From Sarah Trout:

We are centering our activities around a camping theme.  For letter/sound correspondence lessons, we pretended to fish from a raised beam, swat bugs, water ski, canoe, and star gaze.  Everything this week focused on building tactile awareness, balance, and vestibular and proprioceptive movements.  We are practicing writing the letter N, and recently added C and W.

We are also going to make an arts & crafts project of a caterpillar that turns into a butterfly.

Here’s an example of what we did for our water-skiing adventure, to make it both fun and educational.  There were paper bugs with letters on that that were stuck to a board.  Each student would stand on two scooters and get pulled around the room to the board.  Then, I’d tell them which letter to swat with the fly swatter.  As they swatted each letter, they would say its sound.  After practicing, they’d switch pulling and water-skiing.

Fishing for the proper letters.

We’ve caught a “D”!

Next week will be all about St. Patrick’s Day!

From Katherine Taylor:

We had a blast last week doing the Dr. Seuss Read Across America Day.  I was so proud of everyone’s participation and expression in their reading – just like they display in class every week. We all made French Toast, as well as Green Eggs and Ham in honor of Dr. Seuss. Take a look at all the kids cooking (with a little help from Ms. Trout)!

From Kim Gallant:

This week in the Sensory Integration classroom, the theme is camping.  We are continuing to focus on counting by 5’s, time telling, money identification and value, addition, spatial concepts, and rhyming.  Our activities have a fun outdoors twist that provides the necessary sensory stimulation to help the children organize and prepare their bodies for learning. 

This week’s “Learning Made Fun” idea:
Go Fishing for Words. 

Purpose: A new and fun way to practice sight words, spelling words, the alphabet, letter sounds, number recognition, math facts, and hand-eye coordination.

Materials Needed:
• Fish made from colored construction paper
• Paper clips (large)
• A magnet
• A stick/pole
• String
• Bucket

Directions:
Cut fish out of colored construction paper.  Write a spelling word, sight word, or letter on each of the fish.  Clip one paper clip to each fish. Attach a string with a magnet tied to the end to a short stick or pole.  Scatter the fish on the floor. 

Take turns dropping your line into the “pond.”  When your child catches a fish, have her take it off the hook and read it.  If she correctly reads the word, it’s a keeper and the fish is collected in a bucket.  If the word is missed, read/sound out the word for your child and throw the fish back into the pond for another try.  When it’s your turn, encourage your child to help you read/sound out the words.  At the end, count up your fish to see who caught the most or the biggest word. 

For spelling practice, turn the fish upside down in the pond.  As your child catches the fish have her hand it to you to read.  Have her spell the word out loud or write it down.  If the child spells the word correctly, she gets to keep the fish.  If she misspells the word, have her look at the word and spell it out loud/write it in the air.  The fish then gets thrown back in the pond to try again.   You can practice letter identification, number identification, letter sounds, and math facts.  This is an exciting way to make learning fun and memorable!

From Sue McCrary:

Our first math class is still working hard on Touch Money.  Counting by 5s is fun!  The second class is continuing to focus on their advanced calendar skills.  In Life Skills, both classes are banding together to make French Toast.  Look for a picture of our super chefs in an upcoming edition of the Star Tribune!

What should you talk with your child about?
If your child is working on their calendar skills, ask them specific questions about it and try adding a little math to your question.  Ask them “How many days are in two weeks?  How long is a decade in years?”

From Sarah Trout:

This week we are following a Dr. Seuss theme.  We participated in Read Across America with thousands of other schools, visiting reading stations and reading aloud to each other – it was fantastic!  We also acted out The Foot Book and used 3D objects to follow along with Hop on Pop.  We’re planning to play pin-the-letters on Dr. Seuss books too.  For Life Skills, we are making green eggs and ham.  It has been an active, silly, and outrageous week with Dr. Seuss!

Next week, we’ll be taking on the Great Outdoors.

