Almost October... This year is flying by!

I cannot believe that it is ALMOST October! I have been adjusting nicely to my new classroom; not to say that there hasn't been rough days, but I have survived and I am loving the new structure and my little guys! We are into Week 5 and we are head deep in behavior frequency data, writing and working on the letters L, F and E, and running through our Verbal Behavior curriculum (I may write a post on this alone next).

We have a lot of maladaptive behaviors going on in my classroom - eloping, hitting, kicking, throwing, biting, body dropping, etc. We have to take frequency data to see how the behavior changes throughout the quarter. For some of these behaviors, we may have to write behavior plans for. For some of the kids, they came to my class with behavior plans that we may end up tweaking.

I started using Handwriting Without Tears to guide our handwriting and letters this year. I LOVE it! I love how hands-on and tactile it is. The kids get to form the letters with wooden sticks and with magnets on a Magnadoodle and the curriculum teaches the kids HOW to write the letters.
I like having the students experience writing in different modalities, so I also have my kids roll out play dough and form the letter using these letter cards:

I used to also do shaving cream and gel but don't think my little guys can handle it this year! Maybe as we continue, we could try it. I also have them practice writing on a white board.
I have worksheets that have them form the letters using animals that start with that letter, color in the letter and do ABC art! We also work on identifying items of a certain letter - I have these sweet ABC Letter Bins from Lakeshore. I love it because I don't need to search for all of the words on my own - it is all in one place and is such a major time saver.

We spend about 2 weeks on a letter. Letter time is so much fun to me - it's multi-sensory and the kids are able to get good fine motor practice in.

Halloween is coming up; we are going to read Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly! So excited. :) Lots of fun Halloween activities going on.