This document summarizes the author's experience observing children with disabilities at the Altamonte Elementary School. There were about 10 children ages 2-8 who attended, most were boys. The author helped plan art, dance, and play-doh activities. She found it challenging to keep the children engaged but learned about patience and positive reinforcement. The experience highlighted how each child's needs are different and classroom environments can make individual attention difficult. The author realized the importance of understanding each child's specific disability to help teach them effectively.

1. SEPTA at Altamonte Elementary Gabriela Morris [email_address] April 8, 2010 EEX 4242

2. SEPTA- Special Education PTA Of Seminole County An organization of parents and teachers advocating exceptional children. Recognizing the special needs of exceptional children, academically, behaviorally, emotionally and physically.

4. Setting Altamonte Elementary School Using a Pre-Kindergarten classroom None of the children actually went to the Altamonte Elementary School.

5. Demographics Within the Observation: The children were all Caucasian Mental Disabilities Ages: 2-8

6. The Children There were 15 students signed up, but on average about 10 showed up. Their were mostly boys who enjoyed playing around the room and being creative with their games. The girls were of the same age but never played together, Briana, 2, was very independent and Megan, 2, cried most of the time missing her parents.

7. What I Did? Planned an art activity where the children decorated picture frames. The other girls and I planned a dance activity. Did activates involving playdoh. Played games of Simon says and human pin-ball.

8. My Own Experiences I had worked with children with disabilities before and felt comfortable playing and planning activities. Though I was not sure what to expect at first, I learned a lot about patience and positive reinforcement. I really enjoyed the children and the experience.

9. Reflection This experience has helped me understand the patience needed to care and teach children with disabilities. These children have so much energy and keeping up with them became difficult. Jacob was a 7 year old boy who really challenged everyone, he had a big impact on me because it showed me how quickly a child can go from being calm to becoming a challenge. This is especially difficult when there were other children in the room. This experience had made me see that every child is very different and need specific attention, but it is very difficult in a classroom environment with other children.

10. Reflection With this experience I will know as a future teacher that every child is very different and every disability is different depending on the child. As a teacher an important factor, learned from this experience, would be research. Understanding the disability a child has will help in learning how to teach them. An approach that I will use as a teacher will be to incorporate arts and physical education to many of my lessons. I noticed that the children got distracted of activities quickly and keeping them engaged in either an art project or a physical activity relevant to the lesson can help them avoid getting distracted.