I had a meeting with Andrew's team at school this afternoon. This team consists of his teachers, his inclusion specialist, and the school's Adaptive Learning Center liaison. Now that he's been in school for a few weeks and they've gotten to see how Andrew does in class, interacts with his peers, follows directions, etc, they wanted to sit down and go over his goals for the year. All of their concerns were things that we already knew about, such as difficulty transitioning between activities. They're already seeing progress, though, and are sure it's going to continue to get better throughout the year.
What I didn't expect to hear, however, is how much of an asset Andrew is proving to be in the classroom. His outgoing personality and his intelligence are turning out to be very helpful for the teachers. Just a few examples-
- Whenever they walk somewhere within the school, such as the playground or music class, the kids all have to hold the hand of a buddy. The teachers know that Andrew will walk, follow directions, and get to their location without any problem, so they pair him up with a child who would likely wander off or not follow directions.
- Every morning, his class sings a welcome song. Each kid has a popsicle stick with their name and picture on it that's kept in a pocket on the wall. In the song, each kid says their name when it's their turn, then the teacher takes the stick, shows it to the class, and moves it to another pocket that shows they're in the classroom today. Think of it as toddler roll-call. Andrew now helps move the sticks because he recognizes the pictures and can read their names, something that nobody else in his class can do yet. He looks through the pile of sticks, finds the right one, shows it to the class, and puts it where it belongs.
- At story time each day, the teacher will talk about the cover of the book first. She will ask the kids what they see and they'll try to come up with ideas about what the story is about. Since Andrew loves to describe things, he's the first one to jump in and say "Red and blue bird, flying up in the sky!" He's always happy to jump in and contribute, which makes me VERY happy.
All in all, everything they had to say was great! They are all excited to see how well he's going to do the rest of the school year!
I also thought I'd share some cute pictures from the school's music class today!
