St. Patrick's Day Fun

We'll take any excuse to have a fun day of learning, coloring and crafting. We took the whole school day to celebrate St. Patrick's Day! Most of my students had never heard of this holiday or knew what a leprechaun was, and thought a shamrock was a flower... so the day was enlightening for all. It can be difficult to get my autism classroom to complete or enjoy writing and cutting activities (due to their underdeveloped pincer grasps and overall motor development), but make it a fun and colorful activity and they are right on board!


Decorating the classroom was the first thing on the list, and my students were ecstatic to walk into a festive classroom this morning:

*Window decals from Target's dollar section

  

 

One of my favorite activities was actually started the day before so that we would have time to complete all the planned activities. The students got to connect paper chains, assemble pots of gold, and add a little sparkle!

  

  

Ms. Wright was our glitter glue expert!

The students were so excited with the final product, and loved seeing them hung from the ceiling! 

We also had a blast writing about what we would do if we were a leprechaun. I got quite the variety of answers from my out-of-the-box-thinkers.

"If I were a leprechaun I would sing like a leprechaun." "...I would count all of my gold."

 

Another fun craft we did was creating wish rainbows! It took awhile for my students to comprehend the idea of being "granted wishes", but we eventually made the connection when a leprechaun was described as Spring's Santa Claus.

  

The students wrote their 6 wishes on each rainbow paper strip.

  

I did not have a chance to snap shots of all the worksheets, but my students practiced word families, rhyming, syllables, and simple addition with St. Patrick's themed activity sheets!

  

And, of course, there is no better way to wrap up a classroom holiday celebration than with PAINT! It is easily one of the most exciting, yet terrifying activities to be done in any kindergarten classroom. However, I try to whip out the acrylics at least once a week. For my population of students, painting isn't just a fun activity, it is also therapeutic and soothing for them, as the texture soothes many of their individual sensory needs.

Modeling how to place wet, sticky hands onto the paper.
 

My assistant teacher, Ms. Bryant being a brave superstar and handling the paint.

"....And we chose to do paint on a day that the schedule was wack why???"

 

Ta-da!

Whew! We made quite the mess, but despite a some tears and a drippy green classroom, we had a great Tuesday celebrating St. Patrick's Day! A fun and messy day= instructional content remembered. Onto the next one!

Happy Dr. Seuss Day!

 Just a recap of some of Room 9's Seuss activities! Due to our "Ice Day", we had to reschedule our Seuss celebration to Tuesday. They had a blast! we read several Seuss stories in preparation for our crafts and activities:

              

Of course, I was nearly as excited as the kids were about the day and it's festivities, so I did not capture photos of all the fun that was had. But here is a little peek at what we did to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss!

I can get my students to write about pretty much anything if a craft is also involved. I was surprised by how many of my students showed no recognition towards The Cat in the Hat characters; they had never heard the story before! It was adorable to see their reactions to the Cat and Thing 1 and Thing 2.

My students who receive OT services get a bit fussy towards obvious fine motor exercises, so it is always important to me to incorporate fun cutting and gluing crafts into daily activities. They loved making their Thing 1 and Thing 2's!

   

Ms. Herbert, a Dedicated Aid to a student in my room, helping with the cutting and pasting.

Writing prompt: If the Cat in the Hat brought Thing 1 and Thing 2 to my house I would..." the responses varied from letting them play with their toys, to kicking them out of the house.

   

Another favorite craft of the day followed the reading of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. As I revealed the materials for the craft, screams erupted with, "PAINT! IT'S PAINTING!" followed swiftly by, "FISHIES! Are those real fishies or candy fishies, Mrs. Leidner?"

This activity works great with baking soda paint or water-colors, but I chose to just water down washable paint (cost and time effective). I wanted the addition values to be different for each student (to keep them from copying each other's papers), so I made a list of how many fish I gave to each child (the behavior chart was to be put to use if any fish "disappeared", and the extra fish were passed out as snack as a reward for patient students.)

The paint dried fairly quickly, and we used wet glue to attach the fish. The students were completely ecstatic about adding and making a craft with candy!

   

We did several Seuss activities, and enjoyed ending the day munching on fish and describing what green eggs might taste and smell like. What a great day to teach kindergarten!

Focus on the Good

This is what I choose to focus on today, despite it often being a difficult task. In a society completely consumed by attempts to fulfill it's feelings of emptiness that it indulges repeatedly in self-destructive behaviors, it is hard sometimes to see beauty in your surroundings. Sometimes I wonder if the world continues to grow more ugly by the decade, or if I am finally old enough to see the world the way it is. When you're an adolescent, the world looks like a celebrity in People Magazine. It looks like one of those shots a photographer captured where a Kardashian is stuffing her face with pizza, or Mila Kunis left the house without makeup. You think to yourself, "Whoa they look so rough,,,, that's not really how wrinkly and saggy they are, right?" Your image of a flawless goddess has substantially wavered. As you get older, you see more celebrities without makeup, losing their abs, becoming more silicone than flesh, caught cheating, being arrested for DUIs, and before you know it, you see the world for what it really is. A gigantic facade and a hot, hot mess (and in serious need of it's Savior). And it feels tragic.

