Semester 2 Begins

2020 is off to a great start and the students are back in the swing of things. We always start the week by sharing about our weekends. Then we are off to Art Class!

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This week we began Teacher Shopping again. Reagan did a great job taking Dr.Wallace’s order, retrieving it and delivering.

On Friday, We visited Northpoint Mall where we had a shopping lesson. Students had to find 5 items. Then we ate lunch at Chik-fil-A. A few of us stopped to buy a cookie along the way!

Lastly, a few of us became more active this week! Davis started riding the exercise bike daily to make his knee stronger. And Reagan started riding the bus without his chair. He is very proud to walk to and from the bus daily!

Week 12

Everyone loves Halloween! Last week we made Day of the Dead pictures in Art class with Ms. Hines.

During Teacher Shopping the studnets practice locating items in the store and paying with credit cards.  Students learn how to use the chip reader.

This week we made pineapple sliders in Cooking class. We practiced making a sandwich, squeezing and spreading mustard and using a microwave.

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And the big highlight this week was the Johns Creek HS game vs Alpharetta HS! CBI students were honored and celebrated during the pre-game.  Over the last 3-4 years our students have prepared water bottles, ice chests, water coolers, and hung jerseys for the football team.  Coach Helmerich wanted to thank our students by recognizing them and welcoming us onto the field where we got to stand near the helmet and kick of the start of the game.  It was exciting and fun for students, staff and parents!

October

What have we been up to? The PALS Club Social after school in October was super fun! We had many PALS attend! Students ate, danced, and played games. 

Music Class is always fun! Especially when Ms.Taylor plays spooky Halloween songs like Thriller! We have a Music Therapy Intern named Mr. Connor who plays guitar and sings too!Teacher Shopping continues every week.  The students work on communicating with staff at restaurants and Publix.  They are responsible for teachers orders, credit cards, and money.  They learn to navigate the building in order to make deliveries.This guy just turned 17! His birthday was one day before our principal’s 50th birthday. We got together in the JC Java to film a short video wishing Principal Shearer a happy birthday. We also sang “Happy Birthday” to Joey. I think he enjoyed his chocolate cupcakes.Wednesday is our cooking/science class. This week we made Thomas Edison’s apple fritters. Everyone enjoyed, they were delicious! Natalie and Davis were responsible for slicing the apples with an apple slicer.  They did a good job!

Homecoming Pep Rally

Bowling and more Bowling!

We have been bowling twice since my last post. First for a community trip and again for Special Olympics. We always have a fun time at Stars and Strikes!

A few of us danced the night away at the Homecoming Dance over the weekend.

We recently welcomed Mr.Sean Dalrymple, our new teacher. He is settling in and getting to know his students.

We have so many PALS and we love them all! So many great friendships have developed over the last few years.

I am not sure what any of us would do without our paraprofessionals. They each have unique personalities and talents and love the kids!

From Left: Kansas Nesmith, Jevonne Wilson, Pauline Weiss, Mark Hardage, and Angie Byfield. (Missing Sharon Martino)

More pictures to come next week!

The blog is back!

The blog is back! I have a few photos from this week I would like to share just to show you what we’ve been up to!

On Mondays we have Art Therapy class. Jesse Hines is our new Art Teacher. We continued to work on a piece inspired by the works of Piet Mondrian.

This week we began, “Teacher Shopping”, our class vocational site. The students get to work on communcation, navigating the building, shopping skills, reading, money skills, and being responsible. We delivered orders to teachers from Publix, The Patio, and Panera.

On Friday, we took our first official community trip. We visited Jason’s Deli at the Forum where we practiced placing an order, paying for our food, and other restaurant skills. Most students used their iPads to communicate orders and make choices about the food and drinks they wanted. It was a lovely day!

Parents, my blog is for you and the students and I do the whole thing from my phone so please forgive me if it isn’t perfectly formatted or there are a few mistakes. My goal is to share some pictures and let you see all the fun stuff we do!

Max’s Golf Outing

 

Our week started off with a surprise baby shower for our favorite Music Teacher, Mrs. Taylor! Mrs. DeBuys’ class shopped for the gifts at Target during their community trip the Friday before.

This week we learned about the Grand Canyon National Park in News to You.  We created desert landscapes in Art class.  And in science we studied how moving water can cause erosion much like the Colorado River did in the Grand Canyon.  We conducted an experiement where we compared peppermints in moving, still and no water and examined the changes.

On Friday we were invited to Max’s Golf outing, a charitable event.  The students enjoyed learning how to putt and how to drive a golf ball at the driving range.  They enjoyed seeing old friends and meeting new friends from Riverwood and Centennial High Schools.  It was a beautiful day to play golf!

