Thanksgiving

After Halloween kids told me they liked trick-or-treating a lot, that is why I've decided to do Quest game for them for Thansgiving. First of all, as usual, I've told children about history of Thanksgiving then kids were divided into 3 teams and started their quest. Quest had 3 stations with tasks: 1. English station - where we had vocabulary questions; 2. Fairytale station - where kids were answering questions about fairytale characters, if the answer was correct the puppet of the character was shown. 3. Sports station - kids had to drive in between ninepins and don't hit them. At each station after the completion of the task each team received chocolate medals. When Quest was over we came back to the room where our celebration have started and decorated our Christmas tree.
Again thanks to our children volunteers (in yellow t-shirts) who came to help my disabled students to participate in Quest game.

Information on Thanksgiving

Let's the game begin!

English station

Fairytale Station

Sports station

Receiving chocolate medals

Decorating Christmas tree

Decorating Christmas tree

Halloween

On October 31st, 2013 we had Halloween. Our Halloween party was very positive. Kids were wearing masks of their favourite cartoon heroes. First of all I have told kids about origins of this holiday, then we've cut pumpkin and made Jack-o-lantern. After kids received candies from me they went trick-or-treating around their Rehabilitation Centre. They liked it a lot. 
Big thanks goes to children who were volunteers at our holiday (they are in yellow t-shirts) they were pushing wheelchairs while their disabled agemates were trick-or-treating.

Information on origins of Halloween

My students

Jack-o-lentern

treack-or-treating

treack-or-treating

treack-or-treating

treack-or-treating

 

US Independence Day

Project "Teaching English to children with special needs" got started from the celebration of US Independence Day on July 4^th, 2013. The participants of the event were the children who attend English classes. They learned interesting facts about the USA and traditions of celebrating Independence Day in America. Kids made handmade decoration by themselves. At the end of a celebration children received treats: candies and food that local McDonald's donated. Also our Celebration visited Khrystyna who is a worker at "Window in America" in Lviv. She told kids about traditions of celebrating 4^th of July nowadays and showed them the book about Independence Day. Also the workers of "Window in America" gave us a big US flag. It was not only the main American symbol at our celebration but also I had a chance to tell and show children what stars, stripes and colors on the flag symbolize).

I am telling kinds about Indians and showing kids a 
dreamcatcher that I brought from Indian village in Florida

Ira makes decoration

Serhiy decorates the wall with the decoration 
that kids made by themselves

Treats from McDonald's and candies

Introduction

Hello everyone!
My name is Marta. When I was a teenager I was very keen on English and World literature, I always wanted to be a teacher. When I was 17 I've applied for Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX) and was accepted later on. Year in the USA was great. When I came back I've entered the University and in 5 years received a Master degree in a field of English language and literature.
During my Master year I had a chance to teach English to some children of Dzherelo
Children's Rehabilitation Centre (Lviv, Ukraine) within the framework of the project "Affording access to
school education of children with special needs". After the end of the project in December
2011 I volunteered there as an English teacher. Children showed great results and I knew they have a potential to learn more.
In February 2013 with my own project "Teaching English to children with special needs" I've applied for FLEX Grand (FLEX gives those Grants to support ideas of its alumnas), and received one in June the same year. Besides our classes we have an "American club" where we celebrate different American holidays.
Since I'm not a SEN teacher it was and is very interesting experience for me. I enjoy teaching my students.Children show great results and I know they have a potential to learn more.
So in this blog I'm going to share my experience of teaching English as a second language to  to children with special needs.I'm going to post different tasks that we do at our classes, and how we celebrate. I hope my posts will be helpful to other teachers who have disabled students in their classrooms or maybe to parents of children with diabilities who would like to teach them foreign language.