Hello from the sky!
This wi-fi on a plane thing never seems to get old.

I’m flying home to Orange County for the weekend! It was a completely last minute decision when I found out my sister surprised the family and flew in for the weekend. So now, here we are.

You may think I’m ridiculous for forking over $8 for wi-fi on a 1-hour flight. Well, I am using any and every tactic to keep my mind occupied so I don’t think about how scary this all is.

Not to mention, a glass of wine would have cost me the same amount. So I pretty much came out even.

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This week has been LONG. I feel like I [temporarily] threw out that work/life balance I was trying to maintain during the 3 weeks of professional development.

It’s the first week with the kids. Kids are getting accustomed to routines, systems, and procedures. Just as I am getting accustomed to the Rocketship style of doing things.

So naturally things take longer, more work needs to get done, and I end up sleeping less (which, I realized today, is not something I am willing to sacrifice. I’m a discombobulated crazy person when I don’t get at least 7 hours of sleep).

But despite all of that, I love it. I love my role this year. I love these kids. I love this staff. And when you love something so much, it really doesn’t feel like work at all.

Today was a particularly special day for us because we were able to develop a behavior plan for one of our students who struggles with attention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. Observations have shown that, for every 20 minutes that the student is in the classroom, he is off-task for 19 of those minutes.

Today we tried incorporating a visual schedule that would allow the student to break his long day into chunks. It looked a little something like this but with icons that were more applicable to the classroom.

 

He knew that when he completed a non-preferred activity, he would get 5 minutes to engage in a preferred activity. This visual cue was to keep him on task (in addition to a token economy that was a more immediate reinforcement for him every time the teacher observed him maintaining appropriate classroom behavior and participating in the classroom activities).

Lastly, we role played with him. We practiced transitions until he perfected them. We practiced everything from moving from the carpet to the desk, the desk to the door, the door to the bathroom. And he loved practicing it because he was able to then understand the expectations that we had set up for him.

I love everything about my day. These students, though they occasionally exhibit challenging behavior, give me an opportunity to think from multiple perspectives in order to best tailor our practice to their needs. If a student can’t learn the way we teach, we must teach the way they learn.