Student Teaching Shenanigans: Please Touch Museum

This week, I started my new placement in a special education room! The class mostly has students with Autism Spectrum Disorder, leaning more towards severe cases.  This experience is completely different than any experience I have had so far in all of my school practicums.  I have worked with my co-op before, she is actually the one who got me interested in working with students with severe disabilities.  I have already learned so much so far and cannot wait to begin more one on one work with the students!

The main part of this post is to talk about the awesome field trip we went on on Tuesday! We visited the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia.  This is a childrens museum that is very interactive and has tons of rooms for them to explore and enjoy! There were all different rooms, including a room that was like a town, an Alice in Wonderland themed room, transportation room, water play room, and even a carousel! It was a lot of fun and quite honestly, I want to find someone with kids so that I can take them there and play some more!!  Here are some pictures of the museum for you to explore:

The front of the Museum

The sign

Inside the little town area

I have always loved little towns, I thought this was soo cool!

Great Grocery Store

Soo cute inside!!

The Arches all children can recognise

Captain Noah!! I watched this when I was a little girl

Such a good childrens show!!

Alice in Wonderland

Part of the door and mirror maze

This flamingo moved just like the croquet ones

"Do you play croquet?"

A bush maze

Looking down on the Mad Tea Party

Looking down on the Alice in Wonderland area

The kids love spotting the cat in the tree

Remember the movie Big? The piano on the wall is the original one from the movie!

This was an area for the students to see what it is like to be blind.  There was also a wheelchair they could sit in to see what being in a wheelchair was like

I love Carousels!

The Waterplay area

In the lobby center was this Statue of Liberty Arm

Looking over towards the Transportation room

Towards the Waterplay room

The Lobby

Transportation room again

Close-up on the Statue of Liberty arm...Made out of tons of different objects

The kids could sit and drive part of a Septa bus

Did you think I would not find any Disney here? Check out this Dinoco Helicopter!

Toys that were on display

These playsets are rides from Walt Disney World!

Rockets Away! Air cannons are used to shoot foam rocket pieces into the high ceiling of the room

On our way back to the exit after a fun trip! This last picture is of the ramp that acts as the "Rabbit Hole" near the Alice in Wonderland play area.

Student Teaching Shenanigans: Valentines and In-School Field Trips

I have to do a little blog here about my first holiday as a teacher in a classroom.  Yesterday was Valentines day and while it is an adorable holiday filled with love, I believe that it is also a holiday to try to get your teacher's fat! My evidence for saying this? For Valentine's day, I received a total of 4 boxes of candy, 10 or so valentines with candy attached to them, 5 cupcakes, 2 brownies and a cookie! Holy Guacamole! I am surprised that just looking at all this has not sent me into a diabetic coma! Aside from the enormous amounts of sugar, I do think that the holiday is very awesome and I loved spending it and doing fun activities with the children!

There is one thing that I am curious about though.  Is there some sort of trigger or button in a child's head that tells them to act like a nut on a holiday?? I am not exaggerating when I say that every single student, even my best ones, were practically bouncing off the walls! And I didn't even give them much sugar! They only had pretzels, chips, cheese curls and a cookie at the party! Makes no sense at all!  If a scientist can find the cure for holiday insanity in students, I would be much obliged!

My other little story for this post is about a in-school field trip we had today.  The concept of In School field trip evaded our students- we had some even bring their lunches today for the field trip, even though the form specifically said that was not needed and that the people were coming to us.  The "trip" was two women from a local park system who came to our class and did experiments with Solids and Liquids, the science unit I am in the middle of teaching.  They did an excellent job and the kids loved the experiments they did! The only thing I was disappointed about was that half of the experiments they did gave away half of my lessons that I still have to teach.  I was sitting there watching them do Sink vs Float and was disappointed because I am planned to do that lesson with the kids tomorrow! My co-op made a note for next year that if they do this field trip again, to do it in March or so, after the unit is finished so as not to spoil the surprises and lessons we teach the students.  I think the kids will still be excited about the science we do anyway, they love learning about it!

And of course, gotta end this post with a one liner from a student.....I ask the students "When your car is broken, where do you take it to get it fixed?" and a student pipes up and says "The Vet".....priceless I tell you!!