Last week, my students and I did something different. For one session, my two young guys and I baked banana bread. We did it the easy way because it was their first time to bake something with a non-HE teacher so I used a ready mix-just add bananas, egg, oil, and water type of mix.

Here was the finished product (with watermark of my food blog, Tummy Fillers):

We had three of those mini loaves and ate two. The third one, we cut in half and they brought home for a taste test with their moms.

One of them even joked that if he is able to bake well, he will probably put up a bakeshop complete with high-tech baking equipment and even POS systems.

For another student, we did origami of a basic boat and a cat, which turned out to be a bit difficult for her. And me too, lol.

Here is a video of the origami cat that we did:

This week, we will do more origami for Mother’s Day.

I recently had the little room where I teach renovated. And I discovered some little things I have already forgotten I have.

Some are:

• art kits which include lacing materials as well as beads for bead work art (I wish these were Ocean Fossil Jasper beads though and not the plastic ones, lol)
• storybooks I have forgotten about
• school supplies like crayons, pencils, scissors and glue (it hardened already, argh)
• toys that needed a lot of cleaning

Some children will be happy using these art kits for our arts and craft activities for the remaining summer days.

Decluttering takes us back down memory lane. I know because I did that with the home library and though it was hard to get rid of things I haven’t used, I had to do it mercilessly.

My eldest daughter took the National Career Assessment Examination last year. She scored high in the academics part and got a grade of 98. She could have gotten a higher grade (hello Tiger Mom!) but one of the subjects had a significantly lower grade than the others. Reason? Because she said she was too lazy to read the entire reading selections because these were too long.

I told her she could not, should not and must not do that again when she undergoes another educational assessment procedure. Plus, getting this grade does not guarantee that she will get a similar grade when she takes her college entrance exams.

There are several ways student readiness can be achieved before taking major educational assessment like college entrance exams or even high school entrance exams and here are a few tips: continue reading this entry »

Christmas is one of the most anticipated events we have. For some of my students in the past, there were a few who believed in the magic of Santa Claus via the gifts thy receive.

Of course, there was no way I will burst their bubble by saying that … never mind. When asked if I tell my children about Santa Claus, I tell them that I teach the children about the birth of Jesus Christ and what it represents to the Christians.

I also tell them that we traditionally ask the children to choose what they want for Christmas to be given as gifts. They are surprised I do that. But I tell them, better we give what they like (as long as these are within the budget) than they get something they don’t like.

So what do we teach the children about Christmas besides the Bible-related verses? We teach them that Christmas is about:

• Love. Loving your family and friends not just during the Christmas season but the whole year through. Year after year after year.
• Generosity. Generosity that does not just pertain to gifts and things that money can buy but generosity of kind words, respect and kind words among others.
• Family. Christmas is about family and how we should treasure each and everyone in our family.

I hope you all had a blessed Christmas!

This post written today, December 28th, but time-stamped for an earlier date for the ABC posts that I had not done since the last post I published dated December 6.

Bullying is probably one of the worst things that can happen to children. Most vulnerable to bullying are children with special needs.

No matter how much we brief our children on what to do just in case they get bullied, it is another story when they are on their own.

Young children are not exempted from bullying.

Online bullying happens and is probably just as scary as being bullied at the back of the school building because more people read and see what is happening. It is important to teach children about being careful when they do online activities.

For the teens, with the many issues they are going through, there are some things happening that make them vulnerable to being bullied or becoming bullies themselves. Coping with the challenges they face may make them unsure of what they should do and there are cases when they act out unexpectedly. continue reading this entry »

Activities for Daily Living – these are activities that will help students with special needs to adapt to “real-life” situations like waiting for a bus ride, ordering food and preparing your own food like making a sandwich or a bowl of soup.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I got several ADHD related posts here.

Affect is the general feeling tone. We can feel the happiness or sadness of a person based on his/her affect when they express themselves. For children diagnosed with autism, however, they need to be taught how to talk differently depending on their mood because most of them exhibit monotone voice when talking.

Alternative Career Options for those who are mainstreamed but would probably have difficulty getting full academic college degrees.

Auditory Discrimination is the ability to detect differences in sounds. One of the exercises for this would be drills about homographs. More about the terms pertaining to the auditory functions in this post.

Assessment is testing and evaluation to know what kind of services are to be given to a child diagnosed as having learning difficulties.

I am sure there are a lot more important terms that I missed so I am hoping I would be able to add more to this list.