Week 2

August 19-23, 2013

First week of school - WOO HOO! Gettin' in the full swing of things! Fun, fun!

I was pumped and ready to do this thing! I was ready to dive in! I had met a lot of the students by this point and excited to see them in action.

This first entire week we spent at Forest Lakes Elementary. Getting these kids accustomed to bus routes, classroom routes, transition of class (P.E., music, lunch, etc), etc. was Bryan's biggest concern of all the students on his caseload. I wondered about why this could be (at the time), but by the end of the experience and after working with the other students on his caseload, I could see why he would put so much focus on this group of students here. 

I loved walking little Johnny sighted guide from Mr. Bryan's van to his classroom. He was so sweet and gentle. Bryan told me he was born without his corpus collosum and it was hard for him to make connections and the reason why he had sporadic spasms and whatnot. I didn't care about all that. I just thought he was so darn cute. When we got to his classroom, one of his old assistants was there and I found out I was not the only one who thought the same thing. I observed Bryan working with Jon on classroom routes (front door to wall, wall or window to desk, desk to rug, rug to hard floor, hard floor to bathroom, bathroom to sink on hard floor, sink back to desk, etc.). It was even cooler how I observed all of this and was able to reteach the classroom routes to Jon's assistant later on a week after this experience. I really enjoyed that, because it challenged me to remember this experience and made me feel like I was actually contributing to the experience instead of sitting there like a bump on a log. Haha...

Grace and Ella - 2 sisters, adopted from China (both at Forest Lakes) - beautiful, sweet, and charming all the way. These 2 girls were so precious in different, yet sweet ways. When I first met Ella, she gave me a great big hug before she even heard what my name was. She continued to give everyone hugs as we continued to talk and show her around her classroom. This was my first impression of her. When I first met Grace, she honestly seemed really clumsy and disoriented, but as time went on and as I observed her in the routines of her class, she became this brilliant student that amazed me more and more each time I saw her.

I could go on and on about these amazing students, but I need time to write about the others at the other schools. I am sure I will get to write more about these kids as I get to work with them more. Overall, I am so happy each day that I go to this internship. I truly feel like this is the highlight of my learning experiences thus far. I can't believe I spent so much energy being nervous about it when it really turned out to be just perfect the way it was.