Introducing our newest addition to the Blog: Classroom Focus. Each month, one of our teachers will share a behind-the-scenes peek into the life of our classes. First up: Our High School classroom, with teacher Laura K.!
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This year has started off great in the High School classroom. Everyone is adjusting to our new schedule filled with cool classes. We are learning about our rights as citizens, our rights to manage our own personal items, our rights in the workplace and skills we’ll need to be successful there. To learn about our responsibilities as citizens, we are using a curriculum that focuses on rights such as voting, choosing a place to live and finding a career.
We have a space set up in the school where we are practicing vocational skills. We have the chance to work on tasks like shredding, collating, stapling and copying in a place outside the classroom. Some of us are volunteering in the community, helping clean for our friends at the Transition Program, and picking up trash and setting tables at a local nursing home.
We are using games to practice communicating, and to learn more about each other. One of our favorites is the question game. We take turns moving around the board and answering questions about ourselves, then share the answers with the class. Old favorites like Connect 4 and Trouble are a great opportunity to talk about colors and numbers and to practice taking turns.
Once a week we have a cooking class, where we practice making easy, healthy snacks. This week's recipe was peanut butter and jelly - yum!
Each week we have been adding to our scrapbooks. We include pictures of things we’re working on at school and pictures of our families and friends. Writing and talking about the pictures is a good way to help remember what we’ve done and to practice expressing ourselves.
Our class has been on several fun outings. We took a trip to 7-11 to practice making a purchase, then took our snacks to the beach and enjoyed some sun. A couple of us had the chance to visit our peers at the Stuart G Ferst School for an Old Town School of Folk Music concert, it was cool to make new friends and do some dancing! We have also continued our connection with the students at Francis Parker High School this year. They came to visit this month, and joined us for some games and recess. We look forward to getting to know them throughout this year.
We are all very happy to be off to an exciting and successful start. We have a great year planned, with plenty of interesting activities, fun outings, and opportunities to hang out with friends from other schools.
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Thanks, High School Team! Next month: Behind the scenes at Transition.