little things

Thanks! Passing on in this reply! http://www.kathyskids.org Ms. Kathy's Kids Blog: http://mskathyskids.blogspot.com/ --- On Sat, 8/29/09, GerryKate wrote: From: GerryKate The ' L I T T L E ' Things . As you might know, the head of a company survived 9/11 because his son started kindergarten. Another fellow was alive because it was His turn to bring donuts. One woman was late because her Alarm clock didn't go off in time. One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike Because of an auto accident. One of them Missed his bus. One spilled food on her clothes and had to take Time to change. One's Car wouldn't start. One couldn't Get a taxi. The one that struck me was the man Who put on a new pair of shoes that morning, Took the various means to get to work But before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he is alive today. Now when I am Stuck in traffic , Miss an elevator, Turn back to answer a ringing telephone ... All the little things that annoy me. I think to myself, This is exactly where God wants me to be At this very moment.. Next time your morning seems to be Going wrong , The children are slow getting dressed, You can't seem to find the car keys, You hit every traffic light, Don't get mad or frustrated; It May be just that God is at work watching over you. May God continue to bless You With all those annoying little things And may you remember their possible purpose. Pass this on to someone else, if you'd like. There is NO LUCK attached. If you delete this, it's okay: God's Love Is Not Dependent On E-Mail !! that's the cool part) A M E N

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Thanks to all my FB friends and family for the anniversary & birthday wishes! I love you!

Skin cells changed into retina tissue - JSOnline

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Senator Ted Kennedy Dies

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Getting Ready

Getting ready for church this morning.

Pastor invited us to be at his table for a banquet honoring a pastor at a sister church last night. Today I have to teach Sunday school class. I hope my co-teacher is there. We usually take over for each other when one has another duty later in the day so that we can take care of last minute matters concerning Children's Church.

I'm taking some music and craft activities for the lesson so I need to set up in another classroom. For regular Sunday school class we teach the seven and eight year-old children every Sunday morning. For Children's Church I teach four- and five-year-old children every two or three months. They are such fun, but I know I will need a good nap when I get home this evening.

I am curious as to why I have so many Chinese links to my blog. Can someone answer that?

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Little Bits

I must describe her so a reader will understand why I call her Baby Doll. She is the tiniest child in her class. Although she is three years old she may be the size of an eighteen-month old. She has Asian features with the tiniest little button of a nose. He mom has some unusual little round lens glasses of which the frame is constructed of red plastic. The "arms" of the glasses wrap around and hook at the back of her head. She has wispy straight black hair that frames her little round face and tiny feet and hands which she sometimes swing widely when she walks as she imitates whatever adult she may walk next to.She looks like a baby doll that one would want to sit at the head of one's bed on a pillow as an adorable decoration.

I went back to Baby Doll's class and she was there. This particular school is a preschool center. There are disabled children there and non-disabled children. It is a wonderful garden-like place with many fun and engaging activities.

This Monday was the first full day for all of the preschool students to attend. They were coming on staggered times and days for testing last week so Baby Doll and I missed each other twice.

Monday the children were in play centers when I arrived. The teacher, who is a new and different lady from last school term wanted to call Baby Doll to me but I told her I'd rather she kept her routine. I could watch her being herself and observe how she explored toys.

Baby Doll was sitting at a table with another child, a cute little boy that I will call Mr. Man. He was playing with toy ducks on a toy lake. Baby Doll looked at the toy she had and decided the ducks looked like far more fun. She helped him line them up on the plastic lake where when a switch was flipped, the little ducks vibrated in a circle. A minute or two later, neither the ducks or the play house and all it's buttons were interesting as some other toy on the shelf caught her attention.

The teacher let me read Baby Doll's latest IEP (Individual Education Plan) while the class lined up like a miniature train for potty time. I needed to check the visual acuity numbers again. I remembered from last school term that her distance vision was not too good. With her little red glasses she held near objects at a decent length until she wanted to see details.. I have a photo of her from last school term from when I observed her for a couple of hours. She was in the cafeteria and in one photo her little face goes down to her plate as if she was saying, "Let me see what this stuff is you guys are trying to get me to eat. Oh. Pancakes. Terrific. No thank you." I had just the photo I needed to show that.

Recess was interesting and such great fun! I accompanied her with her class. The water fountain was a dandy thing from which to drink so that we could be refreshed while digging in the sand at one of the sand tables. Then we had to see what it was like to scoop the sand and dump it on the sidewalk. I signed and spoke "No" and reminded her that the sand had to stay in the sand table. A few signs are used with oral communication because of some hearing loss and because she is largely non-verbal.

