Monday, March 27, 2017

The Great Glue Shortage of 2017

Around the end of February I kept trying to buy white school glue, and it kept being sold out. At the first few stores I didn't think anything of it - maybe stores just don't stock it this time of year - but after awhile something definitely seemed up. How could it possibly not be in stock anywhere?
I knew something was up when I asked someone at CVS and he just shook his head. "The schools all have a big project right now" he said, "I can't keep it in stock. I'll put in an order for extra this week, just make sure you get here on Friday when the truck comes" 

I started to get suspicious. There are a lot of schools near this CVS and I know they don't all assign the same exact project, AND I know that we don't actually use that much glue that ALL of the stores in our area would be sold out.

I didn't want to wait a full week so I went to Amazon. Even there, the prices seemed unreasonably high and those sellers were all out of stock. None of them could give me two day shipping.

I mentioned my frustration to a friend who said, "Oh yeah, it's the Great Glue Crisis of 2017. Didn't you hear?"

She hadn't heard any more than that, but she swore she'd heard this on the radio. Seriously? Did something happen in the glue factories that caused a shortage? (My husband made jokes about problems with the supply of horses at this point.)

Google gave me the answer. Turns out there is a glue shortage, and it's for the exact reason I wanted the glue. 

Well, kind of. In the Unstuck and On Target Curriculum, one lesson directs you to make Silly Putty using glue and Borax. Silly Putty was discovered by accident when a scientist was trying to find a substitute for rubber, and so it's a great example of how to demonstrate flexible thinking. Even better, in the end of the project you have something to play with that is actually flexible. I'm doing the curriculum with some students, and I really wanted to make the Silly Putty. But apparently, so does every other kid in the area thanks to some YouTube trend of making slime right now.

Great. I'm caught up in a hot trend among 10 year olds. I just want my glue.

When I finally bought it, I grabbed 6 bottles. The man at the counter asked me why on earth I'd need six bottles of school glue and I stammered to give an answer. "Ummmm....  so, I really want to make slime... but not because it's popular. I wanted to do it before I knew it was popular. Really. I swear." He raised his eyebrows, obviously having no idea what I was talking about. Doesn't matter. Now I have my glue, and I can start creating my slime/silly putty/whatever you want to call it.

After making it with my daughters I turned it into a guided reading book with instructions on how to make it. Now it's a tool to teach how to be flexible AND gives us an opportunity for reading. Then we'll just write about it afterwards, and throw in some math practice with fractions and measurements and we've got a whole Slime mini-unit.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Fostering Sibling Love

I held the book over my student's bed, trying to shift it so that she and her brother could both see the pictures. Finally, her younger brother sighed. "I can't see it!" he complained, and then climbed over his sister. His mom and I gasped, because she's fragile, and he's, well, he's a young boy who might not pay attention to his older sister's needs. Yet before we could protest he'd tucked himself in bed beside her so that their heads were close together and they could both see the pages.

She turned her head toward him slowly, and grinned. The smile spread across her entire face, reaching ear to ear, with her eyes lighting up in pure joy. A grin her family and I had never seen before. She looked from me to him and grinned again, her whole body radiating with excitement. I'm not sure my own children have been this excited on Christmas morning. I found tears in my eyes, as this was the most interaction I had ever witnessed from her. Seeing purposeful smiles from her is rare, and seeing her shift her eye gaze between two people is even rarer. Sometimes we notice smiles, but the smiles are fleeting, and it can often be difficult to identify what inspired them. In this case there was no question. Her eyes were full of love for her little brother curled up next to her.

She paid more attention during the lesson, responded to questions with the yes/no eye gaze board, tracked the read alouds with her eyes, and turned her head to hear sounds. She kept her eyes open the whole lesson, and only shut them when I asked her what she wanted to do next. "Do you want to read?" "No" her eyes looked at the "No" picture. I asked if she wanted to hear music. "No" she looked at No again. I asked if she wanted to sleep. "Yes" she selected, and quickly shut her eyes. I had never seen her this response to the yes/no cards before either.

The session almost seemed surreal. We had never seen her so interactive and alert, or so happy. Nothing I did - or could have painstakingly planned out - would have created that moment. It was her brother's natural inclination to just curl up with his sister that changed everything.

One of the aspects I love about my new work is that I get to work with kids in their homes. Unlike school, where everything is structured and organized, with a clear purpose, objective, and a beginning and ending time, homes are a different story. They are inherently messy (even when perfectly organized), and have blurred boundaries. This is the living room/play room/nap on the couch/video game room. The kitchen/homework/afternoon snack and card game room.  There are couches and arm chairs that encourage more relaxed sitting, and calming lighting, toys, and games. Our homes are where our life happens, and where we collapse after a long day. They are where we relax, cry, let our guard down, or take out the frustrations of the day.

Working with kids in the home also means I can involve siblings in the activities. Brothers and sisters are our first friends, and just including them can often be incredibly motivating. Siblings make our activities fun and engaging, and turn it from being school work to being a family game.

Almost more importantly, I love involving siblings when I am working with children with significant needs, because I know that down the line their siblings will often be the ones taking care of them as they become adults. I want to give the brothers and sisters great memories of playing together, since they often cannot independently play together on their own. I work to design lessons and activities that will engage the typically developing sibling as well, so that everyone will truly enjoy the experience.

I think back to my own memories of playing with my brothers, and of how my two girls play together in their own little world - us adults are just background noise. Many of our kids with special needs don't get these relationships spontaneously. There may be a physical disability impacting their relationship and making it hard to play with the same toys, a cognitive disability, or autism, which may make it difficult for one sibling to stay regulated enough to enjoy the other's company. It takes a bit more adult help to help create these shared experiences, yet once the experiences exist, those memories can last forever.

That smile. Today was such a reminder of how powerful those moments between the siblings can be, and how sometimes letting kids do what comes naturally is how we can get those moments.