Capturing Kids Hearts

        This week I am attending Capturing Kids Hearts training. It has been a worth while experience so far. I am half way through the program and I can say that it has really been a WOW experience. Sometimes things come into your life for a reason and God has purposely put this in my life, at this time, to help me. This training has totally changed my outlook on life, on people and most importantly on myself.
        This training is for teachers to use strategies and modeling techniques to teach their students and capture a kids heart in order to have their heads, well it is so much more than that. It is a relationship and personal training. I have learned to ask the questions that I am afraid of, such as "How do you see me?" and "What is standing in the way of our relationship?" And I have received feedback that I will use to motivate myself to become a better person. As our facilitator says, "If you are not growing, you are dying," which made me realize that I do need to keep on growing and learning in order to become the best Angel I can be. I will use criticism to make a change in my life because I don't want to be perceived in a way that I do not agree with.
        I have learned what it takes to become a better listener, better teacher and a better partner. I am ready to use my feedback to be more respectful to my loved ones and how to gain self control. This is all about me making a change for myself. As I was talking to my husband about this training, he said, "Wow, you are really taking this seriously" and I teared up and said, "Of course, God has put this in my life because I have prayed to become a better person and this is my chance to do that." So I am definitely going to make a commitment to thinking about what I am doing, saying and how I am treating others. I highly recommend this training to all teachers and other professionals so that you may learn to grow in all your relationships.
        Remember the most important thing is that no one else can change you but yourself.

A difficult task

           Before I describe one difficult subject I have to teach, I would like to describe my class. I teach the life skills class with less than 10 students. The students all have developmental disabilities ranging from intellectual developmental disability (IDD) previously known as (Mental Retardation/MR) and Autism. My students abilities range from reading on a DRA level 1, to reading sight words to barely speaking. But in my classroom the students are always learning. It may be something as small as pointing to a picture of the class and saying Mrs. Davis. These moments are what I live for. However, because I expect so much of my students, I push them to learn above and beyond their disabilities.
         The most difficult subject for me to teach is reading. It is difficult to read a book to the entire class because some of the children do not stay focused for that long (which I know happens in every class no matter what you teach). Because of this it is hard to ask comprehension questions and have the students really understand what is going on in the story. Also when I am working with a student individually teaching them to read small sentences, I am not 100% sure they understand the sentence they just read has a literal meaning. For example, I have used this lesson to have my students connect the words to reality: "This is a chair", and then I will have the students touch a chair. This is a great start for most of my students and I am happy to get to this point but of course I want to expand it and see if they can read and understand more.
       These are some ideas I've come up with from the help of my interact team and other teachers. I can use dramatic play to teach reading comprehension. I also thought that I could make a movie of the students acting a story using movie maker or animoto then play it for them.  The students will see themselves acting out a story and then we can ask questions about the characters, setting, plot, etc. I've also thought of having my students listen to books on tape instead of listening to me read. Perhaps they will like the recording better.
        I would also like to incorporate ipads into my classroom. I have seen that students with disabilities can use the ipads to read, by first reading on paper "here is a" and then the ipad will display a picture of something perhaps a bird, so that the student says "here is a bird" and relates that sentence to an actual picture of a bird.
        I am very excited to try these ideas and am confident that it if nothing else it will allow my students to show creativity and gain confidence in seeing videos of themselves at school.

Interact 2011 thoughts

I have enjoyed interact thus far. It is a lot of information but it's exciting to learn all of this.I feel like I am now one of those technology people you see on tv, now I'm in the loop. I have really enjoyed using the IPADS! I never thought I would be that type of person, probably because I didn't know how to do that or think I could afford it but interact has changed who I am as a person and how I see myself. Using edmodo, tweeting and sharing with others isn't that bad. I also liked making the movies and I hope to use this with my students. I do think it will take time to teach my class but I am willing!

I feel that Rip Van Winkle will be very surprised by our classrooms now. In my class we have a promethean board, smart table, and computers and the students are using all of them independently.