What Happened in School Today?

Posted by John @ Signing Savvy on Sunday, January 24, 2010 as Teaching Tips

How frustrating it must be as a parent to have your deaf child come home and have no idea what has just happened to them for the last seven hours. The child may do their best to communicate their day but many of them have JUST learned the vocabulary themselves and reproducing them once they get home for mom and dad is difficult to say the least.

One idea that I used that was very successful was a daily journal that consisted of digital pictures of activities that happened throughout the day. I would keep a large piece of white construction paper up on the easel near our calendar area. We would begin writing on it during our daily calendar time. As we went through calendar, we would write the date and the weather on the top of that paper. Then as different activities happened throughout our day, a picture would be printed off and would appear on the paper. The students would then have to assists in adding a caption to the picture describing IN WORDS what the class was doing in the pictures.

Besides being a nice way of teaching the concept of summarizing, we had a communication tool that went between home and school. At the end of the day, that large piece of paper was set on the copy machine and reduced in size to about 60 percent. This made the page large enough to still read, yet much small enough to carry home. The students had assisted in the creation of the captions, and now they had a visual aid to help with their retelling of their day.

A Signing Savvy addition would be to print 3-5 signs from the day and include them with the paper. This way both the students and their parents would have instant access to these signs and will be able to use them in the discussion of the day's events.

  

Comments

Back and Forth Communication

Comment by John @ Signing Savvy on Sunday, January 24, 2010
My original idea was for the parents to write on the back of the sheets what the students said their favorite part of the day was and send it back to me. THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN. I was frustrated and confused as to why none of the pages came back. Then I had a parent share with me that she didn't want to send the papers back to me because she loved to see her child's day in pictures and was saving EVERY paper that came home in a big box! I was shocked! I never thought of that. So if your intention is for the paper to be a back and forth communication, you may want to include a blank sheet of paper that they can tear off and send back to school. (JUST an FYI)

Parents role

Comment by Savvy User Kelly on Monday, February 22, 2010
What role do the parents have in learning ASL and being able to communicate on a daily basis before this point? Are many parents fluent at ASL?

blogging

Comment by Savvy User Darcey on Thursday, February 25, 2010
A nice idea might be to start a student blog. At the end of the day, the student could post a picture and write a little bit about their day. The parent could easily log on and see what was written. For the younger kids the teacher could assist. A great site for doing this which allows a teacher to control access to the blogs is wordpress.

Great Idea!

Comment by John @ Signing Savvy on Thursday, February 25, 2010
I like this idea of a Blog from school and will actually recommend it to my teaching staff. It would be a nice way to communicate between home and school, accompanied with a nice color photo...and GREEN! (saving our earth) I like it better and better the more I think about it! thanks!

Awesome

Comment by Savvy User Darcey on Sunday, February 28, 2010
I'm excited that you like the idea. I am a Special Education teacher and have had a classroom blog for a year. I'm not starting up individual blogs for my students for the same reason as you. They are hearing, but also have difficulty communicating with home because they have significant disabilities. If you'd like to see it, my blog is http://dstevenson21.blogspot.com/. Like I said before though, wordpress works better for the students blogs because the teacher can control the comments and passwords. Good Luck!

Awesome

Comment by Savvy User Darcey on Sunday, February 28, 2010
I'm excited that you like the idea. I am a Special Education teacher and have had a classroom blog for a year. I'm now starting up individual blogs for my students for the same reason as you. They are hearing, but also have difficulty communicating with home because they have significant disabilities. If you'd like to see it, my blog is http://dstevenson21.blogspot.com/. Like I said before though, wordpress works better for the students blogs because the teacher can control the comments and passwords. Good Luck!

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