Star Wars Activity

Star Wars is kind of a big deal in my house! My oldest child was born on Star War's Day- "May the 4th be with you!" We love everything about this series! Both of my children were Jedi for Halloween. Like I said.....it's a big deal!

Movement in the classroom is vitally important to participation, retention, and behavior. Please see the link below for an article relating exercise to material retention:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-immediately.html

So how can I combine these two ideas? My love for Star Wars and my love for movement (I am a PT after all)....can be combined into Brain Breaks! Please see the below link from Therapy Source of a wonderful packet of information!

https://www.yourtherapysource.com/blog1/2018/01/15/star-wars-brain-break-workout/

Hopefully this will keep you from going to "the Dark Side" and improve your students' ability to participate in the classroom!

~Movement Matters- Whitney Carter PT, DPT

The Art of Caring

This is the time of year where we seem to "hit a wall" from an emotional, physical, and psychological standpoint. We are in prime IEP season and are trying to finish every evaluation, treatment, and consult while juggling any last minute items that might be needed for students to be successful before the end of the school year. To say that this time of year is a whirlwind is an understatement!

 

This is the time when we really need to think back to why we do what we do. We care for our students in ways that no one else sees or knows. Countless nights are spent researching ideas and strategies. We use our drive times to reflect on what is working well and what is not. We constantly see items in the world around us in terms of "how can I use that in my session today?". Why do we do these things? Because we truly care about our students, teachers, and their success! We want to find that one thing that will propel our students to the next level! That being said, how do we let our students know that we care about them this much? Please see the link below for some fantastic ideas that we can utilize to show our students and teachers how much we really do care about them!

http://brainwavesinstruction.blogspot.com/2015/04/what-i-know-for-sure-about-learning.html 

 

I listened to a TED talk (Every Kid Needs a Champion given by Rita Pierson) recently that discussed how showing students that you care about them makes a difference in their ability to learn. What an amazing idea! This is who we are as providers....we might as well make sure our students know how special to us they really are!

~Movement Matters- Whitney Carter PT, DPT

Transition Planning

I had an interesting thought the other day when working with a high school student. I was thinking about what this student will do after graduation. A few questions came to mind and I would like to share my idea with you.

Is this program of therapy what is best for the student and how was this original plan established? Hopefully, we thought about the end goal when writing the plan. What does our student want to accomplish? How can we support our team? These are all questions that should come to mind before we even begin to write an Individualized Education Plan.

If we work from the anticipated end result back to the beginning, then we know the path we should take to get the right results. What does our student want to do after their school career? College? Job training? Participate in a day program? In order to reach these goals we need to consider how we can each contribute to help our student succeed.

This is a great article about helping students prepare for adulthood:
https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/ieps/iep-transition-planning-preparing-for-young-adulthood

I think a major area to consider for involvement is that of the Physical Therapist. Often times as students get older, we decrease services or move toward indirect services. What if this student needs specific physical training for a career or to be mobile in the college environment? Consider bringing PT back in for this specific task. A PT can be a valuable addition for work hardening activities or for equipment suggestions to help this student be a successful adult.

After all, isn't that our goal? To prepare our students for their interests and careers? Maybe we need to take another look at our processes for helping students be successful after they leave our Middle Schools and High Schools. Together we can help each student achieve their goals and make this world a more accessible place!