Today we reviewed our "Three Little Pigs" emergent reader. We then used some new color cards to associate items in the story to the characters. Becca then did a matching activity of pictures of items from the story. We watched "The Planet Song" to get us in the mood for our solar system project. It was so sweet to hear Becca singing some of the words with the song. We reviewed our "The Solar System" reader. We then cut out colorful pictures of the planets and made a poster with the sun and planets in order. We hung our "The Solar System" poster in Becca's room. For our word families studies today, Becca sorted pictures of words that end in -ad and -ap based on auditory discrimination of the ending sounds. She also created -ig words on Starfall Learn to Read. We practiced some initial sound identification with our magnet letter search activity. We watched "The Garden" on RAZ Kids and after her third viewing, Becca was able to name all four foods that grow in the garden requested. That is an improvement to the number of times she usually needs to view a story for recall of details. I think she may have even done better, but she wasn't overly focused the first time she watched the story. Becca drew some with marker today as a free choice activity. She drew all types of wiggly lines. We later traced the same pre-writing lines (help the piggy get to his house) as yesterday and she did one of them independently! We ended the day with some play-doh time. We made snakes, cut circles using the container, and counted the balls we rolled. I would estimate over the past 5+ school days, Becca has shown growth and maturity in her role as a student. She has been demonstrating more compliant behaviors and rarely is saying “no” to tasks. She has been greeting me more neutrally and not yelling “no”. She has been able to perform activities longer, needing less encouragement, task completion rewards, and breaks. Additionally, in general she is responding more quickly the first time she is told something (as opposed to needing multiple directives). We continue to work on using her big girl voice and using her words to meet her needs. *Extra copies of both readers are in her backpack.

Today we started with "The Three Little Pigs" story. We then assembled an emergent reader of the story and did a picture card story recall task. We watched our video "The Big Pig Song" featuring big, pig, wig, jig, fig, and dig. Becca and I then recalled the words from the song and wrote them on the wipeboard. Since each word starts with a different letter, I asked Becca to find each word with the focus of the initial sound/letter. She found half of the words. We enjoyed a funny alternate version of the "Three Little Pigs" story called "10 Little Pigs" by Hooked on Phonics which produces "i" vowel words. We practiced with a prewriting tracing worksheet helping the pig get to his house. We did this in a sheet protector with dry erase marker to allow for repeated use. These are just straight simple lines and Becca continued to scribble wiggly lines. She does improve with hand over hand assistance. We also started an emergent reader using color words for a brick house. Each page reads “The brick house is (color word)” for reading and verbal skills practice. We also reviewed other emergent readers we have completed in the past. We watched the starfall video for “p” and then completed a discrimination worksheet on items that start with “p” and words that do not. We traced Pp for those that do. We completed a rhyming cut-and-paste worksheet in which Becca had to match the rhyming pictures. She was presented with 2 choices and got half of them correct. She is doing well with the rhyming activities, but still needs a lot of verbal emphasis by the speaker to focus on the sounds. She then identified the starting letter of the picture and got 5/6 correct. Becca has shown a growth in her interest of the Starfall Learn to Read program. She is building words by adding the first letter in a CVC format with picture. She needs additional support from me at times to emphasize and repeat the starting sounds. She’s gained interest in the word factory portion which keeps the vowel but will change the first and last sounds of the CVC words. The program sounds out the word and then blends it together and uses pictorial support. I am encouraging Becca to repeat the sounds and words as she hears them, but at this point her productions are very limited. We enjoyed “The Planet Song” video today and then read a book called “Planets Around the Sun”. We then colored and assembled an emergent reader called “Solar System”. We ended our day with a wooden block horse string lacing activity. Not only is this a great fine motor activity, it provides for opportunities in following directions, understanding positional words, and using two hands to complete tasks. **I apologize for the wet shorts and underwear in Becca's backpack. I followed her up the stairs on the playground to make sure she got settled on the "swirly slide" safely and then went down to meet her at the bottom. Unfortunately there was a huge muddy puddle at the bottom of the slide that Becca slid right into. I apologize for the mess! It worked out well that we had clean underwear and shorts to put on.

