Student Observations

Mrs. Yardis' class and Mrs. Orlando's class
March 10th

    As students sit in a circle, Mrs. Yardis reminds reminds her students to sit on their bottoms. George moves around a lot, back up on knees after 2 mins. no SEP aide. During work time he is sitting and doing his work just fine. Great cutting, George has a thing with scissors and cutting. sometimes uses them too much.... Did his work then..... SEP teacher sits behind him George doesn't know she is here just for him. She asks him questions to keep him on task. Waits for teacher to do next part of lesson. Stays sitting, interruptions, etc. keeps working while clean up his occurring.


March 15th,
During art today in the art room, George enjoys drawing fish although he used supplies in appropriately. He uses scissors on pastels etc. He gets an well needed OT break and doesn't have a chance to finish project.

March 20th,
Before art Georgehas had a 1/2 OT time We are having art in the art room. On this day. T starts off being disruptive making notices. others copy . I give two warnings then move him to a table by himself. This seems to help. He starts cutting his pond,does a nice job, but never stops when he needs to giving the pond a trim. I fix it, so he can go onto cutting out lily pads and crinkle tissue paper for the flower part of the lily. He seems to enjoy this too. He works independently for a while drawing more little fish this time. He glues everything down. Not a pool of glue like usual. He taps the glue bottle but it soon turns into squeezing, but at least he's not finger painting!
Although George shouldn't use certain materials the way he does, it seems to give him some pleasure. Before cleaning up his mess, George took a giant pastel and drew heavy on a piece of paper. I reminded him he needed to clean up, before he did extra time, but he seemed to be enjoying it, so I sat there and watched him. Then he stopped handed it to me, and said, "this is for you. "
I felt bad for George sometimes, he is doing things out of a pure need, not to be a stinker! I plan to work with the OT to see if she can give me some advice.

Talked to the OT today, she recommends holding a thick folder behind what George is cutting for him to be more input when cutting. This she help with his over cutting, and snipping.
Told me that Sally get over stimulated because of all the visual stuff. recommends covering whatever she isn't reading or drawing etc. so she can focus better. Also sounds bothers her which I've already addressed with not ringing the bell.

Frenchtown School, Trumbull, CT
May 8th,
   3rd grade students were working on Day #2 of a Embossed Medal project
Inspired by Senufo Drawing. Despite the rainy day students we very well behaved.
This class was selected for me to observe because 2 students are in a program
Called SRP Special Resource Program. Before entering the art classroom I was introduced to teachers in the program and visited 3 of there classrooms.
Students earn special time to do things they like. One students had earned OT time where he was jumping and singing about the rain. Michelle H. Said they they work so hard to earn their special time they can be loud etc. Spaces were labeled and each student has a folder with visuals to help them achieve their individual goals.
One boy in a wheel chair enjoys earning time going on the school elevator!
Next, I walked around the art room looking at students work and really tried  to observe 2 student's in the SRP. One student did excellent, his skills were lower but I didn't notice any different behaviors then the rest of the group. Another student I noticed was a little anxious. His para was working very closely with him. She sat with him and worked carefully and quietly. I learned that the para got to know the project well because she had been in the room doing the same project two other times. The overall feeling of the room was not overwhelming despite the 20 ft. Ceilings. The walls were kept clean of artwork. there were a few small boards with art stuff on them. A large free standing dry erase board was to the side which was used to draw on for part of a demonstration. What made the visual part of the demonstration work well was the overhead called a TT-12 was used to display what Ms. Dean was demonstrating onto the smartboard. Every time she demonstrated something it was show in large scale for everyone to see!!!

Pete is Back!!

    My student art show which is in it's 5th year is over!! Thanks to wonderful volunteers and my co-worker which does all the planning with the volunteers. It's time to generate some summer art camp projects. Last year I had students create a painting and collage piece that was of a cat based on the
book by Eric Litwin and James Dean. It was Pete the Cat Rocking in his School Shoes. Well PETE IS BACK!! This time he has Four Groovy Buttons.    

Here is one of my examples:

If you are interested in my art classes I can email you more information regarding 

Theme for the Week and projects for particular days.  

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday

Starting: July 8th-Aug. 2nd 

Classes are 2 1/2 hours: 1:30p.m.-4:00p.m.. 

Ages 4-10 

Snack and Water Provided 

$20 per student per day, $15 any additional Siblings    

Spring is Here!!

Spring is here!! I've got lots of new projects in store at work this last part of the school year. I'm still  keeping to the Spring Theme of Eric Carle...My favorite!!  This year I again did the Very Hungry Caterpillars with My 6- K classes. They love it, and it never gets boring for me because I see how much they just LOVE painting their clay caterpillars and paper wax resist leaf. Today I came across this picture on the Eric Carle Blog. as quoted from his blog;  "In this painting by Lucy Cousins, Maisy meets The Very Hungry Caterpillar!"

