Party Planning Lesson: Creating the Seven-Layer Dip

I'm so sad to say that one of my darling students is flying the coop and moving on to brighter places in the world with her family.

The silver lining (we must always find a silver lining) is now we get to plan a party! I gathered up my "party committee" of students and staff and we voted to have light finger foods and a cake at the going away party.

We've honestly never hosted a party that didn't include a huge meal, as crazy as that sounds, so menu planning was somewhat of a new animal to tackle. One of the suggestions was "dips."

Oh how I love you Pinterest!

We ended up with a recipe from none other than "The Girl Who Ate Everything" (She's fabulous by the way)!

Individual Seven Layer Dip

My students had a BLAST with this...the concept of layering really perked their interest and the assembly line we had going was more than comical. The girls had the giggles, I had the giggles...it was just a great little lesson.

I especially appreciated the fact that one student said, "Now people can't double dip!" What a fantastic point to make! Maybe I'll start doing individual cups, for eveything that can be dipped, at home! (wink)

So this fun little creation will be making a very pretty appearance at our "Bon Voyage" party in two weeks. Pictures will follow the party!

Funday Friday: Bob Bullock Texas State History...IMAX

Photo from the Bob Bullock Website



It's a real world experience at it's best and nothing that I could possibly (want to) manufacture in a classroom setting.

Hello friends! I'm sorry for the delay in posts...getting back into the swing of things and starting STAAR Testing has been my top priority the past two weeks.

Last Friday we joined two area 18+ programs at the Bob Bullock State History Museum...for an IMAX movie. It was awesome to say the least. This is one of the huge perks to being a teacher in an 18+ program...the awesome outings selected by students. The highlight of course is taking a student who has never been outside of the county to the downtown area of Austin. Shock and awe doesn't describe it!

Here's a just a snippet of our many conversations:

Student: "What is that person doing against the wall?
Mrs. Virdell: "Sweetie, he's peeing. Look away"

It's LIFE...it changes...

One of the very first things I learned about being a Life Skills teacher is that you have to be flexible and understand an ever-changing schedule. I was leisurely expressing this concept to one of my teacher aides, who was coming into my program from general education, and she said it best:

"It's like a palm tree...if it doesn't sway, it will break...so we'll just be palm trees."

And now you know why I love her so! If only she would paint it on a piece of weathered wood and sell it on Esty. I'm certain it would be a hit with other special education teachers.

So being a palm tree...I had to re-apply that concept when I was told in November,
"Oh by the way...I know we are three months into the school year already, but on top of your job, you now have two HS Life Skills classes, twice a week that you will need to teach (and do paperwork on)."

Awesome.

You can probably guess that conversation is quickly followed up with,
"Oh by the way, you're also responsible for doing all the testing administrator training, teaching and End-of-Course testing all of the life skills juniors on US History and English III."

And we're swaying....

I know with the budget crisis hitting many of your schools (and let's be honest, you personally), there is a lot of swaying going on. Some days, everything blowing your way is much harder to deal with, but I'm certain that with a positive attitude...and remembering the love we all have for these children and of course  the almighty paycheck too...we will survive!

Ok...my Liebster Award nominations go to....

As mentioned a few post down...my Liebster awards go to....



This is one of my go-to blogs for many things. Rose-Marie highlights some very poignant aspects of educating and raising children with special needs.




This is one of my favorite blogs...and not just because she's from Texas. (wink) Andrea is a Special Education teacher who happily shares lots of wonderful ideas...and freebies!! You must check her out.



Karlie has one of the most fun blogs because it has a very personal aspect to it...in addition to the awesome freebies as well. I love to read about the ups and downs she endures...because let's be honest, as SpEd teachers, we sometimes feel like we are on a remote island!


AND I'm still working on the other two!! I promise to have them posted by Friday.

Tour of MFISD Transition Facility

My very first blogger award...woohoo!

As a fairly new blogger, I have been coming across so many great and resourceful blogs that are chock-full of fabulous awards. I've secretly pined for one and today...my new friend, Claire at Special Speckled Eggs nominated me for the prestigious Liebster Award!



 

I could not have received it without the nomination by Claire and if you haven't hopped over to her blog, you must check it out. She's got such a contagiously fun personality and great ideas for the elementary classroom!






So the rules of the award go as follows:

1. Show you appreciate the blogger who nominated you with a thank you shout out!
2. Nominate 5 other blogs, who have 200 followers or less, by leaving them a comment
3. Post the award on your blog
4. Keep up with the blogs you've given the award to...you never know when they are going to hit the blog world, big time!

So with that said...I am having the hardest time finding people without 200 followers because you're all so fabulous and have so large of a following, but in making those newbies like me extra special...I'm going to create an entirely seperate blog to highlight them whenever I find all of the ones I would like to use!

Thank you again for the nomination!

The new look

Quick question....has anyone else switched to the new interface of Blogger, via Google Chrome? I'm not opposed to change, but this new interface has me searching for everything!