10 Things for parents to consider before children go back to school after Winter break

Going back to school after Winter break can add stress to a child, parent, and the daily routine, especially after the holidays. Family time, relatives, special celebrations are all fun and everyone gets excited, however the anticipation of going back to school offer stressful times if we wait until the night before school starts to get ready.  Here are my top ten actions to consider as a parent before your child goes back to school in January.

10 - Stay informed. Check the school's district, school, and classroom websites, calendar, Facebook or Twitter accounts for any last minute changes to schedules, routines, new initiatives, or other considerations which may begin during the start of the second semester of school. Some teachers will post items two or three days before school resumes to remind parents of any changes in schedule or events the first week back.

9- Prepare notes to send to the teacher. If there have been changes in the student's health or any event which will help the teacher to know about a life-changing or other "life-event" (birth of sibling, death of close relative, etc.) send a note to the teacher. Email can be overwhelming for teachers the first day or two back so a brief note to look at email or to call home would get the attention of the student's teacher right away.

8- Talk about returning to school. Be positive. Remember that unless the child is old enough to understand sarcasm, they will take adult comments about "having to" return to school as truth and feel differently about school. Let them tell you about the fun things they did before school ended. This will help to bring back the fondness and generate positive anticipation in returning to school in January.

7-Update the school on any changes in phone numbers (get a new phone for Christmas?), emergency contact information, address, or any other changes to be sure the second semester contact and inclement weather considerations are in place at the beginning of the January term.

6-Talk to your child about school attire. Remind the fashion conscious the cute outfit from grandma may not work for standard school attire where the rules are more restrictive and consistent which wouldn't allow some of the styles to be worn at school. Also, take the time to discuss and talk about what we see on the outside is should not to be used to judge what is on the inside. A good idea is to talk about and prepare for what your child is going to wear when they go back to school for the first few days and even get them to help you select specific clothes so they are not hiding in the laundry basket on the first morning back.

5- Talk with your child that it may be difficult. The first few days back to school are an adjustment to working on math, language arts, rather than other holiday activities. Also, remember homework may be on the schedule when school starts back in January. Early discussions can ease the surprise element of change and help us as parents and our children to set expectations before we get overwhelmed. Understanding and preparing for change helps to mitigate the challenges which come with change.

4-Our children love to share what happened over the holidays, but some things just shouldn't be shared. Some classes will have time to share about what happened on their winter holiday or about their most exciting gift. As parents, if we take the time to ask questions about the holiday we can get an idea of what our children remember and can give guidance on perhaps not discussing the relative who stumbled or mumbled - even though the family may have seen it as funny at the time, discussed in a school setting may not have the same hilarity.

3-Help your child remember things about school. Ask them to tell you about what they think their first day will be like: "What will be the first thing you do?" "When will you go to lunch?" "Will you have Art, Music or PE?" Ask them to revisit their hopes and dreams or goals they set at the beginning of the school year. Not too much emphasis, but a good discussion or a few probing questions will get the brain working and ready them when they walk in on the first day back. (For help on revisiting hopes and dreams in the new year.)

2-Cut back on the holiday treats. By the time the holidays are over with all of the unique family traditions the cafeteria breakfast and lunch programs are going to leave our taste buds calling out for spices, seasonings, and craving, shall I say it, "sweets." After the New Year's day food traditions, start going back to the same foods and schedules the students were eating during their regular school day. Having meals at regular times or with foods on regular days (My daughter still asks for macaroni & cheese Wednesdays and she has a child or her own now.) it will help each of us get back into our comfort routines.

1-Get to bed early. Video games for gifts, late nights with relatives, are all great to have when you can sleep in or nap the next day. But when the demands for school start back, ease back into getting the proper amount of rest. But don't wait until the night before to change the bedtime for children. For my kids we would start on January 1st to ease back the non-holiday bedtime by fifteen minutes or so earlier each night until we were back to the normal school bedtime. We would also make sure to use the same wake-up method that we used during school days. If you use an alarm start setting it now, not the night before.  (Wondering what to do if you wake up early and school isn't back in session? How about spending the time reading. Select a book to read or visit an online reading site.)