From Kim Gallant:

Hi TWLS Families,
This week the theme in the Sensory Integration Classroom is “Camping and Outdoor Fun”.  We are pitching a tent, orienteering, rock climbing, collecting bugs, and going on nature walks.  Math, science, and reading skills are all interwoven into these fun and exciting activities.  The proprioceptive, tactile, and vestibular sensory input these activities provide help children organize and prepare their minds and bodies for learning.  Next week’s theme will be “Learning at the Circus”.

How does one do this?  Well, if you go to our blog page and look in the left-hand sidebar (or go directly to our feed), you’ll notice a new orange icon next to the “TWLS Talks” header.  Click on that, and it’ll take you to a page with links to an assortment of news readers, powered by Google, Yahoo, AOL, and many others.  Any of those links should set you up with an RSS reader (should you not already have one), or set your current one to get our updates for you.

Please feel free to comment if you have any questions or concerns - we hope that this will provide another convenient avenue for you to keep up to date on our news!

Welcome back for Part 2 of our ongoing series on TWLS’s Core Academics and reading programs.  Last week we talked generally about the five areas of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and text comprehension.  This week, we’re going to start delving into each of those areas and discussing how they are taught in the TWLS classroom.

First up, we’re looking at phonemic awareness - the ability to notice, think about and work with individual sounds in spoken words. Before reading can occur, children need to know how sounds work in words.  For example, changing the first phoneme sound /s/ in “sit” to /h/ changes the word from sit to hit.  Phonemic awareness is the understanding that sounds of spoken language work together to make words.  It’s important to note that phonemic awareness is not equivalent to phonics (which we will talk about next week).  Phonics is the understanding of the relationship between a sound (phoneme) and the letter that represents the sound in written language (grapheme).  To benefit from phonics instruction, children need phonemic awareness.

At TWLS, we teach phonemic awareness through a multi-sensory approach and direct instruction from experienced teachers.  Children can show phonemic awareness in several ways including recognizing which words in a set of words begin with the same sound, isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word, and combining, or blending the separate sounds in words to say the word (/s/, /i/, /t/).

Using all three learning styles: auditory, visual and tactile/kinesthetic, students develop a strong phonemic awareness that prepares them for phonological awareness, a broader focus that includes identifying and manipulating larger parts of spoken language, such as words, syllables, and onsets and rimes, as well as phonemes.

Next week, in part three of our expert’s series, we’ll be discussing what science-based research tells us about phonics instruction.

(Go back to Part 1)

Ann Rooney is Head of School at The Whole Learning School.  She has worked in special needs education for 16 years after receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in K-12 special education from St. Cloud State University and Master of Education degree from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. She holds licensures in Specific Learning Disabilities, Developmental Cognitive Disabilities and Emotional Behavior Disabilities.

TWLS Students have been making great progress!  They will be tested on February 26, demonstrating many skills including kicks, blocks, punches, and stances, and can get extra practice by attending Bear classes at the dojo on Thursdays and Saturdays. Parents are welcome to watch the test!

Read more in their March Newsletter.

This week’s highlights, also with great photos of cooking and pottery-making!:

From Sue McCrary:

Now that we have completed our recipe for fruit salad, we will be working on answering the reading comprehension questions.  Next week’s recipe…French toast!

In social skills, we will be talking about the SuperFlex character Brain Eater and how sometimes this character gets into our minds and causes us to get very distracted.  We will be talking about strategies to use to avoid becoming distracted such as moving everything off of your desk while working or studying and making sure you choose a quiet place to do your homework.

From Katherine Taylor:

This week we are having fun talking about the Olympics in Health.  Yesterday, we ran some “heats” dribbling a basketball and running with a soccer ball.  We talked about how they have to check their heart rate and keep their calories up for energy.  (I wish I could eat more calories!)

In reading comprehension, several students have started to show self-motivation and direction in writing sentences correctly and in answer to questions when reading a paragraph.  We want the kids to read and comprehend what they are reading to really show growth and then to write what they comprehend after reading.  It is so awesome to see some of the kids use original thought in writing.  These kids rock!

