The document summarizes a week-long after school program for pre-K and kindergarten students called "Growing Glowing Garden". Each day of the week focused on a different theme and activity related to gardening and plant growth. The program was led by a team of UCF students who each planned activities for their assigned day. The document reflects on the activities and lessons learned about working with students with exceptionalities such as autism.

1. UCF Students Presents: Growing Glowing Garden A week long of fun and exciting Activities all about How We Grow! Provided to you by: Osma Castro Angela Martin Elaina Herrin Danelle Evans Jason Sanchez Caitlin Butler

2. Crystal Lake Elementary After School Program Pre- K and Kindergarten Mrs. Van Rees (certified ESE) 24 Total Children 4 ESE Students 2 ESOL Students 3:30 – 5:30 Mon – Fri We created a program, which initiated from wanting to help Haiti and learn about ourselves in the process.

4. Grooving It.

6. Growing Big Dance

8. Jack and the Beanstalk

10. Making a Quilt for Haiti

12. Rhythm Sticks

14. Growing Glowing GardenTIA|UCF Team Members

15. The Following Slides Are Our Individual Reflections about our Day!

16. Elaina Herrin This was an exciting project for me that was a great lesson in organizing and time management. Since we were working with my daughter’s school I became the liaison between our group and the Administrators . My day was Monday, after we made our Name Tags, we briefly discussed Haiti and how we wanted to do something to help them. Each child took precut pieces of a house and as a group we placed them together on felt. The children were very happy with the outcome, later I took the quilt home and put it together (washable fabric glue – No Sew!) for the finished product. On Friday, I brought it back so all the children could see. Since I knew we would be working with a variety of children I wanted to create a visual project I knew they would all enjoy. With the help of the storybook, “If Your Happy and You Know It” I produced a little digital video that would coordinate with the song.

17. About the Exceptionalities: Elaina: I learned many specific tips from our teacher, Mrs. Van Rees. While she pretty much let us do our thing she consistently monitored Adam, a high functioning autistic in the Pre K program. I noticed how she would see “warning signs” in Adam and preemptively used strategies to keep him from getting to upset. Once he became frustrated with his coloring she pulled him aside and asked to see Adam’s happy face again, to which a larger frown appeared. She tried another approach; she asked him to “smell the roses (breath through nose) and blow out the candle (exhale through the mouth) – a perfect for technique for all children (and adults). He went back to the and seemed to fit back in but I think she saw some other clues that I was missing because she took him away from the table and asked him to take a break on the bean bags. He sat there for awhile playing with the stuffed animals and reading a book. When we transitioned into another activity he came and joined us and completely enjoyed making the next project. He was thrilled when he completed his garden about himself and proudly showed his mother when she walked in.

18. Osma Castro Wednesday February 24th Graphing & Grooving Team Members Osma & Jason

19. Osma Castro On Wednesday February 24th, Jason and I worked on the following:

20. Osma Castro As the lesson/activities developed all the children were working at a great pace and were actively engaged in all the planned activities. However, it began with one of the students with an exceptionality (Freddy) who was mishandling the classroom materials and tools such as the scissors. The certified teacher supervising our Teachers in Action Project asked this student to stand at a corner as an intervention method to have the student reflect on his unsafe poor choice. Next, the student with autism had a frustrating incident because he drew numbers with a crayon and accidentally made an error writing #2 and could not move past that error. The teacher approached him to find out what was wrong and interrupted his emotional behavior by assigning her assistant to take him to the reading corner. The teacher and the assistant selected a well illustrated and printed book which kept such student engaged while the other students continued with their learning. Finally, there was a third student who perhaps is a gifted student who had his incident. He was the first one to complete the given activities and was engaged, one after the other, at a much faster pace compared to his peers. He was the first one sitting waiting for the activity to be completed and be modeled by my example. While the other students were trying to figure out the graph game by counting syllables, he was ready to do the challenging words and became frustrated waiting that he began to cry in an outburst that he wanted to finish. At the end, the movement song used by Jason was enjoyed and done by all the students including Freddy and Juan Diego. As to Adam, the assistant and the teacher had to interrupt him from continuing to look at the same book and brought him back to the class activities because otherwise he would just stay sitting in the reading corner by himself.

21. Osma CastroExceptionalities Unfortunately, I felt a bit distress from what I experienced with these specific students. I realized that the first student I noticed was more of a behavioral aspect where immediate attention is needed for that student to reflect on his actions. However, with respect to the possible gifted student, I learned that even when I was giving him challenging work he still held a power to be first in everything. Therefore, as a future teacher, I believe I would have to be consistent in leading him to understand that giving out a bit of his power to the other students will help him develop his social skills and reinforce his own knowledge. As to the other student with autism, I learned that it requires lots of patience, fast thinking when implementing strategies, and setting up the classroom with a specific area that accommodates that student to intervene their emotional behavior. I wanted to learn how the student with autism would be placed the following year. Ms. Van Rees explained that the student may be referred to an accommodating school where there is more adult instruction and assistance and less student ratio to provide the needed attention. I also found it interesting how the teacher uses body movements, dance, and music to allow these students to participate and dissipate much of that energy that blocks their learning. I remember entering the room and the students where singing a song and each student would come on up and show their dance moves and Adam was one who was really grooving it!

