In Matai we were very pleased to see our children participate in the school-wide Star Jam jump jam for children and young people with disabilities allowing the school tamariki to come together through the love of music and dance.

Looking around as we all took part in the Star Jam I was struck by how whakahi (proud) everyone was. Our children shone on stage and interacted well with the Rata children who were on the stage to support our Matai children.

With the rest of the James Street tamariki participating in front leading to a fantastic vibe with huge smiles all around along with our awesome James Street teachers.

Supported with a mufti day we were also able to raise money for children with disabilities.

A huge thank you to Sandra Sells for your organisational skills and time. 

Syndicate meeting 12/8

During our syndicate meeting last week Norah visited and brought along a bright and colourful bucket and explained that this is a metaphor for filling the buckets of others.
The bucket represents the mental and emotional thoughts and feelings that we have Norah asked us to think about how we feel when our bucket is full and then when it has been drained. This lead me to going online to find out a bit more.
When your bucket is full you feel confident, calm, secure, patient and friendly you will have positive thoughts and you would expect positive results.
And take the time to think about your bucket overflowing there would be a happiness that would spread to those around you and if you received a happy smile or positive feedback or compliment there would be a great big ripple effect.

Now let's think about if your bucket was drained how would you be feeling there would not be so many positive thoughts and it would be easy to be sad, nervous, insecure, negative, stressed, worried and even possibly physically ill, affecting your behavior and emotions leading you instead to empty the buckets of those around you.

After doing more online reading, I want to think about bucket filling and how my actions and words affect others and not intentionally dipping into the buckets of others.

Art in Matai

We have been enjoying our art in Matai
and this time when we went for one of  our  walks we collected natural things we could paint with. We found many things including branches with leaves, flower heads and seed pods and the following afternoon we got to try out our findings.

Another busy week in Matai

It's Te wiki o Te Reo Maori, Maori language week at James Street School. The theme this year being Whangaihia Nga Matua --- helping parents to pass on Te Reo Maori to their Tamariki.

With expectations for the James Street Tamariki to make and then take home a resource each day to help encourage parents/caregivers to learn and share Te Reo.

And the children in Matai eagerly participated making resources provided by Nat, with fridge magnets and phrase cards going home to celebrate the learning with Whanau

Term 2 in Matai

It has been in the back of my mind to pick this up and do a post all term  it might have been a 11 week term but it been very busy. So 1 thing I've learnt is its planning planning and more planning. Make sure you are planning to the right level, have set learning intentions and that is what you have targeted in your PLANNING, check your resources, be reflective  (it goes a long way ) don't over think things sometimes easy to get caught up in over thinking and above all remember to breathe while looking towards to term 3

I E P's

This post is not a reflection on any one student.

With gaining a full 11 weeks employment in Matai (special needs unit) for term two I have been trying to gain as much insight as I can to these learners hence I spent yesterday morning viewing a selection of Individual Education Plans An IEP sets goals for the student and shows how the student will be supported to meet those goals. It is developed by the team of people who support the student, including their parents, family, whānau and the student themselves. to find out more follow this link to the Ministry of Education http://www.minedu.govt.nz/NZEducation/EducationPolicies/SpecialEducation/ServicesAndSupport/IndividualEducationPlans.aspx      

By the implementation of consistent management and communication strategies for the immediate learning and safety of the student I hope to develop an understanding of their learning, the resources and equipment needed for his/her strengths and needs to be meet through my teaching.

A sensory profile presents information about how a students experiences and processes information from various senses from auditory (hearing) vision (sight) vestibular (movement against gravity) tactile (touch) smell taste proprioception (deep pressure/body sense from joints and muscles).

This can tell me many things as a teacher such as whether a student is wary of loud noises, how able the are to sit for a long time, needs a favorite object in his hand , the need for simplify instructions.  

There's an involvement of many different services including but not exclusive to physiotherapists and occupational therapists to work with both student and teacher; viewing effects such as safe movement (both the students and their ability to move and accesses within the classroom) student ability to take part in the learning activity especially physical and the tools needed to undertake and complete the lesson.  

After a warm up of buzz, I used the abacus to revisit 10 and...... (teen facts) as the teacher had explained that the children were quite confident with these facts. We then compared some teen numbers and ty numbers and what they look like on the abacus ie 12 & 20, 13 &30, 14 & 40, 15 & 50.

Jets making connections between finger patterns and sets of objects
10 fingers is the same as 10 bears
7 fingers is the same as 7 beans
3 fingers is the same as 3 dice

Then moving onto
8 fingers is the same as 8 bears is the same as 8 counters on a tens frame

Writing and maths in Rata

While working in Rata and with support from the teacher I had clear ideas and expectations for the writing and maths lessons.
After interval with the children on the mat and the Walt written on the white board (we are learning to start our sentence with a capital letter and read our story so we know what comes next)
I started with My cat likes to..... children brainstormed ideas (ideas recorded these on the white board) so our sentence became My cat likes to sleep in the sun. To enhance the sentence we brainstormed again this time focusing on descriptive words so then our sentence became My big fluffy cat likes to sleep in the sun.
Leaving the Walt in place, children were given two pictures of cats  (the higher group were able to work independently) while I work with the others I the mat, where I modeled what was happening in the pictures ie a kitten had found a ball of wool and in the next picture the kitten is tangled in the wool, these children then chose their own prompts and I supported them with the writing process. As I was in this class the following day I was able to get the children to read through their work, reading to see if it made sense,had they used capitals, full stops and spaces between their words.

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