Today Becca greeted me with a "no" and threw herself on the floor. However, she very quickly turned around and gave me lots of "Okay, Miss Debbi" responses. Overall, she was in a very good mood today and we got a lot done! We started with our z-zebra picture pocket. We reviewed the z cards and looked up zebras on the internet and discussed features we saw in the pictures. Becca loves the "Zig Zag" song on the letter z Starfall video. After watching the z video, we then practiced tracing and drawing zig zags on the whiteboard and paper. She really enjoyed this activity and was actively helping with tracing the lines "up, down, up, down". We read the original "Mrs. Wishy-Washy" book by Joy Crowley. We then used a Mrs. Wishy-Washy figure and pictures from the story to do story retell and sequencing. We then read "Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm". Becca helped provide a few more words today. We practiced with prepositions (positional) words today with the little baby doll and a small cardboard box. We used picture cards modeling the positions and practiced putting baby: in, on, under, next to, in front of, and behind the box. Then I'd ask Becca, "Where is Baby?" Becca provided only a few of the positional words in response. Our goal here now is to also expand her verbal use of the positional word and whole phrase. We complete a cut and paste worksheet of pictures and words in the –ap family. Becca had to choose (m,s,n, or c) to make the word match the picture. Becca was very actively engaged in a CVC (with a as the vowel) word building activity on Starfall Learn to Read. In this activity the initial and final consonants change and the word is presented in each sound segment and then blended all together as the word. Becca was really focused on the letters and I heard her quietly say a few of the sounds with the computerized voice. We then used the awesome Slide, See, and Say Flashcards that Mom sent. I gave Becca a word quickly with sound segments only to see if she could name the word (with no picture support). For example in sounds: s-u-n. She named 1 of 4 of them. She was getting tired at this point (around 11:30), so we lessened the intensity of our tasks with read-aloud stories. We enjoyed "Stretch" and "Wiggle" again by Doreen Cronin. We wiggled our different body parts like the dog in the book. We counted items on the pages and discussed qualitative features such as which one is the biggest or the smallest, etc.

We started the day with one of Becca’s books about ABC’s with Max and Ruby. Then Becca started saying “make a pocket”, which is a common starting activity for us. However, we started a y-yak pictures pocket, but Becca was very resistant to participating. She whined "no" and kept going to her bean bag. We performed fine motor paper tasks, again met with resistance. We went for a walk to borrow the stapler and that seemed to get things back on track. We watched S on Starfall and then did a discrimination worksheet on if the word starts with s or not. She scored 5 of 6. We then traced letters Ss for each one that does. I used a darker colored pencil to create the letters to trace and really focused Becca's attention to the letters. She seemed to be participating in the tracing a little better today. We repeated our magnetic letters activity from yesterday. There was a field of approximately 15 letters. I would ask her what letter says "giraffe" and she'd search for the letter. Today I used less familiar items to stretch the vocabulary and difficulty of the task. She had a little more difficulty today, but still did very well. On the playground we discussed and performed action words like roll, kick, throw, and bounce with the basketball. In our learning videos song, “Humpty Dumpty” was presented. We colored and read a little tiny “Humpty Dumpty” booklet to practice that nursery rhyme. We then performed a rhyming activity in which Becca was presented with 8 rhyming pairs. I held up a picture and gave her two choices, one of which rhymed with the picture. She chose the correct picture 6 of 8 times. We also used fun picture rhyming cards in a field of three today. Becca wanted to read “Mrs. Wishy-Washy” today and we worked on her helping fill in the rhyme and parts of the story. We watched “The Classroom” on RAZ Kids and then completed a worksheet in which we had to find items that would go in a backpack. Finally we ended the day with a cute book called “Wiggle” by Doreen Cronin. Becca loved seeing the dog swimming underwater to “wiggle” with the fish!