22. Osma Castro Lesson & Activity

23. Osma Castro Lesson & Activity (cont.) Growing Glowing Garden “Handprints that Grow” Graph It!

24. Danelle Evans- Friday’s Activities: My assigned day was Friday. I thought it would be a great idea to incorporate a famous literature piece, Jack and The Beanstalk to our Glowing Growing Garden theme. I read aloud the book Jack and the Beanstalk to the children and they loved it! Afterwards we then made our own beanstalks with paper plates and color construction paper. Before Friday I cut the plates in a shape of a spiral and small pieces of construction paper for the children to use. They then designed their beanstalk whatever way they wanted to. It was a great fun activity for the children to be creative. Afterwards we really got hands on and planted our own beanstalk. The children each had a cup where they planted their own lima beans with the soil and shovel I brought to class. They really enjoyed planting their own beanstalk. It was great to see the children's excitement and hope that it would grow as tall as Jack's beanstalk beanstalk. Once we completed the project the children took their craft and plant home for their parents to see.

25. I read to the children Jack and the Beanstalk. This book was a pop up version that I had when I was younger. We got our hands dirty planting our own beanstalk to take home! The kids loved it! We then made our own beanstalks. Each beanstalk was unique with their own choices of color. * Activities planned for Friday by Danelle Evans

26. Danelle Evans – Exceptionalities: On Friday, I had a child who was slightly autistic, his name was Adam. He was great and I made sure he was comfortable and understood what was going on around his environment. I also tried to interact with Adam for a while, since he was a bit unsociable. I asked his friends around him and Adam some questions to get them to socialize together, it seemed to help, since Adam was talking. Adam taught me a great deal of patience. Directions were always repeated for him to follow. Being repetitive helps Adam stay on task. I know repeating can get “old” but seeing the outcome of his projects was really worth it. He truly was a great child to work with and I am grateful to have such an amazing opportunity to work with Adam.

27. Danelle Evans - Teamwork We all worked really well together as a team. It was a great idea for each of the members to pick a day and plan out activities. Communication and support are sometimes problems when working in a group, but not ours. Luckily most of us are enrolled in courses with each other, so we could catch up. However, even if some of us were not in the same class, we communicated constantly through emails. With that being said no one was left out of the loop. We also had a very supportive group that worked well with each other. We made sure that each member had enough supplies and help on that day. It was great to see what we all accomplished together. It was a great experience that I'm sure we will never forget!

28. Caitlin Butler My day was Tuesday. I worked with Jason and Elaina. First, the student’s created little caterpillars with clothes pins. They used these caterpillars to clip onto their name tag. Next, we made little “gardens”. Activity: My growing garden Materials: Small Styrofoam box (planter) (green foam) Crayons/ colored pencils Scissors Glue stick Pencil Popsicle sticks (1 person shaped and 2 regular sticks) Decorative cutouts (1 rainbow, 1 sun) Purpose: The idea of this activity is for students to think about all the stuff they like and like to do. On one stick they will create a picture of themselves (or use a cutout), by gluing it on. They will be given two other sticks to create pictures (on cutouts) to describe themselves. Students will then take the Styrofoam box and decorate it with the construction paper. This box will become the planter for their Popsicle sticks. The end product will be a beautiful garden of themselves!

29. Exceptionalities Caitlin Butler: On Monday, I worked a little with a boy named Eli. He was totally deaf. I was very impressed by how he well he followed directions and completed his activity. The teacher told us that he looks and follows other students. I was surprised though to learn that he didn’t sign very much. The teacher only said that he signs for the bathroom and eating.

30. Jason Sanchez: My “Grooving” activities included Listening and Dancing. I felt that it would be fun to get the children to engage all physical and mental muscle groups for coordination, listening, dancing, gross motor skills and cardio. The children seemed to have fun with it because when we first visited the class they were already doing fun dancing. I believe this could be used as a warm-up to wake the kids up and get the energized for any class activity or even a fun cool down after a days work.

31. Jason Sanchez: On the days I was in the classroom, I worked more with Adam who was a boy with autism. When we were working on the graphs we ran into a problem where he had drawn the number 2 wrong. He could not get over the mistake and started crying. When his teacher came over, she told him to go to the quiet center and pick out a book he liked. After about twenty minutes he was able to come back to the table and finish his work. I have never seen anything liked it but she knew what he needed to get over the hump and I thought that was very interesting . The teacher explained to me how she handles these problems and it was very helpful for my future knowledge.

32. Angela Martin: On Thursday during the rock coloring activity I spent some time with Juan Diego. I noticed he had finished coloring his rock ahead of the others in the class and was persistent in wanting to color a flower rock. Each student was given one rock to color and he did not understand why he could not color the flower rock tool and wanted to know what he was supposed to be doing next. At that point I realized just engaging in conversation was not satisfying. Ms. VanRees, the teacher in the classroom reiterated to him what I had said to Juan Diego. To keep his attention I had him gather the art materials at the table he was at when we were about to move to the carpet to read The Tiny Seed. As a future teacher I know I will experience situations like Juan Diego and will give me the experience needed to enhance the learning experience.

33. Angela Martin My day was Thursday, art in the garden. Caitlin and Danelle worked with me. The students started off by using markers to color a white mushroom with a snail or a flower rock. The students enjoyed making their rock their own. Next, I read The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. After the story each student did a seed dance together as a class relating to the book TheTiny Seed. The students all crouched down to the ground like a tiny seed and eventually stood tall like a flower after being watered and being in the sun. To get the students moving we did a sticky dance to instrumental music. Caitlin, Danelle and I placed duct tape sticky side out around each student’ s shoe and danced away.

34. Angela MartinWhite Carnation ExperimentWe thought it would be a fun activity for the students to create an experiment that they could take home and observe the changes.Each student got a Styrofoam cup with a lid, two white carnations and the color of their choice for the water using food coloring. After the students put together their carnation cup they would be able to see the changes the following day.

35. Growing Glowing GardenTIA|UCF Team Members Click Here

36. Growing Glowing GardenTIA|UCF Team Members Timesheets for Planning TIA Project