A Fabulous Friday!

Miss Lubs Class: Today the kids made large name tags in braille! Thanks to Miss Lubs, who brought in puffy glitter glue – the students were able to write their name in Braille and then use the glue to make raised letters.  A terrific culminating activity for our book!  Tutto va bene!

4th Grade Girls Groups: Today we read the book “I am Unique” and the girls came up with a trait, characteristic or interest for each letter of the alphabet that described them. We then made word cloud posters with our unique words through a cool computer site called Word It Out….we will finish the project next week.

Social Thinking Group: Another lively group…..but so focused!!!  Today the we “Bamboozled” our feelings -  a game that fits well with our  “Big Three” – Vocal Tone, Body Language and Facial Expression. The boys took turns expressing how they were feeling. Our “What did you say? What did you mean?” phrase today  was: “All of the students at WBSS worked like dogs during the CMTS! This helps our kids understand metaphors and idioms. We also continued reading the new Superflex adventure “Superflex Takes on Glassman and the Team of Unthinkables”  The kids are super excited!!!!   Today we identified problems as small, medium or big problems and then identified superflexible coping strategies! The meaning of “hidden rules” was also introduced.  Finally, the long awaited key chains were started!

A Fabulous Friday indeed!

I am so excited to be spending the day at the Autism Symposium where I will have the privilege of hearing Dr. Temple Grandin speak!  I will also get the opportunity to learn from Elaine Hall – creator and director of “Autism the Musical”!

Cannot wait to bring lots of learning and ideas back to Stonington!

Miss Eriksen will be in charge today!  I’m sure her and Mr. Wood will do a fine job with all of the groups!

Our groups today welcomed Miss Jillian Ferraro – a freshman from Boston University who thinks she would like to be a school psychologist some day!  She certainly fit right in and all the groups did a fabulous job of showing her just what I do each and every day!

Thanks Everyone!

Third Grade Girls Group 1: After sharing Happy Happenings, we continued with our book “100 Dresses” and discovered that one of the characters was moving away because everyone was making fun her……hmmmmmm – something to think about!

Third Grade Girls Group 2: Miss Eriksen’s group learned about Happy Happenings and read the book: “I’m Going to Like Me!”

Third Grade Girls Group 3: Today, after sharing Happy Happenings,  we continued with our book called: “Superflex Takes on Glassman”! We also started a discussion about the size of the problem in relation to the reaction to the problem. The girls were certainly chatty today and had a difficult time maintaining focus!  Looks like we need to take a step back and re-learn about being part of a group!

Preschool: As always..we had a blast with the preschool kids!  We hung out for a while with the morning group and in the afternoon group, we continued with our book: “Thotso Your Thought Maker”. We are focusing on teaching the kids about how our thoughts affect our feelings. Today we learned more about sunshine thoughts and then made our own sunshine glasses to let the sunshine thoughts in!!!  Fantastic!

A Terrific Tuesday!

It was quite a Monday, again…..CMTs continue,  schedules are changed, and it was a high energy day!

7th Grade Boys: The boys had tons of energy……probably from sitting so long during CMTs!  Mr. Wood decided to bring the boys outside for some fresh air and football after eating lunch!

6th Grade Girls: We shared our “Happy Happenings” and chatted then the girls decided to also go outside and get some fresh air!

5th Grade Boys:  One step forward, one step back…Miss Eriksen took the boys outside for some fresh air and games…however – not much sportsmanship today….guess that will be our first lesson next week!

5th Grade Typical Peer Group: Today the 5th grade had a Town Meeting about bullying – so group was cancelled…..we certainly missed seeing the girls!

So glad we had nice weather today!

A Relaxing Friday!

Miss Lubs Class: Today the kids were so excited to hear that author Sharon Creech who wrote “Granny Torrelli Makes Soup” sent the students a special message! We also learned the Braille Alphabet and decoded a special Braille message!  Tutto va bene!

4th Grade Girls Groups: Today we played the “Talking, Feeling, Doing Game” in all groups!  It’s a fun way to express feelings and get to know ourselves better!

Social Thinking Group: Another lively group…..hard to harness all the energy and keep Brain Eater from appearing! Today we played “Too Much, Too Little, Just Right” a communication game that fits well with our  “Big Three” – Vocal Tone, Body Language and Facial Expression. The boys took turns acting out various messages and actions while the members of the group rated the communication as too much, too little or just right!  The boys love this game!

A nice end to the crazy CMT week!

Game Day for Groups!!!!!  Just my way of having the kids let off some CMT stress!

7th Grade Girls: The girls were all chatty, chatty, chatty!!!!

6th Grade Boys: It was a quick lunch and then the boys talked Mr. Wood into taking them outside for a game of football!  They had a blast!

5th Grade Girls: No group today as I was administering CMTs during 5th grade lunch.

8th Grade Boys: Amusing as always…. the boys wanted to play Pokemon Sorry!  Too, too funny!

Social Thinking Grade 5: All wound up and nowhere to go!  I decided to let the boys choose a game and then kept track of expected and unexpected behaviors which we will use to do some social behavior mapping next week!

Everyone survived CMT week!  Barely!

And the CMT crazies continue!!!!  There is so much energy in this building after CMTs that every group was a bundle waiting to burst!  I made an executive decision not to introduce any new concepts or try to teach anything during the CMTs!  Instead, groups will be a chance for the kids to expend some energy and relax!

7th Grade Typical Peer Lunch Group: Today we made warm fuzzies and played with Playdoh…

5th Grade Boys Group: The boys were very lively and decided to play “Break the Safe”. They were all so cooperative and worked as a team!

8th Grade Girls Group: We had a very small group today but made warm fuzzies and had many laughs!

7/8th Grade Social Thinking Group: Today we played with Connex and Playdoh!

Whew….how many more days of CMTs are left????????

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. SEUSS!

Well….CMT Craziness hits the Elementary School!

All 3 Third Grade Girls Groups decided to mass produce Warm Fuzzies to help relax after their first experiences with the CMTs….what beautiful creations they made! Warm Fuzzies EVERYWHERE!

Preschool: As always..I had a blast with the preschool kids!  I hung out for a while with the morning group and in the afternoon group, we continued our talk about the book called: “Thotso Your Thought Maker”. We are  focusing on teaching the kids about how our thoughts affect our feelings. Today we talked about sunshine thoughts and cloudy thoughts and the students made a big sunshine to keep track of all of their sunshine thoughts. Then we learned about how the brain is “flexible” and it can change the way we think – to demonstrate Miss Ericksen made a jello brain…that we all ate after the lesson!  A fabulous time today!

The Preschool Flexible Jello Brain! Yum!

Nice job today at rehearsal Annie Cast!  All cast members need to make the effort to attend all rehearsals!

A Tremendous Tuesday!

Thanks to all the parents who make the Autism Parent Support Group a pleasure!