THEME: School starting in the Fall • August 20 - 29, 2014

THEME: School starting in the Fall  • August 20 - 29, 2014

Each Friday during the 2014-15 school year, I will be posting a new theme for the following week for students using In Home Synergy supports.  These can be used by guides who are parents, friends, relatives, caregivers, paraeducators, teachers, and/or therapists. We have seen themes truly support a student's progress forward when the full team is working on very similar interpersonal goals for the student in combination with a typical school type theme.

School Activity Theme: SCHOOL STARTING
Partnership Theme:  SAME TIME, SAME ROLE

I would like for everyone to focus now on helping your student understand that s/he can do things at the same time and with the same role as his guides. Here are some examples of this type of partnering:

• Carrying a heavy bucket of water together from one end of the backyard to the other to fill a pot, water a plant, use for sidewalk painting or letter/number writing
• Pushing something heavy together (moving a table or couch to then sweep or get something from behind)
• Petting a household pet or therapy dog together using the same movements and at the same time
• Your using hand over hand support to help him/her learn to write a new word, or use more force to manipulate something s/he is using/making (e.g., legos, other connecting pieces)
• Pouring milk or juice together by both holding the container and using equal work to pour/control the amount

Siblings, neighbors, and friends are getting ready to go back to school and I would like to celebrate your student's receiving school at home, but with a new feeling of a new start.  Let's take some time to truly "decorate" his/her school room or space to ensure s/he knows and feels like it is a place of confident learning. Here general some ideas for this August 20-29th time-frame using the same time, same role partnership:

• Rearrange the space: have something in mind ahead of time (e.g., a new table in the middle of the room) and then have student help you set it up, move items, create a nice new "school space" together.
• Ensure s/he has a drawer in the desk in the school space that is ready at all times with typical school supplies (e.g., colored pens, colored pencils, sharpener, fidgets for while doing work, a watercolor set).. you can collect these together and put them in together... make a whole 20 minute activity out of using them and putting them in the drawer after your use.
• Make the word "school" a regular word that you write together at the same time, paint together, cut out together, trace together, make out of sticks together, write in the sand, shaving cream, and/or steamed up window (IEP goals: identify letters and sounds, read high frequency words)
• Go on a walk together and notice everything you can with the word "school." You are near a school, so you might walk there to read the word, feel the word on a sign you can touch, take a picture of that word to bring home, print and tape up somewhere central in his school room.
• Count how many colored markers or pencils are in his supply drawer, make a sticky that indicates the total (IEP goal:  count to 5 using one to one correspondence).
• Consider using drawers from his desk to organize your work together... you could put something in drawer #1 (and label it) for your first activity (e.g., the 3 books you will offer about school starting in the Fall)... then drawer #2 could have your next activity (e.g., watercolors and 1 piece of paper for a counting/math/sensory activity)... then break to return to #3 (e.g., the Uno game)... then #4 your review of the day and journal.  This is using the Structured TEACCH approach to help him organize his time and school tasks... these are with your help and guidance now but one day could be more independent (the true goal of Structured TEACCH). (IEP goals: transitioning between activities; sequencing tasks)

Enjoy the last days before school OFFICIALLY begins!

Barb