Room 12 Staff Team
Teacher: Gemma Hare (M-T), **** ***** (W-F)
EYP: Ann Gerrie
PSA: Wendy Hulse, Louise Cowan
This week some of the pupils have explored the potatoes we grew at school and have experienced making potato salad or paprika wedges with them.
They used all of their senses to and some pupils were able to use skills such as cutting and stirring.
Room 12 listened very carefully to our story “A Funny Thing Happened on the way to School” by Benjamin Chaud and Davide Cali.
The story is all about a child making excuses for being late for school…one of which is a giant ape mistaking the school bus for a banana!
We made our own collage apes using different materials – leather, felt, wool, crepe, sticky paper, tissue paper etc. They look fab on the wall outside our classroom!
The teachers are hoping the Room 12 pupils haven’t picked up any good excuses for coming in late now…
This week we have been doing some growing to coincide with 30 Days Wild:
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/30-days-wild-2021-sign-your-pack
We have made some decoupage pots and will be planting something in them next week (possibly alpine strawberries if the cuttings take!)
We also planted bean pots inside a paper tube, with some beans on the outside. This means the plant will grow inside the tube but we also will see the roots growing on the beans on the outside.
We are then going on to make and grow cress caterpillars!
We have been getting back into the swing since returning to school.
One thing we have enjoyed is our Wednesday yoga sessions. Here we see one of our young people really enjoying the one to one yoga with Hannah who understands the needs of our class perfectly. One of our class always greets her with “Namaste”, now without prompting!
We have been choosing what we would like to do in class time. This can be through use of symbols, pictures, signing, verbally or in the case of this picture, by switch. Here, one of our pupils is choosing the song he would like to hear.
We have big news this week! Tomorrow (Wednesday) we will have a LIVE PE lesson. To join us all you need to do is to check the ‘PE at Home’ class on Wednesday at 2 pm and there will be a link for the ‘Meet’.
You will need: comfy clothes and a willingness to have fun!
Amanda and Salvi look forward to seeing you!
The PE at home classroom on Google is updated weekly and the team are doing a great job in providing a range of activities to suit pupils of all abilities. These include Dance, Boccia, Orienteering, Scavenger Hunts (this week’s is a lovely sensory, texture hunt) and our regular PE with Salvi and Amanda, ably supported by our own Young Leaders in school.
Please ask your child’s class teacher for a link if you are not in the PE at Home classroom.
Burns Celebrations to start the week
We’ve had another busy week of remote learning. Starting on Monday with our whole school Burns Day Celebration, the week was started with great enthusiasm!
Daily Circle Time
To keep our routine going, many classes continue to do daily circle time. Some of our learners have their own circle time packs at home to support the familiar routine, others use the class slides to provide structure. It’s great to receive feedback on how our learners are getting on: ‘He thoroughly enjoys circle time.’
For one young man, circle time is also an opportunity to practise his bench sitting.
Personal Independence and Life Skills
We continue to develop independence in personal care. Staff take time to support us in doing things for ourselves. Handwashing is very important during a pandemic!
We’ve been cooking and baking. There was some delicious French Onion Soup on offer this week and beautiful golden shortbread. Look out Masterchef, here we come!
Expressive Arts
We enjoyed art, PE, drumming and music through Makaton Choir. A very detailed drawing was done to decorate a drum for a music session with Keith – the drawing is of a hunter being chased by an African lady that is protecting the animals!
We also took time to relax, both indoors and out.
Working Hard
We worked hard on a range of learning activities and tasks, some online and some more practical.
One of our senior pupils made an amazing cat house as part of her SQA work. I think you’ll agree, this is for one very lucky cat!
Assembly
Finally, to round off the week we had an Assembly. We talked about mental health and the theme ‘Express Yourself’. Staff shared the ways that they express themselves and show that they’re unique. The slides are available to view in the Google Assembly classroom for anyone that was unable to join us. Our challenge for the next assembly on 12th February is to share a photo of us doing something that we enjoy – anything goes!
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for both staff and pupils in our Secondary Department. With a new round of remote learning we’ve slipped back into things a little easier. We’ve got lots of activities on offer within our Google Classrooms and we’re seeing more pupils engaging with this. Circle time and stories are proving popular and it’s great to see our young people getting involved in helping around the home.
Although we have some sessions ‘live’, such as Makaton Choir (every Monday at 2 pm) and Assembly (1:30 pm on Friday 29th January), other activities are in the form of pre-recorded video or materials that can be accessed at a time of your convenience. We do appreciate that family life is busy, everyone juggling remote learner(s) with other commitments, so we invite you dip in and out when it suits your schedule.
Here are a few photos from our remote learning over the last couple of weeks. If you’d like your child to be featured, please let the class teacher know that you’re happy for your photographs to be shared.
We’re learning in everything we do. Please ask your class teachers if you need any further support.
Tomorrow (14th January) we will be having our first Secondary Assembly of the New Year. Our assemblies have been virtual since our return after the initial lockdown due to having to restrict the numbers for gatherings and our young people have responded well to this.
Tomorrow we would like to invite both our remote learners and those staff and pupils in school to join us. If you have not yet signed up, please do so by accepting the invitation sent via Google Classroom. If you are having any issue, please contact the Class Teacher for further support.
The link will go ‘live’ in Assembly Classroom a few minutes before we start. I hope you can come along!
Orchard Brae Advent Calendar: Days 9 and 10
Today we have another festive treat for you with days 9 and 10 of our Orchard Brae Advent Calendar.
For Day 9, Room 12 take you on a magical sleigh ride, accompanied by classical music from Troika. Everyone had lots of fun creating their journey after lots of hard work practising every day in school.
For Day 10, Room 7 undertake a fantastic sensory exploration of snow.
Room 12 found out all about Diwali in November. We watched a powerpoint that told us all about it and then made Mehndi patterns. We used a variety of stampers to create our patterns on an arm template for our ASDAN unit about celebrations in different communities.