Today we started with a nonfiction book called "Giraffes". We discussed features of the giraffes in the pictures. We then colored and assembled a paper bag giraffe puppet. (Becca was given the option of making a giraffe for the wall like her elephant, but she chose the bag puppet). We looked at the body parts of the head of the giraffe and what the parts do. We counted the body parts and the number of spots we put on our craft. We watched G on Starfall and RAZ Kids "Go, Go, Go". We used the magnetic letters on the whiteboard today to practice initial consonant sounds and letters. There was a field of approximately 15 letters. I would ask her what letter says "giraffe" and she'd search for the letter. She did a terrific job finding the letters. She performs very consistently with consonants; we will work more on strengthening identification of words that start with vowels, which is a more difficult task. We watched “Winter” and “Summer” on RAZ Kids again to reinforce exposure to those two concepts. We then repeated the picture sort activity we did last week, in which at that time, Becca answered “summer” for each of the items. Today she sorted 9/12 of the pictures correctly. We re-read “Mrs. Wishy-Washy‘s Farm today. I emphasized the rhyming in the words and with repetition, there is the hope that Becca will be able to fill in the rhyming word when I pause. We then completed our emergent reader "Who Is In the Tub?" Becca helped color the pages and then we read the book. Becca helped name animal in the tub and as she caught onto the repetition of the book, she helped say “the tub”. (The sentences are: “The (pictured animal) is in the tub.”) We watched “The Big Pig Song” today and then finished our –ig word booklet. We added –ig to the beginning consonant to make p + ig. We then read each one. We also worked with our wooden letter block lacing. Now instead of just asking Becca what the letter “says” (its sound) and “is for” (words it starts), I’m encouraging to list more than one word. We completed a rhyming picture sort of –ear / -air and –ock. Becca typically gets about half of these correct. We then read and I really emphasize the ending sounds. Finally, we looked at a few pages in the Princess ABC book. (Thank you to Becca’s family for the bag of materials.) We finger traced some letters. What I’m finding in terms of coloring and tracing at this point is that Becca is offering limited attending to the task. She is often looking around the page or even at the walls and not at the particular item. There are times when she’ll offer more attention in these tasks, but typically I notice she is not focused on the particular part of the page, especially when tracing. There are times she goes to write but doesn’t have the pencil anywhere near where she’s supposed to trace. I’ve noticed this at times in tasks where she’s required to point as well. She will more so point in the general area or tap multiple times in various places. We will continue to work on seeing if we can achieve a more specified point and holding her finger there. While it may seem like an odd task, it may help in bringing her focus to target areas on the page.

Today was W day! We started with a w-walrus pictures pocket. We reviewed the w pictures. We also looked up walrus on the Internet, discussed features, and wrote facts on our walrus for ongoing discussion. We watched the w video on Starfall.com. We then watched "Water" and "We Build" on RAZ Kids. We completed an initial sound discrimination activity in which she had to determine if the word started with W or not. She labeled all 6 correctly! She then required a lot of help tracing the w letters. We watched the RAZ Kids story on "Winter" again to reinforce learning of items that go with winter. We read the cute story of "Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm" and how all of the animals got dirty in the mud. We started to color an emergent reader called "Who Is In the Tub?" We looked at pictures of the circus online and then completed a cut and paste worksheet looking at items that belong in the circus. We read a rhyming book called "Llama Llama Red Pajama". Llama Llama was sad and missing his Mama after being tucked in at night. We then did an activity listening to words with -en and -ed endings and sorted them. These are challenging words. We also explored the -en endings on Starfall Learn to Read. Becca enjoyed some learning songs about shapes, numbers, planets, and colors while she ate her snack.
Potty: She finally reached a point around 10:45 where she was holding herself non-stop and wiggling around. She denied that she needed to go to the bathroom, but I felt like it was reaching a point that she just needed to be taken. She did go as soon as she sat down on the toilet.

