not feel particularly accomplished.  So, maybe I need to separate my quick, to-do stuff (pick up laundry, buy milk) and things I need to accomplish.  So, clearly I need to do a better job at My Goals (which is my new, fancy, bold name for my to-do to-accomplish list).  I know that I tend to start a million things before I finish one, so maybe that is why most of my goals are "start this" and "start that".  (I blame to-do list makers as well for only leaving room for 2-4 words per line.)  So, this summer my two major to-dos were to "start a blog" and "start a TPT store".  I can mark off both of those.  AND then when I ignored the blog for weeks I didn't have to feel like a loser unaccomplished.  My third major to-do was to start a diet.  I have researched, purchased and prepared for the diet and plan to will start tomorrow (August 1), but all I have to do is start.  I could quit the next day and still legitimately be able to cross that goal off.  Seeing the problem?

As a Special Ed teacher, I am great at writing realistic, measurable, specific goals and objectives for my students.  I know when they need to accomplish the goal, what that accomplishment will look like, and all the little things that they need to work on to get there.  I am also very good at documenting progress for my student's goals and objectives.

So, I am going to put this knowledge to use for my own needs.  I am going to set goals for myself that are  measurable, specific and have short term objectives with them.  I am also going to track my progress by setting dates (nothing fancy - like the 10th or something (too much going on already for the 1st)) to monitor the progress I have made.  And then, because I am a nerd at heart (former software engineer) I am going to make useful spreadsheets to track this progress.  And then, because I am a teacher I am going to make those spreadsheets pretty and print them in color on cardstock.

So, my first new goal looks like this -

Goal: By August 12th (the day before I go back to school), I will set 3 goals for myself my non-school self that are measurable and specific and include a time period completion date and specific progress tracking checkpoints.

• Objective 1: By August 12th I will write 3 goals (see specifications above).
• Objective 2: By August 12th I will create a spreadsheet with these 3 goals and columns of progress monitoring dates of the 10th of each month.
• Objective 3: By August 12th I will insert the spreadsheet into the Teacher Notebook that I have created for myself this year and print it out.

If you are still reading this, I feel like I owe you something...so, leave me a message with your email and when I get the finish the pretty, functional My Goals page I will send it to you.

Christi

Special Education Advice Hop

This doesn't need to be anything fancy.  Mine basically looks like this:

 
Sorry, for not having pictures...My school is closed for summer.  My students choose a prize from a board (mine has 25-30 choices) and place it on the large velcro on the right.  (I have actually had students write and draw their own idea of prizes and one who placed objects there.)  Most of my students have 2 pieces of velcro at the bottom which shows how many work jobs they need to complete to get their prize.  (A few students have had to begin with 1:1 work to prize ratio.)  We use plastic circles (usually for bingo marking) with velcro attached to indicate when a student has completed work.  When they get two 'red dots', they get their prize for 10 minutes (we have timers everywhere).  Most students do fine when the timer goes off.  One or two over the year have needed countdown reminders (3 minutes left, Johnny...1 minute left, Johnny, etc.).

This works so well for students who need a visual.  I can't begin to count how many times I have said, "What are you working for?"  The student will typically look at their prize and get back to work.  :)

Feel free to ask questions!  Sorry for lack of pictures!  I hope I described it well enough.

Christi

Going Live!

If you know me, you know I can't do anything like a normal person without going overboard.  So this week I have built and started this blog, made a Facebook page of the same name and posted my first products on Teachers Pay Teachers!  I am so excited!  When people ask what are you doing this summer, napping was definitely priority, but a close second was start selling on TPT.  For the handful of people who might read this first blog (thank you, friends), here is a picture (since I am not sure most of you know what TPT is)

I feel like a real life, grown up, social media participating teacher! I had to add the "social media participating" part because when I read "real life, grown up teacher" I wondered what exactly I had been doing the last 8 years.  For those of you who have read this far, thank you for your support!  You rock!

Christi