New Musical Playground Equipment

I have been spending the majority of the week gearing up for STAAR; getting all the test booklets and materials organized and ready for each class! It has been busy and it unfortunately requires me to have to step away from some of my duties as a counselor for a couple of weeks, but I did have a moment this week to celebrate all the hard work my Student Council group has done to raise money for the school! Student Council has worked hard last year and this year to finally raise enough money to purchase two large musical pieces for the playground! They are very expensive items, so it took us some time to get the money, but we did it and the kids have already been enjoying playing with them so far!! I walked out there yesterday and there was a very long line of kids waiting to get to play with it! Student Council also made a large purchase of PE equipment (soccer balls, volleyballs, basket ball nets, kickballs, kickball bases, etc.)! I am sure the kids will also enjoy all of that new equipment!

 

Special thanks to Shae Williams, a former OHE parent, for hiring someone to come out and do the cement work to get these pieces into the ground permanently! We really appreciate that very generous donation! Also, thanks to Beth Thornton who helped us order the equipment and helped organize the installation of it!! We are so lucky to have such great parents and a supportive PTA!

Below are some "Fortune Tellers" that I have assembled that are fun to use when working with small groups of children or individually. I remember playing with and making these when I was in elementary school; although our version was more like who are you going to marry, what kind of house, how many kids, etc. ;-) Some of the topics on these fortune tellers I use with the kids are feelings, getting to know each other questions, compliments, and teasing choices. Here is the link if you would like to make some of these to use with your kids:

http://autismteachingstrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Social-Skills-Paper-Fortune-Teller-Download1.pdf

(Even though the website says "autism teaching strategies," it is not just for children with autism. These are great to use with ALL students.)

One final photo to share from last Friday is my Hip Hop group that performed at the assembly! They performed to "La La La" and they did such a great job! For those of you who don't already know, I teach a hip hop class after school and just started this Monday with my last session for the year! We are scheduled to perform May 22 and this one will be super cute. They are dancing to "Don't Wake Me Up" by Chris Brown and will be performing in their pajamas!! :-) 

Have a great weekend and if you have kids in the testing grades, make sure they get plenty of sleep and eat a big, healthy breakfast each day next week!