Back in the classroom the teacher surprised her class with chocolate cupcakes and ice cream. It was the para's birthday. It was a photo moment, of course! Six tiny people eating chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing is worthy of several priceless shots. I snapped away at the little chocolate covered hands and faces. Later I emailed the photos to the teacher and had them printed out and put in a little photo album for the para as a gift for her birthday.

Mr. Man wanted to see his picture in the back of my camera. He is the only one in the class who is verbal enough to ask. I noticed earlier that his right eye was turning slightly outward and that there was a little nystagmus in that eye. I showed him his picture and he smiled his big Mr. Man smile. Then I covered his left eye and asked him if he could see his picture. "Um. Um." he stammered and that right eye started dancing all over the place. he clearly could not use it or was not using it very well. Then I covered the right eye and he said, "There I am!" as he looked at his picture.

I mentioned to his teacher and the para that he may have problems with his vision in his right eye. Since he is nonambulatory and had obviously had other problems, the problems with one eye, when the other seemed fine could easily be overlooked. She asked me to mention it to the nurse across the hall so she could also check him and together they would notify his parents to have him seen by a pediatric opthamologist.

When I returned to my little spot at my home school I emailed the teacher, her principal and my supervisor concerning my opinion. I attached the photo closeup of his darling little face as he looked at the camera. If one were to cover his left eye in the photo it would appear that he was looking up and to the right. But if one covered the right eye, one can see the left eye was looking directly into the camera. My supervisor suggested I check his educational evaluation for an eye report and praised me for "good looking out."

When I was able to get to the evals on line I saw where it had been done when he was two years old--maybe two and a half. At that time the evaluator wrote that he was not verbal enough to get get enough response concerning his vision. Well, I thought, That certainly isn't the case now. Mr. Man is talking up a blue streak in that class these days! However, it was mentined that he'd had surgery on that eye a bit before that. His eyes had probably not been checked since then, because of his other physical involvements and because he is functioning so well with the good left eye. The right eye problems could easily go unnoticed. If all it needs is training like what is done for amblyopia now is the time to get that started as soon as possible. I pray that is all. He may not end up being one of my students but I would hope that whatever he has in the right eye can be improved or maintained under a doctor's care.

Ah! This was just part of my day at one school of four I visit, in one classroom of several. Such a joy with the little bits--the ones in whom God shows us and teaches us. I'm tired and I love it.

Taking a Break!

Today is Luttermaker's birthday! YAY! I have been thinking about my friend lately. Definitely going shopping on Amazon tonight. Oops! Hope L doesn't read my blog today!

This has been a very busy week. I have located and tried to see every child on my case load. This morning I decided it would be best to use some of Matt's time to get his copy paper. There is no computer set up in his classroom for individual work yet. There is one the para uses to teach the entire class and one the teacher uses. The other two are not working so I went for his paper before going to his school with it. I will have to enlarge some bold line writing sheets for him and he'll do the best he can until the CCTV is set up.

I need to make a braille calendar with Velcro for Mr. Hebrews. I had a scored poster and bought another last night. A lady helped me find some Velcro discs. Sometimes if you tell people what you are doing with the type of children you work with, they will help you find things or give you things to use with your kids.

I returned to the pre-school campus after Matt's. I wanted to catch up with the children I'd missed earlier in the week since they are having a staggered schedule this week. The little model in the the red glasses came on the day I had to skip for our meeting but her new teacher said she should be there on Monday. I can't wait to see her! I had some pictures I took of the kids last school term and I gave those of her to her teacher.

Then I went to see Mr. Football Dude! What a character! He was enjoying some free floor exercise. He has low vision, is non-verbal and non-ambulatory but what flirt! He still has a binky in his mouth. When it fell out I put his hand on it to see if he would grab it and sure enough, he had it and it went straight back into his mouth. He reacts to adults being near so as I sat on the floor next to him he started to pat my leg to get me to tickle him again. His teacher gave me his eye-report which listed him as cortical visually impaired with an acuity of about 20/200.He uses what he has very well. I told his teacher that that and the rest of the report means that he shouldn't be expected to reacts to things visually from across the room. She's pretty good with knowing all about her kids and works closely with him.I love his reaction to faces that are close to his. I have a photo of him just laughing his head off!

I'd been to the third teacher's class the day before--or at least to the lunch room with them. The one little girl was eating solid food fed to her from a spoon. She was not doing that last spring--so this was a great over-the-summer development! Their classroom was locked today so I was not able to see anyone from her class.

