Christmas Enterprise: Making Dog Biscuits

This week Class 15 have been busy working on their class enterprise project, making dog biscuits for the school Christmas fayre.

Before making our biscuits we all engaged in a dog themed bucket time – the (toy) dog from the bucket amused us all with its mischief, and watching the tennis balls splat onto the floor was entertaining.  Our turn-taking game saw us each choose a dog to “buy”, activating a switch talker to share a “woof woof” and exchanging money for our chosen toy dog.

After bucket time, we moved on to making our biscuits.  We used a switch operated blender to grind oats, peeled and mashed bananas and mixed these together with peanut butter – the classroom smelt delicious (and the individual ingredients tasted rather fine too!).  We used cookie cutters to make the biscuit shapes, choosing which shape we preferred.  Some of us worked on developing fine motor skills, others on developing independence in everyday tasks, and some of us gathered evidence to go towards our ASDAN folders as we work on our enterprise unit.

Our finished products will be available at the school Christmas fayre.

Christmas Fair: 30th November 2019

Room 12 are holding another doll raffle, to be drawn at the Christmas Fair on 30th November 2019, all proceeds to Orchard Brae.

Included in the prize is a beautiful wicker basket bed, bedding, the doll and several outfits – from a bride’s dress, to clown’s outfit to pyjamas and matching dressing gown and more. Doll donated and bedding and outfits beautifully made by the mum of one of Room 12’s class teachers.

Tickets to win all this are £1! Come and see us at the fair to buy your ticket!

There will also be many dolly clothes at our stall available to buy separately. These are unique, handmade and better than any dolls clothes you’ll see in the shops!

Halloween Fun at the Pupil Council Disco

The pupil council decided they wanted a Halloween disco and a pumpkin carving competition on Halloween. We enjoyed a whole school disco, with all the tunes being selected in advance by the pupils.  There were lots of fantastic costumes too.

A Busy Term in Room 15

This has been a busy term in Room 15, with lots of new experiences!

We have lots of fun with messy learning in Room 15. In our Secondary Department, all S1-S3 pupils complete the ASDAN New Horizons course – we have begun with building our communication of key information about ourselves.  We have hidden under blankets and revealed ourselves when our name is called (activating a switch talker to announce “I’m here!”), we have practiced our Makaton signs for our names (and those of our friends) and (best of all!) located our photos in sensory resources and written our names in mixed media.

We’ve also introduced bucket time to Room 15. This activity looks to build focused attention – and it seems we’re more focused the messier it gets!  We have used bucket time to build our spontaneous communication too – ready, steady and … “go!”

We have been using intensive interaction to build our communication skills in a variety of different contexts – we’re speaking and using more signs since the start of the year already!

We have been working a lot on life skills, particularly road safety. We use our eyes and ears to look out for traffic, and use our communication devices to say when to stop and when to go.

We have also begun to explore using talking mats to share our thoughts about our day – what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what we’re not sure about. On the whole, we’re liking our school day!

Potted Sports

Everyone enjoyed the Potted Sports organised by our PE Department on Wednesday. Thank you to everyone involved for the hard work that went into this, including our Howes Hoose pupils who supported at the stations. We all had a great time moving around in our class groups, finishing up with a running ‘marathon’ for any Secondary pupils wishing to participate. They were well supported by those opting to spectate.

Our World of Rights – Our Right to Play

The pupils in Room 15 very much enjoy their right to play.  We have fun in the school playground and out at the park.  Our friends in Rwanda have the right to play too.  They don’t have the same play equipment we have.  We looked at some photos of our friends in Rwanda playing.  In Room 15 we played with a banana leaf ball made by some of our friends in Rwanda.  We also enjoyed playing with a banana leaf doll made by our friends in Rwanda.  We had lots of fun.

Room 15 had Fun in the Sun

We enjoyed participating in different kinds of energetic play and developing our movement skills through practice.

We also enjoyed eating our snack in the park.

Fun In Music Therapy

One pupil had a lovely time in music therapy with Emmeline this week.  He enjoyed turn-taking and copying on the piano as well as singing well-known nursery rhymes, especially ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’. There was also lots of fun as he started making up his own songs with a lot of “Achoos!” and “Uh-Ohs!”

Choosing Books: Room 15 Visit Waterstones

Room 15 pupils enjoyed a bus trip to Waterstones in the Bon Accord Centre.  We all had fun choosing a book.  We looked carefully at the different books before deciding which one we wanted.  Some of us chose ‘Ten Little Bookworms’ and some of us chose ‘Minifigure Mayhem’.  We are all looking forward to reading our books at home.

Ragbag Collection

The pupils in Room 16 have been working hard on our Ragbag project for 18 months now.  We are delighted to confirm that we have raised approximately £900 for the school fund (that’s more than 2 tonnes of clothing that have been saved from landfill!).

Rag bag is a Scottish textile and clothing recycling scheme.  Items are graded according to their quality at their premises in Falkirk.  Wearable items are sent to developing countries as 2nd hand clothing, items which may have been torn or damaged recycled and become carpet underlay or industrial cleaning cloths or even mattress lining.  Either way they are kept from landfill.

There are 3 collection schemes, 1: send bags home, 2: inside collection bin (at school front office) and 3: external collection bin.  We are proud to say that we have all 3 schemes in operation.

We collect clothes, pairs of shoes, belts and bags.

So this Spring, as you clear out your winter wardrobe, feel free to fill a bag of rags for us!