And yet, if you look really closely, there is always more to it than that. Yes, we do see celebrities making poor life choices. We get stabbed in the back by best friends, we don't get into the college campus that is plastered all over our bedroom wall, we don't get the job or spot on the team we deserve due to "politics", we get blamed for someone else's mistake. But, there are other things we see. We see a dad get a tattoo of his daughter's hearing aid on his head so that she doesn't feel self-conscious from the lingering stares. We see men who dress up as superheros as they clean the windows at Children's Hospital. We see young men and women sacrifice their lives every day to protect our country. We see couples opting to adopt a child with a disability, strangers shoveling each other's sidewalks and driveways, college students passing out free hot dogs at homecoming, churches washing cars for free, choirs and dance troops performing at nursing homes. As a teacher, I can struggle to feel like my job is worth the time it devours, yet teachers get to see so many little acts of kindness and tiny glimpses of how beautiful the world is: students sharing their personal supplies, a friend passing up a snack to his classmate because he mostly eats at school and rarely at home, my barely verbal students comforting each other when their table-mate is in distress, teachers working in their classrooms until the building closes so their students not only learn what they need to know, but learn it the fun way. Teachers who do not make enough money but spend their hard-earned wages on supplies for children that will never earn them Child Tax Credit. I see teachers comforting parents who feel hopeless, reminding single parents that they are not their child's only advocate, and working with the parents who seem like monsters, but deep down they feel that ugliness is the only way to ensure their child gets what they deserve, because that's the only way they know.

I see beauty in my marriage. I see my husband working at a job that does not always excite him or stimulate his mind, but it provides for us (something my job as an educator does not.) I see a man who is the Webster's Dictionary definition of "introvert" lead our church in worship, and let me drag him out of the house. He cleans snow off my car, opens every door for me, carries the heavy groceries up flights of stairs, watches more chick flicks than I'm positive he cares to, listens to me whine and complain, offers advice when I need it, and gives me his shoulder when advice can't help. A young man in today's society that is willing to pass up the typical wild, all-about-me lifestyle most people in their twenties live, is rare. Yet, he made that sacrifice to be devoted to one person. Forever. In sickness and health, for richer or poorer,for better or worse. 

And what often happens when we choose to focus on the good, or witness that random act of kindness, is that we are compelled to pay it forward. As Gandhi pointed out, we wish to be the change, or the good, we want to see in the world. And I would like to think that for every time I was inspired to go out of my way, the way a stranger did for me, I inspired someone else. A stranger gave me their turn on the treadmill while in line at the gym, so I gave a stranger my parking space at the grocery store, and hopefully the trail continues. When a world is as gloomy as ours can be, it's the little things, those random acts of kindness, those moments we choose to see the good, to be the good,to be the change, that can shine so bright and change everything for a person, for a stranger, without us even realizing.

So yeah, there are about a million-and-one reasons to be a grouch toward the world. And a lot of the time, you probably have a right to be. But if you have one, teeny tiny reason to smile, GRAB A HOLD. Be thankful for it. Thank God for it. Share it if you can. It's people like that who make a broken world seem a little less broken. It's people like that who inspire, and do the world a favor without even trying. Be a living example. Every day. Starting today, choose to focus on the good.

                                       

Happy Snow Day,PG County!

Always remember: Pj's inside-out, dance in the shower, ice cubes in the toilet.

Welcome to My Madness

Over the years, I have had people tell me that I should start a blog, or some recording of the lighting-flashes of thoughts I think and words I speak. Honestly, I talk so much that I tend to tune out the sound of my own voice, but apparently the madness of my life prompts me to express dramatic tangents that are a mix of humorous and (somehow) inspiring. So here I am, folks, finally not so lazy that I'm starting this process, but still lazy enough that I am typing from my bed. In the middle of the day.

I'll be the first person to point out that my life can be a bit of a hot, bubbling mess. The year 2014 was by far the most maddening year of my life, just a big ol' blob of beauty, insanity, hair-ripping, glorious, you've-got-to-be-kidding-me-moments. It began with me finishing my last semester of college, which was simultaneously the best and worst semester in the history of ever. Getting hired by PG County in March, graduating in May, saying goodbye to my IUP friends that had become my sisters, moving back to Maryland for good, getting married in June, spending the summer learning to cook for a husband with Crohn's Disease and other food intolerances, starting my first big-girl-job in August as a kindergarten autism-intensive teacher (the job is as hard as it's title is long), being diagnosed with stress-induced allergies and discovering my kidneys are the culprit for my being chronically "under the weather", and attempting to kick teacher-butt in the midst of it all. OH. MY. GOODNESS. The stories I could tell about every single one of these categories go on and on and on and on. Which, apparently, is what many people believe, hence the suggestions to start a blog. 

I don't believe in ranting on Facebook like most people of my generation do. In fact, I refuse to let myself sign up for Twitter, because I already get myself into enough trouble blurting out the "facts of life", observations, and sarcasms that go through my thick skull on a regular basis. I really don't need an outlet to hastily post rash, blunt thoughts that can shock as quickly as I hit "post." On Facebook, there are plenty of people who really don't want or care to hear my opinion on politics (yeah seriously, just don't post that stuff there, Facebook is for stalking and looking at pictures of babies and far-away friends and relatives) or what I think about Fifty Shades of Grey. But if you're on my blog, you made a conscious decision to explore what I have to say. You may not like it, and that's perfectly fine, but you also took a peek to see what I think.

And, quite frankly, it doesn't even matter if no one ever takes a peek, or if after one swift read they never revisit. I am an individual who feels like I just ended a therapy session after a good, long rant. This is just as much for me as it is for anyone else. Of course, I still hope this can service others. I exude passion in most things I do, but I am most passionate about 3 things: my faithful God, my friends and family, and the 7 beautiful and incredible boys I have the honor of teaching. I know I am not the only one out there who cares about these categories, or the only one who benefits from reading what others have to say about these topics. That is, for the majority, what I will be writing about. I am so passionate about these categories, that I can never talk about them enough. So here I am, about to do exactly that.

Welcome to my madness.