What happens next?
So often we forget that our students' lives do not end with our classroom/gym. It is our responsibility to prepare them for environments beyond the current one. What have you done the first few weeks of CAPES! with your students that takes them beyond the gym and the classroom? What additional skills can you begin teaching them that will prepare them for their future as contributing members of our society? What functional skills can you teach them that will impact them for a lifetime?
I have been trying to work on social skills with my students. They have a really hard time working with each other, preferring to associate only with myself or my partner. Ideally, we would like to teach them how to associate with their peers. I'm hoping to see some progress on that front this semester. I would also like to work with S and J on their ability to do things they wouldn't normally choose. We don't always get to do things that are enjoyable, and sometimes we have to give a little to earn our reward. I would like to work on compromise and consequences with the students. This will definitely help them contribute to society and impact them for the rest of their lives.
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ReplyDeleteA is really great. I've been trying to help improve her swimming skills. She can swim, but there is definitely room for improvement and I would love to see her become a great swimmer. I've noticed she also needs work with catching items, as well as being able to find items. For example, when I throw rings in the water, she has a hard time finding them, even when they are right beneath her. I would like to be able to work with her with some emotional skills. She really does do great, but she can have a hard time controlling some of her emotions, especially if she gets really excited. Also, sometimes A doesn't like to do what I have planned, and for the most part I'm okay with doing what she wants to do. But I would like to work with her as far as being able to do other things that she hasn't tried that she might be apprehensive about.
ReplyDeleteT is doing amazing in his progression. We have been working side by side with him to continue enhancing his communication skills. During CAPES we have been incorporating visual, audio, and physical activities to help T develop his language skills. Every week when we see T again we follow up on what we did the week before, and by doing so we are able to monitor the success T is making as he thinks of what we did in CAPES all throughout his week. Every week when we see him again we pick up where we left off and review common principles to him so he is confident and excited to always learn more with us in CAPES!
ReplyDeleteI saw a lot of progression with A this week in the pool. She was able to practice her swimming stokes and swim by herself (with the assistance of a waist floaty) This was much improved from last week. We have also been working with A on eye contact, following directions, and communication. We encourage her to look at us when we are talking to her. This can be challenging because she is very distracted with all the stimulating things going on in the gym. I think that teaching her to follow directions even when she does not want to, and eye contact will be a life long skill, because these are things we have to do in the real world every single day. Communication is the last and hardest thing we have been working on. She is non verbal but can say hello and goodbye. Right now we are just working on having her hear words. So we commentate what she is doing. For example if she is coloring we will say you are drawing with the red crayon and so on. I am hoping this will help a little big and maybe we can get her to learn some new words.
ReplyDeleteAfter our classroom discussion about this same topic I started thinking about what I could do with G that would help her in the long term and not just in our class. Most of my goals as I work with her are verbal. I’m trying to get her to repeat things that I say and have realized that she knows way more than I realized. She knows her colors, letters, and numbers. As we worked together yesterday I really thought about some things that Dr. Williams mentioned in class about needing to be taught manners and skills used when addressing another person. When we went into the dance room, she was just enjoying running back and forth looking at herself in the mirror. I decided that I would push her a little by stopping her every once in a while by standing in front of her and keeping her there until she said “Excuse Me.” She thought it was funny at first, but I could tell she got a little frustrated and would resist saying “excuse me”, but I held my ground and as we kept doing it she would say it quicker. I felt it was a successful activity and I’m hoping we can work on manners a little bit each week. In a couple weeks I’m going to work with G on preparing her own sandwich. I really don’t know what her skill levels are in this area. At the same time we can work on saying please and thank you and possibly getting her to ask for things that she needs. I’ve also considered having her practice folding towels and clothes and seeing what her skill level is with tying shoes, zipping her coat up, and other skills having to do with getting herself ready.
ReplyDeleteOur CAPES participant T is non-verbal and so we try to incorporate putting words together with sign. His parents have been working on helping him sign 'thank you' and 'more'. If we can carry over what is being taught in the home with some more added sign it could benefits T life tremendously. Something we have put a lot of effort into is having T being able to pick up a cup and use his fine motor skills. We have worked on picking up coins, domino's, cups, coloring, sand, anything we can get him to try and do. This can transfer over into the rest of his life so that he may be independent and write his name, pick up clothing, brush his teeth, These things are all essential to living and being able to do that without help.
