Not all teaching should be done at a desk.

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

I teach a group of 15-18 3rd,4th,and 5th graders with learning disabilities in a special education classroom in a public school in Napa, Ca. My students include those with learning difficulties, behavioral difficulties, and autism spectrum disorders. They are wonderful students, with a very wide range of abilities and skills. While I am very fortunate to work in a school that is very inclusive of the special education students and staff, the one area my program is severely lacking is physical education. My students do attend an adaptive P.E. class once a week, where the focus is often on sensory skills, and the activities are rather simple. While this is an important part of my students experience, I would like them to also have some experience with P.E. like that which the typical students take part in. I feel that participation in some simple version of P.E. activities would be valuable for my students in many ways. For one, it will increase the skills which they have in common with the other students from the general education population. Knowing the basics involved in a simple game of basketball or baseball could increase the possibility of them engaging in such games with other children, thus aleviating some amount of the social isolation my students experience. I also feel that practicing cooperative group and team games can help teach and promote the basic social skills of turn taking and good sportsmanship, as well as the gratification success. So, in order to develop this program I would need basic P.E. supplies, such as basketballs, tennis rackets, tennis balls (to begin teaching baseball), volleyballs, bases, etc. Our school has a limited amount of sports equipment, which seem to disappear regularly. This makes it difficult to develop a regular P.E. program which could teach skills in a consistent way, which is what my students would need. To have the supplies necessary to develop an athletic program for my special education students would be a benefit to my classroom. The new physical education curriculumn would enable me to teach my students skills that they would not be able to get by sitting at their desks. They require hands-on experiences. Thank you for considering my donation request.