Kindergarten Ladybug Project

    A complete success. Even with a substitute Para or Aide yesterday my little friend Sally in Kindergarten did a great job in art. All the cutting Sally had to do today was a straight line. Design the ladybug in crayon and but two fasteners into the sides to make the ladybug wings move. It also helped that it was a Monday after a week off from school!  I didn't take any pictures because things were so busy I didn't remember to but I'm hoping today to use a visual aide for George and take pictures of his progress. As far as the bell being used, I changed it to the street light as the signal for clean up so that Sally wouldn't get upset. No problem there either. The following art class time I will introduce my students to the work of Eric Carle...one of my favorite Children's Book Illustrator's. Here is a blog I just found, I plan to use for inspiration:

Visual Spacial Problems ?

As I drove into reading this past week I had three books I started to read. I guess this is the ADD part of me that can't stick with one book. I guess it's about finding the information that fits the children I'm working with. A book I borrowed from a co-worker had been very helpful. Helping a Child with Nonverbal Learning Disorder or Asperger's Syndrome, by Kathryn Stewart, Ph.D.Sally I believe has Visual-Spatial  Problems.
It is the ability to use information from the visual fields to understand the world around you. Visual-spacial processing deficits affect how information gained through the visual field makes it into memory. Information gained through auditory channels is more likely to make it into memory. This makes a lot of sense to me. Sally has to be told what to do and it's even written out for her. Because her behavior is the main thing her aide needs to deal with sometimes the written part of her directions are not done for her.
Also I now realize that Sally worries about when the bell is being rung at the end of class to signal the children that class is over and it's time to clean up. Many times she asks when I going to ring the bell or "where is your bell Mrs. Zacchia?". For some reason she either starts to apologize to me or has held her ears when I ring the bell. I'm going to try something else with this class to see if it makes a difference. Perhaps turn on the red light on my street light to signal class is over.  

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Reflection Done, Now for the Changes (modifications)

    As I browse through web sites dedicated to working with children on the Autism Spectrum and the books I've read; Thinking in pictures, my Life with Autism, by Temple Grandin, Cary's Voice, breaking through Autism, by Arthur Fleischmann. I've learned that when students like my anxious little girl  "Sally", ( not her real name) and in need of more sensory input boy "George" ( also not his real name ) are in the art room I can do things with them or prepare them for the art room better. The art room is a place to create with many different materials and certain ones could bother the over stimulated student. For myself, I'm very sensitive to smells and find the art room to have a bad smell whenever we have the paint cart out. Each night it gets covered, but with a MOLD problem in the room, it gets icky and smelly. Certain markers have a funny smell too! Sally and George have a very good use of language but may not be able to use their language effectively enough to say "hey that smell is really bothering me"! All cleaning products are GREEN so they shouldn't have a strong smell either. Also, I need to work with a very narrow window of opportunity to effectivley teach Sally. She either becomes bored or it's too much information and starts to whine and screetch (yes, screetch). She is not allowed to leave as this is what she wants some times. A big test of patience for her aide, myself and the other students which seem to be O.K. when Sally has her outbursts. She prefers to come in with the class because she really likes being with them and is highly social. I've learned that simple is better. A small discussion and demonstraion with a motor break and a 20 minute work time allowing for a 10 minute on task time and 10 minute motor break. That is not an hour....so they have free time, which they love.  I found a website which is on my (Pinterest board ) that has several projects that were broken down into small parts and placed in pictures with a supply list to be placed in front of the student. So many things I already do with students like back up the visual supports to back up verbal language which is placed on an easel in from of the class. However, students that are in Kindergarten are just learning to read. So I don't put up written directions most of the time. Sally reads and so I need to write it out for her eventhough most of the class doen't read. Also she may have a problem with her vision that doen't allow her to see well. I have seen her try and cut and she can't cut a large circle but can cut a straight line.
  Next time I have her class I'm going to see if a visual sheet of paper will help Sally to understand what to do and lessen her anxiety. Maybe this is what she needs on a regular basis:
   
I'll let you know how it turns out!! LESS is MORE, LESS is MORE, LESS, is MORE. Keep saying it Michelle. ( Did I say that out loud?)

Mid Year Reflection

 In September, I posted about work and my professional goals for the year. 
  It started like this: This year I have two extra classes I teach besides the regular classes that are all Kindergarten and First Grade. One of the Extra classes needs to be taught in the regular Kindergarten classroom.  I don't need to "follow" the curriculum per say, I could go in different directions, try new things, even do experiments! However, after working with this class for three class times I realized they there are some several children that may need extra time learning the basic skills like cutting, hand washing, general direction following. etc. The only hard part is doing projects that aren't as messy as those we do in the art room.  Here is a piece of artwork by my student a boy who is on the " spectrum" .     

Most children could cut out the entire chameleon and some ran out of time or had trouble with the smaller fine motor skills of cutting the triangles out for the toes.One even kept cutting even though he had cut enough, he discovered that tape would do the job of fixing some over cuts. I let him continue to tape even though he didn't need too. Using the tape dispenser isn't an easy skill for a Kindergarten, I was impressed! Next time I will definitely have this student STOP before he does too much to his project! He doesn't know when to stop!  

 Well into February, I've gotten to know two special needs students that I happen to teach twice in a six day rotation. I've observed some classes, read and continue to read up on art with children on the "spectrum" .I'm presently reading : Two books that I feel will help me discover new ways of dealing with my very anxious little girl in one class and my "in need of more sensory input" boy in the other Kindergarten classes. In addition I teach four other Kindergartens and five first grade classes an hour each.       and