Open House

First I want to thank everyone who voted for Amelia in the Children's Place Model Search. The site is now officially closed for voting. I hope someone out there won the coveted gift card. I voted every day and only got the 20% off coupon -- which as anyone who shops there knows is no big whoop. Anyway, I have not received any notifications that my favorite girl has been selected, but it was fun to participate.

We had open house night for Amelia at her school last night and her grandparents came over and watched her. It was more of an informational session about what they do in a day and to really learn the background of the teacher and her two assistants. She is a very experienced pre-school special ed teacher who comes from a family of two teachers and has 4 school age children herself. She is in good hands.

The only thing is that I think her classroom is kind of small for 12 kids.  I also think there is more of an emphasis on pre-kindergarten academic skills and maybe the life skills are a little on the light side. It is a very good program, don't get me wrong. It makes me wish a little bit that we lived back in the old neighborhood because that district is thought of as the best special education program in the Houston area. Katy is #2. The main reason is that Katy is still growing, while Spring Branch is very established and their population is not growing and they are not expanding. Their education dollars are going to provide richness and depth to their programs, whereas Katy is still building and expanding.

We got a chance to meet other parents. I met the room mother and got to talk more in depth with the ladies (and husbands of) what I call "the side door crew." The side door crew picks their kids up in cars and hangs out by a door on the side of the school where the kids come out. There are 5 of us. The rest ride the bus.

There was also a sign up sheet so that we could have a one-on-one conference with the teacher so we could talk about how our child is doing in the class.

When they come in in the morning, they take their snacks out of their backpacks and put their snacks away in a cubby marked with their name. (as an aside: I have been sending in gogurt, which is yogurt that is put in a long plastic sleeve kind of like the old fashion flav-o-ice, for her snack since the conversation with the speech person. With some practice she should be able to feed it to herself. This is my compromise until we can get a letter from the doctor explaining what she is allowed to eat)

Backpacks are left out in the hallway in pails lined against the wall. They have a schedule right inside the door with their picture on it. The schedule is laminated paper the size of a refrigerator magnet with a picture and word on it like "circle time" or "motor lab". They have to pull the task off their schedule before they go do it.

Here is some of her art she has been bringing home!

The room is set up in stations and most of the day the kids are rotated throughout the stations in groups. They use a series of screens to kind of rat maze the kids around the room and keep them from distracting each other. She says she makes sure that there is a "hot item" in each station.

A hot item is a very coveted toy that everyone wants to play with. She mentioned a train specifically. Amelia really likes trains. She also mentioned trucks you can roll on the floor. Amelia likes trucks that roll on the floor. Hmmm, maybe the teacher is on to something.They have a sensory table with different beans in it. There are dinosaurs in the beans. I know that if I say "Dinosaur says rawrrrrrr!" Amelia will "rawrrrrr"back.


They have fine motor and gross motor labs. They go and climb on equipment and have time where they play outside on the regular playground equipment with the 4K kids (who are not special education students). The fine motor skills are things like stringing beads on pipe cleaners, working zippers, etc.

Someone asked how the kids were grouped and the teacher said it has nothing to do with ability and everything to do with personality. Amelia is so easy going and meek around other children it never occurred to me. There are a lot of little boys in the class...8 of the 12 kids. They better be sweet to my baby!

Circle time is when they all come together at the same time. They have a cool laminated book for each child that they put in their lap and turn pages along with the teacher. It has things like "today is Wednesday" "This is October" "The season is fall". They each decorated a fall leaf that ties in with that. They were hanging on the wall and had their picture next to the one they decorated.

They do a lot of singing songs by someone named Dr. Jean. I have not checked them out yet, but I am sure it is on You Tube. I want to learn some of the songs so we can try them out at home.

Some of the things she says the kids say and do seem incredible to me. There are a wide range of abilities even at that age, in special education. It is hard for me to believe that Amelia is one of the kids she is talking about. I would love to be a fly on the wall to see how she participates and interacts with the teacher and other children.


I didn't think to ask how specific therapies are integrated into the day, because Amelia has vision and speech. All in all I was impressed with the teacher's organization and the amount of stuff they are able to do in that time. No wonder Amelia is exhausted when she gets home!