Playground!!!

Wow, we just had the most amazing accessible playground built at our school.  Colorful, safe, beautiful, fun and fully accessible to all of the children who attend our school.  It was the brainchild of a parent of one of my students and I know she spent many sleepless nights worrying over it, stressing about it and stepping outside of her comfort zone.

The end result is worth it.  And she did it, not just for her child, but for every child at that school and those who will come after.  I hope she realizes how much that says about her as a human being and a Mother.

I didn't get to take any pictures of it today.  I was too busy playing with my students on it :)  What a happy day!  But this is something I am happy about as well :)

                                             

I was really hoping to make this a daily thing, but I let the week overwhelm me :(  Lots of  transition IEPs to do.  Some of them have been difficult because not everyone agrees with the types of placements I think my students should go to.  So I have had to host a myriad of consulting teachers, be very careful how I word my IEP's and am generally stressed out.  I am not great at confrontations, but I really want the best placements for these kids, and I don't think anyone can really know how they learn, or what they need like their parents and I do.

The other problem, of course, is that even though a placement may have the correct name, the "flavor" of the classroom can always be problematic.  So much depends on the teacher, the other students in the class and the administration.  This is when the parents need to really advocate.  If they feel their child is not getting the best education, or needs more help, perhaps there needs to be more staff in the room, they are the ones who really have the power to make a difference.

On a personal note, once I let myself get physically run down, I don't seem to be able to make it up until the weekend.  I was doing a home bound student for another teacher, but I am finding that no matter how I go home from his house, it never takes me much less than 2 hours.  That means I leave home at 6 a.m. and don't get home till 6:30 p.m.!  I have realized I just can't do it and resigned, I don't think the other teacher was very happy about it, but I have started to feel this year that I need to be a little more self protective.  Especially since I had a car accident at the beginning of the school year, destroying my beautiful little red Kia Soul and breaking my sternum.  Not a very nice way to start the year :(  Now I have a silver Soul, but I still feel the sternum from time to time.

On a happier note my husband bought me 2 tickets to the Jason Mraz concert in August!!! My younger daughter Holly will go with me.  My husband went with me last year and managed to read a book through the entire concert :)   I will spare him this year.  You can see how much he loves me :)

Easter

Happy Easter and good-bye to my Spring break :) :(  I can't say it was all fun or what I wanted (think root canal :), but I did get a bathroom painted, spend time with my husband and visit with my daughter, son in law and grandson!  This was actually the first Easter that Jackson "gets".  He had to have things like Easter baskets and hunts explained to him, but he certainly got into the spirit of things once he understood.

Time to stop messing around and work on finishing my progress reports for my students.  Most have done well this quarter and I don't mind doing the reports because it always gives me the opportunity to stop and think "is this goal really serving this child?"  and if it isn't, then maybe it's time for a review and revision of the IEP.  Luckily, I also get lots of input from therapists who allow me to bounce ideas off of them.  I love therapists in general, they are such a big help when you work with students who have a myriad of issues and I like the ones I have this year an awful lot, they are just plain excellent professionals with my students.  I am a lucky teacher :)

Hope you all have a good holiday too, don't eat too many of those chocolate bunnies!
    

Well obviously I am still not consistent with this blog business :)  Been off from school, but had an excruciating time concerning a tooth the endondist thought was bad, but wanted to wait and make sure she had the right one.  I went back this week to tell her I was sure which one it was, although I was not in pain, I could tell it felt different.  Then I went back home with a prescription for an antibiotic and a promise for a quick appointment to fix it in the very near future.
 
Unfortunately, that set the tooth off and and spent that night taking vicodin and holding my face on a heating pad waiting for the sun to come up, so I could call them first thing. Bless them, they had me come in first thing that morning and did the first half of the procedure.  Anyway, didn't I have fun during Spring break?

I have also managed to put off working on the two IEP's I had promised myself I would do over the break.  I actually don't mind writing IEP's, but sometimes I drive myself a little crazy making sure it is what I think that child needs for the coming year.  It's a big responsibility and although IEP's are never written in stone, a meeting can be called at any time by the teacher or parent to revise it, I do want it to be a true statement of what I think this child will be able to accomplish in the next year.  It also drives the direction in which the child's education may be heading, although I admit, being in preschool now, I feel as though there is a little more wiggle room to figure out what's coming up for him/her by future teachers.

So I spent a couple of hours researching and writing goals for one of my kiddos who will be transitioning to another school.  I want them to see beyond her surface/physical limitations and see what a bright child we all (her present teacher and therapists) know she is.  Even if I wrote a bad IEP though, (shudder!) I know her personality and intelligence would shine through.

Here is an Easter video from Jack because it makes me happy :)

Wow, it's been a long time!

If you look at the picture above, you can see how long it has been.  Jackson is now 3 and just moved back into the area after spending a year with his parents in Georgia (the longest year of my life, I think). 
I am now in a new job and a new school and this is my second year there.  I still teach student with multiple disabilities, but now they are preschoolers.  I decided my back might last longer with the little ones :)  I do miss my elementary school students, but try and keep up with them as much as possible on Facebook. 
We are heading into the home stretch here at school, I am on Spring Break and I have a lot of paperwork to do to make sure those of my kiddos who are transitioning on without me get to where they need to go.  It's not easy and I hope I get what I want for them.  I have been teaching most of them for 2 years now and feel as though I know what kind of program they will do best in.  That doesn't mean other people won't have different ideas.
I will try and keep up with this blog again.  Although, since I just got my "hot off the press" copy of Bloom by Kelle Hampton, I will be a little busy, in a good way :)

Another face!

Just because he makes me happy!

anxiety

I go back to school on Wednesday. Which means I won't sleep for the next two nights, heck, I didn't sleep much last night :( I never sleep before school starts. Too many things to think about, too many new plans. I already have two meetings scheduled before the kids get back. I am sure they will be good meetings, but they always make me feel anxious. I have big plans to be better organized this year. I was better last year, so hopefully I can continue the trend. We have a new student, which means we have to stretch ourselves a little more thinly. Speaking of "thin", don't you think with the amount of running around I have to do in my class, I would lose weight? I never do though, sigh.

I have done lots of reading about other people's classrooms. I have applied for a grant for some new equipment, first time I have ever tried that.

I hope we have a good year.