Helping your child to ease back into the school day routine will reduce the family stress, personal stress and provide comfort and routine to the child. If you are like my family, we enjoy the changes the holidays bring, but are so happy when we can get back into the comfort of the familiar. We just seem to relax after everything returns to "normal."

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The Tennessee Association for Assistive Technology (AT) has a great listing of resources for use of assistive technology for student with special needs.  AT websites and devices may help students to participate in classroom settings, communicate with teachers, parents and peers. Not all AT services and devices are created equally, so please investigate their uses and abilities as well as what the purpose should be in adding AT to a students tools by reading this article from Autism Society of Greater Tucson. 

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Beginning of School - New "nick name"

Friday was our first full day of school for 2014-15 school year. All of the students were apprehensive, excited, overly stimulated as well as cautious. There were new teachers, teachers in different classrooms, new schedules, just new stuff all around. Mr. Don's Scholars was no exception to the angst beginning to fill the room. We are a group of special needs students, so any extra anxiety is sometimes difficult for my students. 

As is customary, we have an activity where I use a mirror and we call it "Get To Know Me, Get To Know You". It involves observations about others and yourself, then thinking, talking, writing and finally drawing - each other. 

It was going well - the students would look at each other and write down the color of their buddy's shirt, the color of their eyes, the color of their hair, short or long; pants, skirt, or shorts; then they would write a sentence about their buddy. Next they would look in the mirror and do the same exercise about themselves. Finally we would compare and contrast our findings.

As the time progressed, I was helping one of my students with autism who has difficulty making eye contact. So we were practicing. She would look at my hair (short); she would look at my shirt (red); she would say "pants" - when I asked about the color of my eyes she looked directly into them. I was so pleased that she held the gaze as long as she did so I must have put a big smile on my face. Slowly her hand moved toward my face and she lightly touched my cheek, then proceeded to shout in a loud, cackling voice, "Chubby cheeks! Chubby Cheeks!" -- to which I laughed out loud, which in turn made her laugh and then say it even louder and more frequently.  Then all of the students were repeating the phrase and we were all laughing and enjoying the moment of bonding as a class. 

After returning from lunch, she looked at me directly again, then said very softly, "Chubby Cheeks." To which I replied in the same soft tone, "Yes. Chubby Cheeks with blue eyes." She pressed in a little closer and said ever so gently - "Ooo, bal-lu-u eyes. I have bar-row-n eyes." I nodded, we knuckled bumped and proceeded to write the word "blue" in the space for her buddy's eye color. 

"Chubby Cheeks" is ready for the year. It is going the be the best year ever!!

Organization is Key!

Each year I find myself struggling organize my students' schedules and to make reminders of who will be transitioning when. With eight full time students of different grade levels and four additional push-in students need differentiation, knowing who will be coming and going and where has been difficult to remember - especially when we are so engaged that we loose track of time and suddenly it's time to go to music and we still need everyone to go to the bathroom before we escort them to an outside classroom...Not this year!

This year I created a Google Account with calendar reminders to send text message reminders to me and my assistant. We then changed our notifications to be a different sound when those messages arrive.

With 5 minute warnings of what schedule is coming due, we can be more organized. We can also change the warning time to send the reminder as we move through this first few weeks so that we will have our students in the right place at the right time.

With the unlimited text packages for our mobile phones this seems to be a great way for us to use a reminder. Each week or each day we can delete those messages from our phones since they are coming from one specific account and not the other reminder messages I get from "Remind 101" or "Remember the Milk" (my wife sends me messages on RTM all the time!).

The additional benefit? Now I can set up the classroom calendar to be shared with parents, attached documents to share with parents, and even create a simple website (even with the student's helping me) to display work product, important images and other non-student specific items.

If organization is the key to my sanity, then I'm unlocked and ready for the 2014-15 school year!!

Perseverance Pays Off... When Will We Learn

How long will you try something? How long will you struggle before you give up? What about your students? Will they try and give up or will they as the students from this article indicates other countries persevere, work together, help one another then when they achieve, celebrate the achievement?

This article and post was talked about this summer in one of my professional development classes and it has caused me to think that we need to teach "progressive struggle." That ability to work on something until we can get it, rather than just giving up thinking it's not worth the struggle to persevere.