And if only you could see Robbie drive a golf ball! He has a great swing! We also enjoyed celebrating his 18th birthday on Friday with a pizza party lunch!

Last but not least, Ryan learned how to do a few new tasks in the Athletic Training Room to help prepare for afternoon sports.  It was his first time loading the dryer and filling up the ice chest.  He did a great job!

Spring is here!

So much has happened in the last few weeks! Here are the highlights…Most importantly, PROM for juniors and seniors! It was held at Mercedes Benz stadium in a field level ballroom! A memorable evening was had by all!

 

 

 

                 

Did you know that April is National Frog Month? Thanks to News to You we took the time to study “Awesome Frogs” and their life cycle in Science and Social Studies. Here are the students making their own visual representations of a frog’s life cycle.

Target has been one of our primary CBI sites this year.  Prior to spring break, the students enjoyed a scavenger hunt where they had to locate the fun things one might need on spring break, like pool noodles, coolers, snacks, beach towels, sunglasses, bathing suits, etc.

The one and only girl in our class celebrated her birthday recently by dancing to Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift.  After our visit to Target, she enjoyed a birthday lunch at Romeo’s Pizza and an ice cream cake with her classmates.  One of our parapros, Mrs. Wilson, is an amazing singer.  She sang Ansley the birthday song, which she loves, several times!

The Forum has been another favorite CBI site this year.  The students typically have a lesson at Belk that involves locating items in various departments, identifying the price or size, sticking to a budget, and looking for the best value. Then we walk to Jason’s Deli where the students order and pay for their food.  This is an opportunity for some students to practice using their debit cards or to practice using their iPads to communicate their order.

Once the weather warmed up we visited Newtown Park.  The students could choose between playing basketbal, going for a walk, visiting the dog park or playing soccer.  Then we took a walk over to the pond to look for turtles.  What a beautiful day!

The Patio is also a great place to practice choice making, communication skills, purchasing skills, table manners and social skills.

 

 

Exceptional Teenagers Week!

We enjoyed a number of fun activities during Exceptional “Teenagers” Week!  We invited anyone in the school to enjoy “Movies in the Media Center”. On Tuesday we screened the film “Becoming Bulletproof”, a heartwarming, funny documentary about a group of teens and young adults with and without disabilities who get together every summer to write, produce, and film a movie.  On Friday, we screened the film “Darius Goes West”.  Accompanied by eleven of his best friends, Darius Weems, a fifteen-year-old living with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) in Athens, GA, leaves home for the first time in his life.  The rowdy crew sets a course for California where they hope to convince MTV to customize Darius’s wheelchair on the hit show, Pimp My Ride.

On Wednesday, the students participated in the Special Olympics Unified Basketball Tournament at Centennial HS where all the North Fulton high schools came to compete.  We brought 21 of our favorite PALS to play basketball and cheer us on! And if only you could have seen the send off! The cheerleaders, Administration, lacrosse, soccer, and football teams were outside cheering for us as we left! We played very well with several students shooting and making baskets!

 

On Thursday we hosted our first ever PALS Club luncheon in the JC JAVA! It was a success! We ate pizza, danced and played games.

 

Here are a few more pictures from two weeks ago! News to You was about Read Across America Day which falls on Dr. Suess’s birthday.  In science, we did an experiment for which students had to collect and analyze data.  Think “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”…. Students were given a number of colored goldfish to sort and count. We then graphed and compared our data in order to create a hypothesis.

We enjoyed our last day of bowling for the year.  Meir continues to be a leader on the scoreboard.  But Joey won this week! Now that the weather is getting warmer we will be going back to Newtown Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catching Up! January & February

I can’t believe February is almost over! Here are some pictures from  the last two months! We made paper airplanes and tested them to see how far they would fly as part of a News to You Science Lesson…..

 

We celebrated a few birthdays, Happy Birthday Carson and Reagan!

We make some of the coolest things in Art class with Ms. Toni!

Mrs. DeBuys and Mrs. Malloy attended the Council on Exceptional Children Conference and Expo in Indianapolis.  We came back with so many great ideas!

Ms. Sappington invited us to her AP Biology class to do a lab on fossils.  Students worked in small groups with their peers to locate fossils hidden around the room, identify animals according to their fossils, and complete fossil puzzles. Ms. Sappington did a great job including us in her engaging science lesson!

 

We’ve been shopping at Belk and Barnes and Noble when we go to the Forum.  Then we have lunch together at Jason’s Deli.  We practice so many life skills while out in the community on Fridays!

The PALS Club Valentines Day Social was a big success! The members enjoyed music, art, snacks, dancing and and hanging out with their friends.

We had fun at Hoops for Hearts on Valentine’s Day!