Yesterday we had Angela Christoforos a channel 4 news reporter as a special guest in our classroom. Ms. Christoforos is also an advocate for all people with special needs especially autism awareness. It was really fun for my students to see a real news reporter in the classroom and doing her job. Thank you Ms. Christoforos for visiting our classroom! ELMA, N.Y. (WIVB) — Mr. Mitri takes a hands on project based learning approach in his special education classroom. He has 14 students with a variety of disabilities including autism, down syndrome, and cerebral palsy.
“It was the best way for me to be able to meet all the needs of the students in the classroom using projects, and at the same time they’re having fun,” said Michael Mitri, Iroquois High School Special Education teacher. “There’s a big communication barrier cause he can only tell me he had a great day it was fun, great day. and he will never elaborate on that,” said Marie Todoro, Carmen’s mom. Carmen’s mom Marie says a classroom blog Mr. Mitri created for parents has made a big difference. “It would tell me what happened that day, that week in quite a lot of detail and even the pictures that he shows on the website you can see exactly what went on,” said Todoro. Mr. Mitri says the blog also comes in handy for his students who sometimes can’t make it to class. He records videos they can watch from home. “Students are in and out all day long they’ve got a variety of different therapies that they have to go to so there will be times when I have 14 students in my classroom and there’s times when I have 4 students in my classroom,” said Mr. Mitri. Parents often worry what the future will hold for their developmentally disabled child. Marie says the website shows her that her son is learning life skills that will serve him in the future. “I know that he’s being active he’s involved, he’s having fun he’s learning he’s really learning and he’s happy,” said Todoro. Several students in our class are proud to be part of a movement and have been extremely excited to share with me. They are involved in Living Without Limitations. Their purpose is to provide support and assistance to children and adult individuals with physical and or developmental disabilities so that they may live independent, self-directed lives. It is their goal to provide accessible and appropriate housing, social activities, community involvement, along with recreation and adaptive athletic events. Seem like a great opportunity for all students with disabilities to me!
Today we discovered how to create amazingly ghostly illusions with this phantom projector from the Tinker Crate we received in the mail. We learned that the experiment is based on a 150-year-old stage effect called Pepper's Ghost, this projector illustrates the physics of illusion. Then we created a portable viewer to to create more ghostly images and continue experimenting with this amazing effect. The students worked cooperatively building the projector at the same time having fun. We had a great first day of school! We would like to introduce our new students to the classroom. Abigail Dombrowski, Alex Runquist, and Bailey Bastine. Our students have really enjoyed getting to know each other and reconnecting with old friends on the first day. Bailey used her photography skills to take some beautiful pictures of a sunflower that is growing in the courtyard. The sunflower started from a seed that fell from our bird feeders! Also, Abby Kozminski was nice to bring in cupcakes for her 18th birthday!
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AuthorMr. Mitri Archives
October 2017
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