Special Project:

This week our students have been working with the Northern Clay Co., making their very own clay projects, including plates.

We’ll hear more from Sarah Trout and Kim Gallant next week!

From Sue McCrary:
This week we are following the recipe for a fresh fruit salad. Yummy, yet healthy! I’d also like to give a big thanks to Fenn’s mom, Cerise, for coming into Mrs. McCrary’s Life Skills class to make Valentine bookmarks, zipper pulls and keychains. The kids loved it!

As we begin cooking recipes in Life Skills classes, please talk with your children about making healthy food choices and the importance of doing so. Have your child make a fresh fruit salad with you at home and write up a quick not for me on what fruits he or she used and how it turned out. They can earn 5 bonus points for doing this!

From Sarah Trout:

This week is our Princess theme. We will be dressing up like princesses, reading princess books, having a tea part, matching latter crown, and much more. There will be a lot of academics focused around make believe like pretending to be in a carriage to deliver mail, which will consist of individual letters (a,b,c,d, etc.) and when they mail them off, they will have to make the sound of each letter.

We have also been making Princess masks and crowns:

With all the activities planned, I am thinking about extending Princess week to next week, too! There are too many fun and imaginative activities we can do to learn to just have one week of being a princess.

From Katherine Taylor:
This week we are choosing our Dr. Seuss books to read for Read Across America Day on March 2nd, which celebrates the birthday of Dr. Seuss. In health, we are discussing food groups and the food pyramid; talk to your kids about how they can eat healthily be eating from all food groups.

From Kim Gallant:

The theme in the Sensory Integration Therapy (SIT) classroom is Princesses and Fairies. We will be investigating spatial concepts, and practicing counting by 5’s, telling time to the hour and half hour, adding sums with a calculator, and indentifying coins and their values. Learning will take place by means of scooters, slippery slides, climbing ladders, balance beams, exercise balls, and a variety of tactile materials. Motion helps kids learn, as they get a feel for the ways that their own brain and body work together. The more senses they have in play, including their kinesthetic sense, the more of their mind is busily learning and remembering. Sensory integration therapy provides students with proprioceptive, vestibular, and tactile input that is necessary for them to organize and prepare their bodies for learning.

Super Study Tip of the Week: If your child is bored practicing money identification and coin value, spice up the mundane drills by creating your own grocery store right in your own pantry. Select a variety of interesting items such as; Macaroni and Cheese, peanut butter, cereal, and/or alphabet soup (whatever cool and kid friendly food you have in your pantry). Mark each can or box with a price tag made from a piece of masking or blue painter’s tape. Keep the prices simple (.01, .05, .10, & .25). Give your child a wallet/purse with at least one of each of these coins and a shopping cart/basket. Have your child choose a coin from the purse/wallet, identify it, and its value.

Next, send them shopping to find something that matches the coin’s value. Have your child come to you to check out and pay for their groceries. During the check out process connect the coin, its value, and its written numerical representation. Incorporate grocery bags, receipts, cash registers, newspaper sale ads, and coupons to kick the fun up a notch. Trade places with your child and let them ring you up on the register/calculator. They will have fun checking your math (especially if you get it wrong & they correct you). As your child advances, try giving them a shopping list and a budget or create prices that require change combinations. Regardless of how you do it, remember to have fun!

1)     On February 23rd from 7-8pm, TWLS is hosting a seminar on financial planning for your special needs child.  If you’re interested in attending, please RSVP to Julie Hoff at j.hoff@twls.org or 763-231-2700.  The event is free and open to all.  Read more in our previous blog post at http://bit.ly/6qmoWd.

2)     If you read Head of School Ann Rooney’s blog post on Core Academics from earlier this week, check her post again today!  We’ve added a great new video showing our students studying, playing, and learning in our Core Academics classes.  Here’s the video again: