College Cooking--Breakfast Pizza

Hey, if you've been awake since 6 AM and at school since 7:20 AM breakfast pizza sounds pretty good!

What do we need?  English muffins, pizza sauce, basil, oregano and grated cheese.

Plus the non-food items--aluminum foil, toaster oven, oven mitts and a spatula.

 And...a communication board!

 The big debate--toast the half muffin first or leave it untoasted???

We're hungry, just spoon on the sauce.

 What is this student holding and trying to open up?  It's the shaker top of the basil, or maybe the oregano.

 Open the grated cheese carefully, without spilling the contents, then shake a spoonful or two onto the sauce and spices.

 Set the timer so we don't forget the n'little pizzas.

 Mmmmm, they look good.

 Use your aug comm device to request MORE PIZZA, PLEASE!

Everyone in this class for high school students with autism gobbled up their pizza.  Our peer helper asked if she could eat the "demo" slice.  Sure thang.

Taking a Functional Handwriting Sample--Spring Cards

Final step today for our spring cards.  It was a good opportunity to assess the students' functional handwriting toward the end of the year.

This assesses handwriting, not composing and handwriting.  The students dictated a sentence or two to insert in their cards for their moms, I took dictation and the students copied from my writing.

It was mostly near point copying (with the text directly next to the student's paper) but I changed it up for one student whose nose kept bumping the table surface...

Used this activity with three students, photocopied their final products and included the photocopies in their OT files.  Love to pass around these samples during IEP meetings to illustrate a student's legible, functional handwriting when they're motivated to work hard.

My Car AKA My Office

Early morning in the parking lot of my Thursday school--what do I need to bring in with me from my 4-wheeled "office?"

The 3-ring folder for the school, files of students who are being evaluated, my work calendar and lunch cooler, of course!

Once a week I work with a student whose dad meets us at school to observe the sessions.  To keep things straight I made up an "ingredient list" of the items I need for those sessions, since I'm usually rushing to her school from another school.

One other day of the week I meet a student who is not on my caseload for tutoring at a public library.  I've made a little kit for these sessions and another "ingredient list" to keep me straight.  When I'm in a rush and trying to find something in my stash, I sometimes borrow items from one bag and forget to replace them.  My ingredient list helps me remember to replace everything so I don't have to wing it during a session because I've forgotten to bring in an item I need.

This is my little tutoring kit.  Yes, yes--I know that "tutor" isn't spelled "2-door."

A little ancient history question--does anyone aside from me know what carbon paper is for?

Spring is All About Recycling

The cherry trees are in bloom!

How did the students create this beautiful scene?  Bottle bottoms and egg-shaped stamps.

Cut off the lower inch of small plastic bottles, paint with water-based paint and sprinkle with glitter.  Easy.

Let's add a different style of flower.  What type of blossom does this remind you of?

Asters?  Daisies?  Use cardboard centers from paper towel rolls to cut these shapes.  Dab in a puddle of paint and dust with glitter.

Sparkly!  You can change it up with crafting scissors which produce wiggly cutting lines.

Hmmm...what did the students make out of this gnarly cardboard???

Birdnests!

This little guy's hand is usually tightly flexed, all day long, despite his fluctuating tone.  Holding the paint bottle during the activity allowed him to experience a few minutes of functional grasp.



It's a Little Late for Decorated Eggs, But...

These "shaker" eggs were made from inexpensive, connecting plastic eggs, with dry beans inside the "loud" ones and uncooked rice inside the "quiet" ones.  Clever teacher, Carol Grubb, attached some Velcro to make the eggs easier for little hands to hold.

We can easily grasp these eggs without assistance, but tiny toddler hands sometimes have difficulty keeping a firm grip.  Gotta shake, shake, shake those eggs while Miss Carol leads us in singing some lively songs.

Handwriting--Get Small

What a cool way to motivate kids to write a little smaller than they sometimes do.  Wonderful activities for language arts and math, too.

Nesting Styrofoam Cups

Not to mention the recycling benefit.

Spring Break

Oops--forgot to let you know that we're on Spring Break (which is really Easter Break for me) until the second week of April.

Hope you all have fun at school or at home for the next week.  Today I straightened up after having 20+ folks to our house for dinner yesterday, brushed my cat and dug out a few weeds.