Implementing Hygiene Routines at School

For many students with special needs, working on functional skills can be just as important, if not more important, than academic skills.  When I spoke with parents of my students, I often found that they were struggling with getting their child to complete hygiene routines independently at home. Many of my students' parents admitted that they completed most of these tasks for their child because either their child didn't know how to complete the routine, didn't want to complete it, or it was faster for the parents to just do it for their child. That is what inspired me to to add hygiene to our daily schedule back in my first year of teaching. I wanted to ease the workload of the parents at home and also wanted to encourage promoting independence for all of my student to the maximum extent possible.

So This Happened...

On September 16th, we welcomed Colby into our family.  He is sweet and snuggly and way more work than I was anticipating...hence the reason I haven't posted in a couple months.  Being able to be home with this cutie for 12 weeks of maternity leave has been a real blessing and full of new experiences.  I have joined a new mom's group and gotten to know 8 other amazing new moms, enjoyed the most beautiful fall I can ever remember by going on daily walks outside with Colby, and drank more coffee than I did while going to grad school while working full time. 

Here are some of my favorite photos (I can't believe I narrowed it down to only three, because I probably take at least 15 pictures of him each day)

Colby and his namesake...good thing we didn't go with Jack as the middle name or he definitely would have been made fun of during his school age years!

Colby snuggling with his big fur-sister...I was a bit worried about how my dog would react to the new arrival, but these two are best buds already...and Colby hasn't even started throwing her treats from his high chair yet!

Colby in his Halloween costume...handmade by a friend, a knit burrito costume...due to our love of Mexican food, we called Colby a "baby burrito" throughout my pregnancy, so this costume was very fitting.

That's it for today...my little guy is up and ready to eat!  Hopefully I will get to some special ed content in my next post!