Happy Hump Day Everyone!

Mrs. Pescatello and Mrs. Temel’s (Mrs. Cravinho) Classes

Today we continued our read-aloud: Jackson Whole Wyoming by Joan Clark

His classmates have identified him as a friend of Jackson, who has Asperger Syndrome, and now Tyler is tormented by what that means in terms of his own personality. Over the course of this highly readable and swift-moving middle-grade novel (2nd to 6th grade), Tyler resolves this issue and in the process recalls incidents from previous school years, growing in his understanding of this unusual classmate. Written by a speech-language pathologist who works with children with autism spectrum disorders, this novel belongs on the library shelf of any classroom.

The kids were awesome….they love read-alouds and had some great commentary!

5th Grade Girls Social Thinking

Today the girls were kind enough to help me with a project for my grad students.  I asked them to draw self portraits so that I can show them to my class and see if my grad students can guess the age of the child!  They were super troopers! Thanks girls!

Otters Class

We continued our read a-loud!!!  Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there’s no delete button. She’s the smartest kid in her whole school—but no one knows it. Most people–her teachers and doctors included–don’t think she’s capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows . . . but she can’t, because Melody can’t talk. She can’t walk. She can’t write.

Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind–that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. At last Melody has a voice . . . but not everyone around her is ready to hear it.

She is smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and smarter than her classmates in her integrated classroom—the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally challenged, because she cannot tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy. And she’s determined to let everyone know it…somehow.

Readers will come to know a brilliant mind and a brave spirit who will change forever how they look at anyone with a disability. From multiple Coretta Scott King Award winner Sharon M. Draper comes a story full of heartache and hope. Get ready to meet a girl whose voice you’ll never, ever forget.

The kids are hooked!