Today we filled our day with animals. We started with the book she brought called "Clifford Visits the Zoo". We then read a nonfiction book called "Xtreme Pets: Cats". We discussed features of the cats in the pictures. We then colored and assembled a paper bag cat puppet. We watched "Pets" on RAZ Kids and letter p on Starfall. Becca then did an awesome job on a picture discrimination worksheet of what starts with p and does not start with p. We read a Kittens foam puzzle book in which she found the puzzle piece that matched the words in the story. We enjoyed the rhyming story "Llama Llama and the Bully Goat". On RAZ Kids, we listened to the story called "The Ocean" which names things we see in The Ocean. Becca had seen this story quite a few times already. It took her four viewings to name three objects she saw from the story. I helped her name a fourth item in our fifth viewing. We will try this again to work on recall from text.
During snack (we eat in the room so she can take her out of the room time to explore with peers on the playground) we watched some rhyming videos including "The Big Pig Song". We then completed some -ig word families in a little booklet (words: twig, pig, big, wig, fig, and dig). Becca identified the picture by name for 5/6 of them, and did not know twig. On another sheet, she named the -ig picture and the starting sound for the word 4 of 4. She also made -ig words by finding the starting letters on Starfall learn to read. Because she did so well with -ig, we completed a word sort using -it vs. -in picture with words cards (CVC words like pin, sit, bin, etc.). I gave a lot of emphasis on the word endings and Becca sorted 6 of 8 correctly. We read her emergent reader "Counting Butterflies", still with inconsistent counting. We added another emergent reader called "The Baker" to our collection. Finally, we worked on a category sort, this time adding a "does not belong" component. We used cards that she has seen before. I presented sorting mats for jungle animals, clothing, and vehicles. In addition to those designated items, I included a picture of a banana and a pizza to see if she would indicate in some way they did not belong. She tried to just put them on the cards, even though there are designated places to put cards, she tried to squeeze them in. She actually gave the banana picture to the monkey picture. (How cute is that?!) We talked about how those two pictures "do not belong" with the others and reinforced that language. We continue to work on negation and differences throughout various activities. Becca has been doing a nice job with saying hi and bye to peers and staff with less cueing and less physical contact. Unfortunately her greeting for me over the past week has been “no” each day.
Potty Status: She asked to go around 11:50 and did produce.

Today we started with a t-turtle pictures pocket. We reviewed the t pictures. We also looked up turtles on the Internet, discussed features, and wrote facts on our turtle for ongoing discussion. Becca really liked the pictures of the turtles in the ocean.
We watched b,c, and d videos on Starfall.com. We then completed an initial sound discrimination activity in which she had to determine if the word started with b, c, or d. We watched the RAZ Kids story on "Winter" again to reinforce learning of items that go with winter. We then completed a worksheet in which Becca had to match the winter clothes items to the correct body parts. She did really well with this. We read another rhyming story featuring the character Llama Llama today. We then sorted our rhyming cards in the -og and -ie/-y word families. Becca is starting to show increased familiarity with this activity. We traced letter e and h on little worksheet strips. I could feel her helping more in tracing. We enjoyed a cute story called "Maisy at the Fair". Becca could relate to the items at the fair. We did some -an word families on Starfall learn to read in which Becca had to choose the correct initial sound. We practiced some same/different and make a match. Becca enjoyed some outside time on the playground. She interacted with three other girls in her age range. Throughout the morning Becca was speaking frequently with a whiny voice. She also started yelling out things like "I'm thirsty, I'm thirsty!!!" We discussed that she can use her words and just tell me things that she needs. For ex., I told her that if she's thirsty, she can just ask me for a drink and we practiced the language.
Potty status: I feel like Becca needed to have a bowel movement. She was not passing gas but the way she was pausing and posturing looked as if she was trying to go. I observed her in the classroom and immediately took her to the restroom and she would only sit long enough to urinate. I could see it on the playground and took her in again and she would not sit. Finally, she was doing it again on the playground and denied needing to go but we did try in the bathroom a few minutes later and she did not go. She was reminded of the rewards and how it's much better to go on the potty and not get her underwear dirty, etc. She did ask to go around 11:15 and did urinate. She chose play-doh as her reward. (Thank you for the additional play-doh. I put them in her treasure box. I have a few cookie cutters that she likes to use with the play-doh. Any play-doh tools like rolling pins, shape cutters, and scissors would fun treasure box items, if you're on the hunt for more treats.) In her play-doh time we made snakes and talked about how the snakes "slither in the grass".

