My students need new board games to continue expanding our social skills with our friends. As of right now, most of my classroom games are missing pieces or are not playable.
I teach a self contained classroom of seven wonderful students with Autism. We are one of three Special Day Classrooms at the elementary school. There are 17 students all together in our program.
All of our students are unique and have their own individual strengths, but something that all our students need help with is improving their social skills.
And I believe the best way to learn is to learn while having fun!
And if we can learn, have fun, and build friendships at the same time; that is something I do not want to stop!
My Project
One of my priorities each year is to find away to connect my students with their general education peers. Most of my students will join art, music, and P.E. classes with their grade level. I wanted to go one step further this year and invite our general education friends inside our classroom.
Every Thursday we invite 4-5 different mainstream friends to join our class for a Game Day.
I have found playing games is a great way to build relationships while working on social skills goals, communication goals, and play goals. My students gain so much from their peers helping them learn, but I also see our general education students learning just as much from my students, all while having a fun time together building a community of love and acceptance.
We are starting to run into the problem of our students not being interested in playing the same games week after week. (I can't blame them!) Other teachers around our school have been so wonderful and have loaned me different games the past few weeks. But I would like to start building up our classroom game selection so I can continue inviting our friends inside our classroom. I want to continue the excitement and fun all the kids share each Thursday!
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Jacyna and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
