Students with Special Needs Contribute Help to Community Dog Shelter
My students need the books Devoted and Shelter Dogs in order to use engaging material to complete literary analysis and apply it to problem based learning on how to solve overcrowding in our community animal shelter.
Students from all walks of life attend our academy. We are an alternative placement within our public school district that provides an individualized, educational and therapeutic environment. We target social-emotional awareness, inspire personal growth and build on student strengths in order to empower them.
With multiple programs at our school, my program focuses on supporting students with Autism and Social Emotional Disabilities, in which many have experienced childhood trauma; therefore, need additional supports and are unable to attend their home school.
When students come to our school, we meet them where they are at. We provide a blend of traditional learning developing school-ready behaviors as well as project based learning and allowing students a voice in their learning while developing self-confidence, strengthening life skills, and often time rebuilding their trust in adults and teachers.
Additionally, we place a high focus on executive functioning and social skills instruction in order for students to build appropriate and expected behaviors, understand the impact of their choices and behaviors on others so that they can maintain relationships and prepare them for maintaining expected behaviors in the work place.
My Project
Students with special needs will have the opportunity to engage in multiple content areas such as literacy, writing, health, and math by moving through our Problem Based Learning semester activity. We will be reading and discussing the literature in depth which will include story elements, theme, and authors point of view to name a few. Students will also research and collect data, furthering their depth of knowledge with math.
They will read Devoted and Shelter Dogs in order to gain an understanding of the problem of overcrowding of dogs in local animal shelters, the role shelters currently play as well as how dogs benefit humans.
Through this problem based learning and reading the two texts, students will have the opportunity to interact with dogs at the local animal shelter, which also adheres to their specific needs particular to the areas of social-emotional learning.
My students will have the opportunity to present their project to a panel of staff that includes staff from the local animal shelter. They will discuss their learning, and provide both their explanation and possible solutions on how to solve overcrowding in animal shelters. Any solutions that are accepted, will have the chance to be implemented.
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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. Lizakowski and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