Thanks to Amy for sharing this in our PD. Now, let's continue to share this with other educators and parents as the first day of school rapidly approaches.

http://goo.gl/5tL7uH

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P.S. Remember to read the comments. They are just as encouraging!

Don't let math go down the drain this summer!

This list of Math apps can help to keep the math skills sharpened during the Summer. Don't let them go down the drain or be filtered out with the pool water!   I use Slate Math in the classroom and my 2nd graders loved it!  Check out the list: TEN MATH APPS from Teacherswithapps.com


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Counting Down or Counting Out?

There are less than 30 school days remaining in our 2013-14 school year. We are half-way through the last nine week reporting period. High stakes testing will begin in just over a week. What is happening to our learners? To our educators?

As the weather has improved and the days have become longer it seems there is a correlation to the memories getting shorter and the focus getting more and more cloudy.  As teachers there is a tendency to push and push, shoving more and more facts, figures, learning into an already saturated and sometimes exhausted mind of a young learner.  As I was talking to an educator (not at my school, thankfully), she stated that she was "counting down the days." Then she smiled and gave me that "I-can't-wait-until-Summer-break" facial look. Had she given up? Was she counting out her students? Had she thrown in the towel?

In preparation for our state's annual standardize testing, I am tutoring a group of seven third graders in math. They weren't ready for what we did. Using techniques from Dave Burgess's Teach Like A Pirate (@burgessdave #TLAP) along with ideas from Richard Byrne's websites iPadsApps4School.com and FreeTech4Teachers.com these third graders began to experience math in an entirely different way.

The first day my seven learners (all third grade girls) were waiting at the assigned point in the school with the other learners that were participating for nine hours of interventions over three weeks in preparation for the standardized tests.

They knew who I was. Evidently I have a reputation. (Thanks, PIRATE DAVE!) I announced in my strong teacher voice, "Mr Don's Math Scholars! Please, form a triangle."

Quickly they struggled to awaken from their after school coma as they tried to comprehend. "What? Form a triangle? Huh?"  One girl even stated, "Mr. Don, I'm not a math scholar, sir. I'm not really that good at math." To which I looked at her and whispering, corrected her, "I'm not good at math, YET!"

Breaking into a typical drill sergeant cadence. We marched from the meeting spot (as a triangle) to my room chanting,

"I may not know, but I believe, 

mathematics is for me! 

We will study, we will learn,

not just facts but skills we earn.

Math is everywhere we see

I can do it, You will see

Math is great and math's for me!"

As we marched down the hallway I ask questions about triangles, vertices, obtuse, acute, etc. They were answering quietly. I smiled and said, "I can't hear you!"  Then I smiled and at that they realized this was not going to be a typical math session.

We chanted down the hallway, now we were looking for triangles and identifying the types of triangles we could find all around us. We then continued the learning inside the room with activities, tech tools (iPads, Elmo, Projection systems) not by themselves, but as teams, as collaborators. We did this until we returned an hour later with a new chant exiting back to where parents were waiting to pick up their young mathematicians. No pencils. No paper. Math skills being enhanced by using our brains, powers of observation and using the tools we carry with us every day (yes, some had to user their fingers, but that's is a good purpose for them!)

We are now half-way through the intervention time. We continue to form geometric shapes as we cadence to the room. Yet, now, they are leading the cadence, calling out the geometric forms, identifying lengths/widths, and giving me formulas for finding area, circumferences, putting fractions into ascending and descending order all as we constantly move for the entire hour. No sitting (if at all possible) and continuously checking in with each other for understanding. We are noisy. We are learning. We are having fun, too!

The benefit to me has been enormous. I am just as rejuvenated at the end of the session as they are. We are making the time count not just counting the time.

We realize we have testing strategies as well as math skills to work on improving.

How do I know that learners should not be counted out as we approach the end of the school year? That young mathematician who "wasn't very good at math" celebrated yesterday with her team as she was able to solve a complex logic problem. Everyone in the room could hear her brain "click" and then see the light turn on as she "got it!" We all celebrated.

Let's keep counting down for events and stop counting out. Let's keep providing that hope of "Yet!" and not leaving learners in the ring thinking that they have been counted out and their match was lost, returning to their corner without hope.

"Yes, I know and I believe, all learners are extraordinary!"  (Their favorite chant as we end!)

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