I talked to another teacher whose student had moved on to another school. he was supposed to be on one of my co worker's caseload but this teacher said his folks wanted to put him in a private kindergarten. I have to remember to tell that to my coworker so she won't have to worry about continuing to look for him. I had pictures of him also and let his former pre-K teacher have them.

The rest of the photos I gave to the school secretary who said she would give them to the correct teachers.

I got back to my home school a bit after lunch. I didn't bring anything to eat but I usually don't feel like it when I have a lot to do. I can't finish my calendar or my portable dry-erase board because there is no laminating film in the library. I started penciling in the kids I could pencil in on a schedule and unpacked some more thing s and finished my decorating. I made another braille lesson for Mr. H for next week. Then a teacher needed me to install and show her something with the Classroom Suites program--which I don't mind doing but it is loading more slowly than usual on the school computers across the parish. At a center school yesterday it took me about 45 minutes to an hour!

Just when I get to sit again, in the afternoon announcements made as the children are boarding their buses, the principal announces that she needs schedules from all the ancillary personnel. So the penciled in version I'd made had to suffice.

Oh, well.TGIF. Hunnee will be home this evening. I'll just look forward to that and think of next week when it comes.

BIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I'm in the middle of the first full week of school. Can you say "busy" boys and girls?

I'm now housed at the same school where Mr. Hebrews 13 goes to school. He is SO overjoyed about that. Of course he knows where to find me because my space is located where his class used to be. His class is now in the main building.

I could tell that with the cerebral palsy his little fingers are too weak to press the braille writer keys on the standard braille writer. The new light weight braille writers are supposed to be easier to be more touch sensitive lighter in weight and easier to load but I know what ordering one for him will be like. They are at least $700 and getting such for multi-disabled kids. They are not considered as important for such as "regular" children with visual impairments. For example, with my high school students once we were instructed to take care of ordering their books and materials first because they were readers and college-bound versus the multi-disabled children in community-based/self-contained classrooms. Needless to say, I have been on a soapbox many times on that issue. I understand that those with that attitude don't understand these children.

I showed Mr. H. the keys for the first three braille alphabets. I tested him on his knowledge of which dots make each letter and he had not forgotten any of them. In fact, I could ask him in reverse--"What letter is made with dots one and four?" He gave me the right answer every time. But on the Perkins braille writer he had to use two finger to press one key. Ms. Jessie, his child specific para, wants to work on hand strengthening exercises with him. She is so excited about how well he is reading, she wants him to be able to use the braille writer in conjunction with the Intellikeys so he can read what h has written himself.He read all of his homework. Ms. Jessie went over it with him at the teacher's instruction because his mom did not. She was so excited that she ran him over o my room to show me that he could read all of his homework.

Before I went out to any other schools, I made three more lessons with sight words based on the some of the words we worked on last year, one word he wanted to add and his name. I made cards with all the Dolch words from preprimer to third grade last year, so we will do those as well during the year. He is a little sponge and Ms. Jessie is fantastic with him. She learns new braille with him. Now if Mom keeps him in school and helps him with homework, he will be an excellent reader because he wants to be so badly.

I have seen Matt at his new high school. He's let his beard grow in full--or at least as full as it can get on a young teen. It's so funny to see him like this when I remember this squeaky voice. Looks like his mom has compromised and had a barber attempt to give it shape. He is excited that I am his teacher again. He has an excellent community-based teacher who does not mind actually working with the children and taking Matt's vision into consideration in all of their activities.

I also went to see a graduate of Mrs. Beryl's pre-K class. She and her sister are attending a new elementary school. The class they are in is for exceptional students and the ages and abilities seem so varied. Their teacher is really working with them. She has some writers and some who cannot read and one with Down's who does not talk. Her room is a leftover space that part of a converted auditorium. it is brightly decorated and word rich--which I love. She has made it into a cosy, inviting place. The airconditioner kicked off twice while I was there. She has a window unit which seems to throw the breaker of occasionally in this older model school. Of course they are down at the end of the hall. Often our kids are segregated from the "regular" classes, at the end of the hall, int the special wing or in the portable buildings.

I have been late coming home most evenings and in my after school state which is shoes off and feet up. My sister and her daughter left for Colorado so my mother is feeling the effects of empty nest syndrome. She cannot cook for one or two so we have been visiting each evening. Then I am good for nothing else but sleep after that. Thus the lack of entries here in my blog and the lack of visits to my FaceBook page.

Such a busy beginning of school. I will survive!

Ms. Kathy is

is almost moved in from one school to another. Whew! School starts tomorrow! Where's my break?

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