Today we started with a s-snake pictures pocket. We reviewed the s pictures. We also looked up snakes on the Internet, discussed features, and wrote facts on our snakes for ongoing discussion. We watched the stories "Winter" and "Summer" on RAZ Kids. We watched each several times to see what items go with each. We then completed a worksheet in which she had to sort pictures that go with each. It is difficult for a young child to understand winter without a referent being here in FL, however most of the pictures were the same as the story so the hope would be that the student takes meaning from the text and can apply that knowledge. She answered "summer" for all pictures. We will try this activity again down the road. We watched B on Starfall.com and then completed a worksheet identifying which words start with B. She identified 4 of 6 correctly. She then traced upper and lower case Bs with a lot of help. Becca enjoyed hear the rhyming story book "Llama llama Home with Mama". We followed up with our rhyming cards looking at -ose and -ie/-y rhymes. We compared the sounds and sorted by which word group. This is an area in which we will continue to focus. We assembled and read "The Gingerbread Man" emergent reader. As soon as she saw the fox she said "sneaky". We worked very hard on counting today. We read "Let's Count with Lowly" and counted items from 1-10 on the pages. We then sorted some pictures that had 1-5 items and placed them under the correct number. Becca is providing more numbers in these activities but she is still not counting independently. We will continue to perform counting activities. We worked on "same" and "make a match" activities. Becca completed a wooden puzzle of farm animals and we also worked on finger tracing letter cards A-H. Becca participated in some outside time with the other kids. She's doing a nice job at saying "hi" and "bye" to other children with less prompting. We are still working on "using your (her) words" to greet others in the hallway vs. grabbing legs. We still continue to work on "open (object) please" to meet needs. Additionally we are working on full physical independence in routine motor tasks. For example, for opening her lunchbox, I have shown her to hold the lunchbox with her left hand and use her right hand to maneuver the zipper. We work on turning on/off the light switch "one time" as well as working on flushing the potty, opening bags etc., with the least amount of physical assistance provided. A lot of verbal instruction and cueing is provided to assist with growing physical independence.
Potty status: I took her at 9:00, she did not request, but did go. At 11:05 she requested to use the potty and produced. She chose play-doh time as her treat.

As Becca has shown some inconsistency with the "e" sound, sometimes saying the "a" sound, we focused on e some today. We started with a non-fiction book called "Little Elephants". We labeled their body parts and then made our own elephant trying to put the body parts in the same places. We also compared elephants in the pictures successfully with big/little and we tried little, bigger, and biggest. She had difficulty with the later. We made an emergent reader called "Trucks" in which she helped say some of the words in the sentences. Many of these readers use "see" and "the" repeatedly. We read a cute picture book called "Who Can Jump?" which inspired both of us to jump, too. We worked on a matching worksheet in which she had to pick the two pictures on a line of five pictures that matched. I used language like "which two look the same" and "made a match" to reinforce the skill. She needed a lot of prompting to analyze the five pictures but then could find the second picture when the first was identified and questioned. We continued working on rhyming with an 8 picture sort of 4 -ock words and 4 -ose words. I provide significant emphasis on the word endings. On RAZ Kids today, Becca echo read "The Ocean" with me. Also on RAZ Kids, we watched a story called "On". We then completed a worksheet in which Becca had to glue the matching picture on the appropriate picture. I then read the start of the sentence and she would help finish it, using the position word "on" to describe where the object was. Finally, she completed a three category sort (fruits, clothes, and farm animals) in which she sorted all 9 pictures independently.
Potty status: I took Becca to the restroom at 9:00 and she went quite a bit, despite arguing about going to the restroom. Around 10:00, I realized she had paused in her activity and I heard her pass gas. I asked her if she needed to go to the bathroom and she replied "no". I asked her if she was pooping and again, "no" was the response. I rushed her to the bathroom anyway, and unfortunately she had pooped in her underwear, but did not urinate. I’m sorry that it got on her shoe and sock. I had to remove her AFOs and they were placed in a separate bag with her clean shoe and sock. She did not go to the bathroom again during our time.