ReplyDeleteSavanah Border
One of the biggest things T hates is change. I learned the hard way on our last lab experience. When he realized that we would not be following the routine he was used to, he did not like it one bit. My first thought was to give in and do what he wanted but with the support of Ts Dad and Dr. W, we were able to get him to participate in a different activity he was not used to. His dad liked the idea of teaching T that he is going to have to embrace change in his life. After a while of the new activity, T started feeling more comfortable. As I encouraged him that he was okay and that he could do it, he started having fun. I am going to try and start out with a routine but also start doing new activities that will help him learn to cope with change. This was a great learning experience for me and I think it really helped T.
ReplyDeleteThis week in CAPES! we had a breakthrough with M. I've said in the past how polite M can be, but that she is extremely stubborn and gets set in her ways. Well this week was no exception to her stubbornness, and we found ourselves sitting on the ground doing nothing during our kickball game. I gathered M was tired, but we still had ten minutes left and we weren't about to give up, so I was firm and confident in telling her that we could sit down while the person that was up on the plate was kicking, but once he ran, we had to go kick the ball. I'd done this before, but she usually says "okay" and then won't stand up. After the boy had kicked, I stood up and told her it was our turn; she was reluctant, but I grabbed both her hands and stood her up; she had no problem after that and ran to the plate excited to kick. I think it's so important that we follow through with our promises with our participants. M needs to learn that she doesn't always get her way, and she needs reliable people to enforce this principle for her. Something that M taught me this week happened when someone kicked the ball really hard and it hit M in the stomach. She is tiny and frail, so we all started panicking, but she told us she was fine and still wanted to play. She taught me about resilience and not giving up when things get tough. Although she taught me this, it made it very clear to me that M is a fighter, and that I can push her past where I think she can go. She is strong, and I've definitely underestimated her.
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ReplyDeleteA needs little help from me. He is independent and creative. It has been hard to think of knowledge that I can give him, that he hasn’t already learned from his parents and school. With all of this said, it is important to give him opportunity to have some fun and make his own choices. While at school kids like A are structures almost all day. Teaching any child to make decisions can be in important functional skill. My new mission for the next couple weeks is to give A good choices and let him pick. Practicing this will help prepare him for choosing activities, friends, menu items, and so much more
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday I asked him if he wanted to swim or not (a suggestion from Dr. Z), and he told me yes. I reminded him that is he wanted to swim he would have to get into the pool. He made his choice. A got right into the water so we could play some games. When he was done, he asked me nicely if we could be done. I thanked him for asking and said yes (his reward was getting what he wanted).
We didn’t have to negotiate swimming, he was able to do what he wanted. Sounds like a win/win to me.
B, my CAPES! buddy has missed the past two weeks, so we haven't really had a chance to work on any real life skills. I feel like in the first week we made some progress regarding swimming, but other than that I don't feel like we have gotten a lot done. The other two CAPES! students I have worked with all have wonderful skills. This week I worked with M, one of the sweetest kids I've ever met. So willing to try new things and enjoy them as well. We played kickball with a big group and at first M would stop the ball them kick it, but as the game progressed, M was able to kick the ball as it rolled forward. There was also the aspect of running bases. We really had to get M to concentrate hard to be able to run all the bases. It took several times around, but eventually we were able to get M to recognize the color of the base and then us, but it demanded that M look up and around and focus. I thought that was a marvelous step forward. As far as B goes, I think that maintaining eye contact will be one that we work on as well as focusing. I noticed that B was distracted very easily and I think it will help if we can maintain focus on little things and gradually work our way up!
ReplyDeleteMy participant and I have been working on communication and following directions. He uses very few words, and I’m working on getting him to say more. It takes a lot of prompting to get him to say anything out of his usual vocabulary. Following directions and just being patient are another few things that we’re working on. He dives right into whatever equipment that we have out and it takes a few minutes before I’m able to get him to slow down and take some direction for the activity. Next week we’ll be working on flash cards to practice his reading skills as well as getting him to say a few more words. We’ll also play a board game to help him be follow directions and to be patient while it is not his turn. My participant also can’t tie his own shoes and I’d to see if that’s something that we can get him to do.
ReplyDeleteC is very high functioning in a lot of ways. He uses great body language, and his verbal language is pretty great also. In the past few weeks I have tested C to see where he is now because the past blogs and descriptions do not describe the C as I see him today. C has made a lot of progress and it is my ultimate goal to continue that progress the best I can. I'm learning what his strengths and weaknesses are in order to best tailor my activities for him. C has been very agreeable with me on many things, I hope he continues with that so I can attempt to try different games that utilize his strengths in order to work on some weaknesses. As much as I want C to have fun, I don't believe that should stop me from trying new activities that can push C to learn or practice struggling qualities.
