December 2019
Unit of Study: History/Geography
Throughout this short month we will learn about holidays and traditions of pen pals from different countries. As part of the annual Macy's Believe/Make a Wish campaign, our writing will include a letter to everyone's favorite pen pal ... Santa! Students will do the planning and make a special purchase for a loved one at the mall during a field trip the week before the holiday break.
Each month Chris, our TVI creates a slide show of our signed vocabulary words for the month!
December videos.movClick play to view our signs for the month of December!
We celebrated "Cookie Day" today by making and decorating Reindeer Cookies!
Engaging in sensory activities in PT helps students regulate their bodies and increase their focus and attention! We will soon be installing a platform swing in the OT/PT room for just this purpose!
Skano/Tesago 5th Grade Orchestra
Tesago Select Chorus
Tesago 4th and 5th Grade Chorus
MOVE2 music lovers really enjoyed attending the 4th and 5th grade Winter Concert with their school community on Thursday! We were all very proud of our students demonstrating great attention, listening skills and other social skills, like clapping!
IMG_0851.TRIM.MOV
Students learned about Swedish holiday traditions, including reindeer racing, in our Pen Pal topic reading today. They then chose reindeer teams and predicted which configuration would travel the farthest given some "adapted" energy! After taking some measurements, and observing some crashes, our four reindeer team was the winner!
Pen Pal letters to "You Know Who" have been signed, sealed and delivered! We used writing templates that reflect what we learned about pen pal letter writing during our unit of study.
We moved on from Flat Shapes to Solid Shapes this week in Geometry!
On National Christmas Card Day we read about Holiday Giving for our Current Events topic. After the reading, which focused on thanking our community helpers, we made our holiday card list and started production!
We worked on a "secret" project today! Our academic focus throughout the project included viewing a video model, planning the project and then working on communication, attention, measuring, counting and MOVE skills! Of course, we also jus had some plain ole fun! Students are excited to share their "secret" project!
IMG_0981.MOVIn the MOVE program, there are times we add prompts, and times we take them away. This was a week for multiple successes for MOVE integration. Jenna achieved an increased level of independence in walking to her class in the morning...and James achieved near perfect alignment in his stander!
We have read about pen pals from these 3 countries so far this December. Our learning has focused on native landscapes, favorite activities and traditions celebrated by the characters. Today, we made our own version of Rangoli art from India, using the light box and familiar shapes. Students activated the light display with a switch interface.
Our plants are looking better! We learned the signs for wet and dry today, trimmed the angel plant and enjoyed the fragrance of basil, lemon mint and rosemary!
Our Days of the Year calendar informed us Friday was Violin Day! Mr Marshall loaned us a violin...we loved making some non traditional violin music!
We spent the early part of the week preparing for our shopping trip to the mall. Students reviewed their shopping lists, researched store locations and details, practiced money skills and were provided with role plays for making purchases.
Today the students shopped, making their final selections in a variety of ways and participating in the purchasing process. Students demonstrated great social and communication skills. We were so proud of them and had a great time helping them shop for their families and caretakers.
