Seventh Week of Teacher Cadets


Monday October 1, 2012

Today we had quest speaker, Susan Sachs, from HOPE Academy come and tell us about their program.  HOPE is an acronym for Help Our Potential Emerge.  The HOPE Project is located in Advent Methodist Church on Woodruff Road and has four main programs.  The first program is HOPE Link.  This program contacts the families of kids with autism and helps them get past the despair that they feel after their children are diagnosed.  The second program is HOPE Academy.  The Academy was started because many day cares don’t want to accept children with autism.  This program provides a place for the children to apply what they learn in ABA (applied behavior analysis).  The third program, HOPE Reach, contains the ABA therapists that work with the kids, and the fourth program, Virtual HOPE, is for academically capable students who have had a rough time in school.  The fourth program gives them a safe place to learn.  Mrs. Sachs taught us so much about Project HOPE!

 

Tuesday October 2, 2012

Today was a day for tying up loose ends and planning new projects.  J  Mrs. Turner told us we would have opportunities to visit different special needs classrooms on October 5, 8, and 9.  On one of three of these days we will go to visit HOPE Academy.  On one or two of the other days we will visit another site of our choosing.  It was a pretty hectic event trying to sign up for visiting days all at once, but it worked out in the end!  After we signed up for our days, we all walked down to the library to pick up the book we are going to read.  It’s called The Acorn People, and it’s about a man who signs up to be a camp counselor and expectantly gets to work to with special needs children.  As the story progresses, the group grows closer.  This book highlights what happened that summer, and promises to be an excellent recount of personal growth.  I hope you all like the book as much as I did!

                                            

Wednesday October 3, 2012

We made more crayon boxes for the teachers today.  Our goal is to have a crayon box for every teacher as soon as possible, and with a productive class like ours, that shouldn’t be a problem! J When we finished we had free time to read The Acorn People.  Before we could leave class though, some of our wonderful volunteers had to make sure that the classroom was nice, neat, and clean.  Our volunteers did a wonderful job and left the room spotless!

                                                         

Thursday October 4, 2012

We made sure to complete any unfinished crayon boxes today and started a few new ones as well.  We made sure to laminate the newly prepared gifts and post them on the teachers’ doors as quiet as mice.  Quite a few cadets took this time to catch up on their reading of The Acorn People, while a few others broke out their artistic talent and went to work on the cafeteria bulletin board.  One of the cadets in particular was nice enough to trace out a moon and a cute little bat for the board.  The catch phrase on the board is adorable and captures the Halloween spirit.  “What is a witch’s favorite subject,” it asks, “Spelling!”  It looks wonderful!  Just a reminder to everyone,  we get to spend time with our kindergartner buddies celebrating Halloween.   We will be picking out our little friends shortly!  J

                                                  

Friday October 5, 2012

For many of us, today was our first observance day!  A group of about eight cadets went to visit HOPE Academy this morning and most likely fell in love with the kids there.  A few of us went to visit Mrs. Smith’s class at Mauldin, while others visited Sarah Collins Elementary or Mauldin Middle.  I’m sure we all had a blast visiting and learning about the kids.  The cadets that went to HOPE Academy got to learn more about the program and visit a class.  The other cadets had similar experiences in their host classes as well.  The kids were such sweethearts, and we all had fun spending time with them.  Just so we all know, there are two more visiting days.  Have a fun time visiting your classes everyone!

 

"We cannot hold a torch to another's path, without brightening our own"-Ben Sweetland