Small-Group Rotations with Moderate
Small-Group Rotations with Moderate ♪[theme music] Monkey. Money. Give me the monkey. Over here, Anthony. Money. Money. Good job. This is money. Give me the mouse. Mouse. Give me a monkey. Yay, Kayla. High five.Good job. Ready? Monkey, microphone, motorcycle. Give me the..give me the monkey…monkey…monkey. So my name is Mrs. Nation. I’m an SDCkinder teacher.
I teach moderate to severe students. Right now I have 10 students, and9 of them are non-verbal which means they have uh little to no communication skills. Where’s the kitten? We do our small group rotations after wedo a large group time. So in the morning we um will go to breakfast, we come back, we start large group time where we all review the daily calendar, ABC songs, the number song, shapes, and letters. So and then we’ll go and we’ll break out into our sessions.
We’re done, all done with circle time, all done. We’re gonna go and do our ABCsand our math. Our ABCs and 123s. We’re going to do ABC and 123. Okay. Orlando, sensory room. Anthony, go to your table… So we do small group rotations instead of a whole big class because they are able to um to focus more. We have smaller groups, about 3 students at a time and we’re able to work on a certain task.
So one group would be English Language Arts, the other one’s going to be the math, then we have another one which we call the sensory room where they’re able to take a quick little 15minute break and kind of just relax. What are these called? Marshmallows! marshmallows [garbled]] Yes. Look. Mimi Mouse has marshmallows. Yes. Marshmallows. Marshmallows. Let’s see. Let’s see. Kayla, Mimi Mouse marshmallows. marshmallows [garbled] Yes.
So look. First work and then… marshmallows. So the reward system that we do is something that is called first-then. And what we would do is find the student motivator. So we would have an icon for that and we would tell the student you know first you are going to write your name and then you would get that item. Microphone! Come sit down. Come sit closer.
So each group is about 15 minutes long, depending on if it looks like the students are getting a little antsy I can shorten it. So with the 15 minutes, that gives me time to actually work on one specific activity. One student uh needs help focusing on color identification, the other student might- it just might be simply learning how to stay in your seat for 5 to 10 minutes.
And then that student might get up and then you get them and bring them back to the seat to start over again. Uh, it takes a lot of patience and a lot of repetition, but it-it’s a daily routine for all of them. Come here. It’s time to sit down. Let’s see. Let’s see. Let’s see. Sit down. Sit down. Sit down. Sit down. Sit down. Yay. Look. Look. Ready?Mountain.
Microphone. Sitting down. We’re sitting down. Show me sitting. There we go. Ready?Money. Motorcycle. I use my phone so I can go ahead and gauge the time with that, and I found by using a chime it’s a little bit calming and soothing. And they start to know by using that routine every day they know once they hear it, it’s time to go to the next group. Mimi Mouse likes marshmallows. Listen.[music chime playing on phone] All done. Come on. Next group. Let’s go.
We’re gonna count. Okay? [unintelligible] Count 5. Look. First numbers then… iPad.- iPad. Okay. Kayla, what are we doing first? Numbers…then we’re going to get? iPad.- iPad. Good job. So when I choose my groups if there’s a teacher with less experience, I would put them more in a flexible group. So the sensory room where a child is able to do more of a free choice and relax, I would possibly put a teacher in that room.
The other um the other group math and manipulative, that’s always counting and um reciting numbers and so forth. So again it’s a little more of a flexible group. Um, the activities are-are a little bit more fun with tangibles. In my group, I try to focus on direct instruction and implementing the goals for those students. What’s next? 4…5…turkeys. In order to work in an SDC class, you need to be able to multitask and have awareness of everything that’s going on.
You’re going to have an um… a table with 3 students. Maybe 2 are going to take off and you have the 1 that’s still engaged. And you need to be flexible, so it’s okay if the 1 is going to walk around the room and pace. You know that student is probably an auditory learner and he’s listening to everything you say. So um I always say just stay calm, keep the volume going so they’re able to hear if we’re working on colors, they’re able to hear what we’re saying and-and still move around and stay in the classroom.
Say circle. Say circle.[yelp from iPad audio] Circle. I have the room set up so that it does minimize distractions. Um, I have it split down the middle so that one teacher can have possibly half the class on one side and the other half on the other. And it does minimize the noise as well as the any-any kind of distraction that they would see. [unintelligible] 4… Sensory is important to have as part of your um – as part of your group rotation because um we-we ask a lot of our students with autism and other disabilities.
It requires a lot of engagement. Uh, we’re working with kids with neurological um… disabilities. And so it-it’s what we would think as very easy to do, stay on task and-and write your name, or-or compete a puzzle it takes- it’s a lot of work for them. So giving them a chance to have a lot of frequent breaks it’s beneficial. It keeps the students calm and then they’re reading to start again. ♪[theme music] ♪[theme music]Can you pop the bubbles, Anthony? ♪[theme music]Pop them. ♪[theme music].