ReplyDeleteS is a child with a disability. This is turn will bring about many challenges that he will face in his lifetime. During S's time in CAPES! my goal has to been to help introduce new challenges to S and to see how he reacts. S has shown that he does not like to pursue certain tasks if they are too difficult to be successful in at first. That is completely ok, but I attempt to make those activities more fun or less complicated so that learning is still occurring. S has shown improvement in the pool in terms of floating on his back. I set up pool noodles and pool weights in way that allowed him to float on his back without assistance from me so that he would get comfortable floating on his back by himself. Also, S surprised me with his ability to swim in the pool when I challenged him to a race to capture the pool ring. S shows little interest for land activities that I have planned so far, but that is great. This will allow for a lot of exposure to different things until we find an activity that works well for him!
ReplyDeleteRohan Vajupeyayajula
With my participant, I have worked on a couple things with her to get an idea of what she is already capable of. We put together a puzzle of her name, have worked on finding items that one would buy with a grocery list, and have worked on listening to instructions and getting in a "ready to work" mindset. I have noticed that my participant has a hard time forming what she wants to say when given options to choose or responding to a greeting/question. I plan to work on this with her using scripts and some "wh" question games to help her become more familiar with how she may want to respond in these cases.
ReplyDeleteWith my kid we go swimming and we work on him swimming and we play a lot of basketball in the water. We have also worked on climbing on the rock wall and we have done something with racket sports on how to hit the ball with a racket, which has been very hard. I think one thing we could go over is walking up and down the stairs he has a really hard time and always thinks he is going to fall. We could definitely work on that. I think also just having him be aware of his surroundings so the he can function in society.
ReplyDeleteKellee Page
K struggles with focusing in on an activity. We got invited into a game of duck, duck, goose. her attention span is short so we encouraged her to stay with it that way she will learn to complete tasks. In the pool K didn't want to swim to the deep end so we kept on encouraging her to swim over there and back.This can help her in her life because she can see the benefit in completing obstacles.
ReplyDeleteDuring the first few weeks we have made outstanding progress in the pool. K loves the water but has always stayed close to the wall and refused the first day to move away from it. Since then she has put her head in the water and loves to jump off of the platform that is in the middle of the pool. We continue to work on basic swim strokes. Swimming occurs in the gym but it is an important skill to learn. On land one day K found flashcards with pictures on them. We played a game of naming what the signs or objects were on the card. They were signs and objects that you encounter almost every day and are important for her to know. Along with these activities we have been working on staying focused, sticking to one task, and also using manners. Skills that we can work on are reading new words, using fine motor skills, and social skills.
ReplyDeleteI have been working with my student on eye contact and following directions. I think these are very helpful life skills. She is very smart but sometimes I think she has a hard time hearing and or following directions. We have been working on this since day one. I think that working on eye contact is important so that I know that if she is looking at me there is a chance she might be listening to my directions. We have also been trying to work on verbal skills. She can say hi and bye. this week at CAPES we were doing a puzzle and it had the color red. I kept pointing to the color and saying "red, red can you say red" she tried a few times I kept sounding out the word for her I could tell she was getting frustrated but after a few more times she said red. I have never felt so excited in my life. This was a huge step for her I finally think we are making progress. I think teaching her words and what those words mean will help her life tremendously.
ReplyDeleteMy student is very well behaved and follows directions almost perfectly. There are still a couple of things involving direction following that I would like to work on. There are times that she doesn't hear me because she isn't making eye contact. If there is an issue with direction following, it isn't because she is being disobedient, it is because she cannot hear. I would like to work on keeping the eye contact there and using words that make it easier for her to comprehend what I am saying.
ReplyDeleteMy student is very active and everything but what i could teach him that is outside of the class room and gym is manners and also concentrating on one thing at a time. other functional skills i can teach my kid is being able to listen to directions when im talking.
ReplyDelete-Jeremy Maxwell
I think M and I helped prepare A for the out of class environment by helping her with asking to join an activity or helping her use calming techniques when she didn't get what she wanted. We were able to help her on her swimming skills as well which is very useful for kids. She is very sweet and isn't shy so that will definitely help her in out of class settings.
ReplyDeleteSo In the pool today we were working with s. are main task was to just have jun in the pool we played basketball dove for rings in the shallow end and swam on the far end of the pool. s is a good swimmer. it was a good experience. afterwords we were in the gym we did an ninja warrior obstacle course. It was really fun s started it but we did not finish it i thought i was a really good idea. my partner had set it up before hand. so we ended up doing something different.
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