Reflection: First Week of Sped Placement

I did not really know what to expect going into this new placement.  I was extremely sad to be leaving the Abington community, my mentor and my students in a place where I felt completely comfortable and essentially being dropped into a new setting in the middle of the year. I was also pretty nervous and anxious after hearing some not so great things about the area from numerous people. Even though I had met my mentor last Thursday, I didn't exactly know how to read her which left me rather apprehensive about approaching her. When meeting her, she told me that her aides are somewhat territorial, which definitely didn't help my case of nerves.

When I walked in on Monday, I kind of just sat back and got my bearings. It was busy from the moment that the students walked into the room. Since they are in Pre-k, the first thing that they did was go to the bathroom. As a matter of fact, we spend a lot of time going to the bathroom throughout the day. We have 9 students (8 boys and 1 girl), 4 of which are nonverbal and a set of twins. There are also 3 aides in the room along with my mentor. Two are personal aides and the other is the standard classroom aide. I actually get along well with all of them, which is helpful. There are just a lot of people in one room with only 9 students which takes a lot of getting used to.

By Tuesday and Wednesday, some of the children were saying my name, laughing with me and actually acknowledging my presence which definitely eased some of my nerves and concerns about fitting into the classroom. My mentor explained to me that she had just gotten about half of the students 3 weeks ago so we're all learning together, which is very reassuring.

I taught my first small group lesson on Wednesday. I worked with the verbal students on writing the letter B. They are able to identify it and tell me things that start with the letter B but have not mastered writing it yet. We used instant jello POWDER on wax paper and the students traced it over and over again using their fingers. We repeated "straight line, fat belly, another fat belly" over and over. It was very interesting to watch them use their little fingers to make the letter.

I'm looking forward to the next couple of months in this placement. I think that there is a lot that I can learn especially in the areas of differentiation and the importance of documentation. I'm also going to be working on implementing PECs into the classroom so that is something that I am definitely excited about. Coming from 3rd grade to pre-k and going from teaching fractions to the letter B will take some getting used to, but I'm ready for it.