Wrapping up September
Posted by Kristine Biegel on Thursday, September 27, 2012
It's hard to believe we are already nearing the end of September but we've had a good 'get to know you' month and we're ready to dive into some more independent living skills. Our theme for the month of October will be Social Skills. We've already started to touch on some social skills this week as well. On Monday we spent the morning doing art inspired by landscapes we found in old calendars. We spent our lunch hour at the Gorham Sports Center eating in their cafe area and then playing some kickball.
Monday afternoon Kristine took a small group to the Library while Rory and another group went over to Books A Million to work on some planning sheets about community involvement and recreation. Tuesday morning the crew went to the Root Cellar and then the Library in the morning. In the afternoon, our volunteer Britany took Jim, Patrick and Nate to Dunkin Donuts to visit and work on goals while Rory caught our T, TH crew up on curriculum. Wednesday was our fair day. It was drizzly in the morning so we started in on some social skills practice, discussing the importance of 'tone of voice' and how sometimes, it's not what you say, but how you say it. We keep discovering more unique applications for our smartboard with these sorts of lessons! We also spoke a lot about what constitutes good listening skills. We headed to the fair around 11 and spent most of the rest of the day there. Nextsteppers were asked to pay attention to their interactions with vendors/other fair-goers to pick up on good/ not so good listening and interacting skills. Even though it was cloudy (which made it a lot less busy) we had a great time looking at all the animals, eating some fair food, and especially watching the horse pulls. We spent quite a lot of time cheering on the horses in the Pulling Arena. This morning (Thursday) we started the morning talking about what 'social' means and what social skills are important in our lives. We talked about skills such as: using manners, starting/ending a conversation, how to disagree respectively, using eye contact and appropriate body language, respecting personal space, how to interact online and much more. We had a good discussion about these topics but will go into each in more depth as the month goes on.
This afternoon we talked about the social skill of 'reading others' and how peoples' faces can tell us something about how they are feeling. Later we walked up to the mall for an appearance by Michelle Ragussis, a star from the food Network channel. We not only got to watch her cooking demonstration but we got to taste the food and chat with her a little when she was done. Tomorrow we will be doing some social skills work in the morning, along with recipe-finding and grocery shopping. We've started a new system in which we rotate our shopping, cooking, set-up and clean-up roles weekly so that everyone gets a chance with everything. We've been thinking of doing breakfast-for-lunch tomorrow (maybe some pancakes, eggs, and bacon) so no need to bring lunch! See everyone in October.
Nextstep with Food Network star Michelle Ragussis
Monday afternoon Kristine took a small group to the Library while Rory and another group went over to Books A Million to work on some planning sheets about community involvement and recreation. Tuesday morning the crew went to the Root Cellar and then the Library in the morning. In the afternoon, our volunteer Britany took Jim, Patrick and Nate to Dunkin Donuts to visit and work on goals while Rory caught our T, TH crew up on curriculum. Wednesday was our fair day. It was drizzly in the morning so we started in on some social skills practice, discussing the importance of 'tone of voice' and how sometimes, it's not what you say, but how you say it. We keep discovering more unique applications for our smartboard with these sorts of lessons! We also spoke a lot about what constitutes good listening skills. We headed to the fair around 11 and spent most of the rest of the day there. Nextsteppers were asked to pay attention to their interactions with vendors/other fair-goers to pick up on good/ not so good listening and interacting skills. Even though it was cloudy (which made it a lot less busy) we had a great time looking at all the animals, eating some fair food, and especially watching the horse pulls. We spent quite a lot of time cheering on the horses in the Pulling Arena. This morning (Thursday) we started the morning talking about what 'social' means and what social skills are important in our lives. We talked about skills such as: using manners, starting/ending a conversation, how to disagree respectively, using eye contact and appropriate body language, respecting personal space, how to interact online and much more. We had a good discussion about these topics but will go into each in more depth as the month goes on.
This afternoon we talked about the social skill of 'reading others' and how peoples' faces can tell us something about how they are feeling. Later we walked up to the mall for an appearance by Michelle Ragussis, a star from the food Network channel. We not only got to watch her cooking demonstration but we got to taste the food and chat with her a little when she was done. Tomorrow we will be doing some social skills work in the morning, along with recipe-finding and grocery shopping. We've started a new system in which we rotate our shopping, cooking, set-up and clean-up roles weekly so that everyone gets a chance with everything. We've been thinking of doing breakfast-for-lunch tomorrow (maybe some pancakes, eggs, and bacon) so no need to bring lunch! See everyone in October.
Nextstep with Food Network star Michelle Ragussis