The month of April will be my final ECSES Tech Item Contest. This contest is around coding, so I decided to have two items to win. One for the younger students and one for the older students. Although not all our students will grow up to be programmers, coding helps foster life skills such as learning how-to problem solve, overcome obstacles and collaborate with their peers which are lasting skills all people need to succeed in life. Coding builds important life skills that are challenging to cultivate in students with learning needs such as, organization, higher order thinking, self-esteem, socialization and teamwork, as well as sequencing, problem solving, math concepts, along with perseverance, so that they will become better readers, writers, and mathematicians. Most students with disabilities struggle with low self-esteem, and coding is an avenue that builds confidence in one’s ability to learn and create, and cultivate a sense of pride from producing their own original work. The first item for the younger students, the Learning Resources Code & Go Robot Mouse Activity turns coding into a hands-on analog activity for tactile and visual learners. The robot mouse is similar to the Bee Bot that was given away before. As the students learn to program they build key skills that include critical thinking, problem solving, sequencing, and programming fundamentals. This is geared to students abilities of 5 years old and up. The second item is called Snap Circuits Jr and you can create over 100 STEM projects using this Electronics Exploration Kit. This kit is geared for students abilities of 8+ with hands-on experience of building models of working electrical circuits. This kit has a color manual with visual pictures of creating different electronic projects. There is no soldering, no tools, it just snaps together to create items like a flashing light, adjustable-volume siren. This item has received the following awards: the National Parenting Center-Seal of Approval, Dr. Toy 100 best children's products, Dr. Toy best educational products, and is STEM approved for education. So check these items out and enter the final contest for the 2018-2019 school year. Thanks for all your work with our students.

Jessica Sweitzer won a BreakoutEDU box to use with her Speech and Language students. In her essay she shared that this year she had the opportunity to borrow BreakoutEDU boxes to use with a variety of her students. The students' excitement of reaching a shared goal became tangible. Watching everyone work together to solve problems and open actual locks to “win” was incredible. Her students continued to ask her on a weekly basis when is their next "breakout". Now she is so excited to have her own box! Thank you Jessica for the work you do with our students.

Hi Everyone! Hillary and I wanted to thank everyone so much for the wonderful donations for STEM. We have a had an overabundance of items received for this school year and no longer need any STEM donations. Check out our STEM donations!

Check out the next contest information on the right hand side of this Blog. Good luck.

Congratulations goes out to Carol Kline, SEC at Fairland.  She had the winning essay submitted for this month's Crayola’s Color Alive System. In her essay she shared her plans to use the Crayola coloring program as a supplement to the social skills program- (Superheros Social Skills) - the support team is using at Fairland.

Congratulations goes out to Rachel Weiler, teacher at Valley Road in an elementary ES classroom.  She had the winning essay submitted for this month's OSMO iPad case. Enjoy the case with your students and thank you for all your work in the classroom. 

Gina Monteleone, ES teacher at Manheim Central HS was the winner of the BreakoutEDU kit for her classroom. I received 10 essays this month. The voting by our ECSES supervisors was very close, but I think what stood out in Gina's essay would be that she asked her students why a BreakoutEDU kit would help them with social skills and she provided their reasons!!! Great idea Gina and class. Enjoy. Check out the next give-a-way on the right.

 

Hello - I hope your year is getting off to the right start!! Feels more like summer now than summer did. Just wanted to remind about the Spotlight Contest. If you want to earn an OSMO Genius Kit complete with stand, tangrams, words, and numbers please don't forget to submit your entry by Sept 10th. Also, today was the first day of afterschool help sessions. We had one at One Cumberland today and our next one for the month of September is next Wednesday the 12th at Lancaster Burle.  This is the time to get 1-1 help from Hillary or myself on ITT, IEPWriter, Instructional tools, etc. We are here for you!

Today (August 20th) some staff member start back in the classroom. For some, they do not start until after Labor Day. Regardless where you fit in that time frame...WELCOME BACK. Let's make this the best year for our students yet!!! I am very excited for the new year because I have a lot of new ideas, tools, and resources to share in our classrooms. Please call upon me for help and either myself or Melinda Oatman or Hillary Holler will assist you. My first monthly contest give-away is here. Check out the right hand side of this blog for more information. Voting will occur on September 13th and winner announce on the 14th. Good luck!!!