16: Back to School Activities
We discuss our favorite activities to do during the first week of sessions with our students, ages pre-k to high school.
Resources Mentioned:
Back to School Activities Packet
Back to School Google Slides Activity
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episode 16: back to school activities Transcript
Intro: Welcome to the TOD Podcast, or as we like to say, the “TOD POD.” We chat about all things Deaf Education while you drive around. I’m Kimmy from The Hard of Hearing Teacher and I’m Deanna from Listening Fun, and let’s get started!
[Music]
D: Today's episode is part of our mini back to school series. We're talking all about different activities you can do with new and returning students during your first few sessions. My first couple days is mostly emailing people, checking in to make sure equipment is where it's supposed to be, setting up meetings with case managers, all that. But once I can actually start seeing my students I have a bunch of activities ready to go for the beginning of the year.
K: The first week back is always hectic in terms of logistics. There's so much to do. But I love the feeling of a fresh start when it's time to start working with students.
D: Yes, so for this episode most of the activities we're discussing are from my back to school activities packet which is one packet that is meant for you to mix and match to cover your whole caseload. So we'll talk a little bit about new students, returning students, young students, high school students, all of that.
D: So the obvious start is with get to know you games and yes, they're cheesy, but they work. It's nice to learn some basic facts about your student, like if they have siblings, what their favorite things are, and a basic idea of how much they understand their hearing loss. The first game in the packet I mentioned is good for new students because it's framed as a get to know you game. The second and third game can help you get to know a known student better. One is like a This or That game which is basically Would You Rather. Like 'would you rather go on a boat or an airplane, eat sweet snacks or salty snacks' etc. So you can play a would you rather type game with students maybe you had last year but you want to set up a nice rapport with them this year. And then the third game is like a Roll & Chat. So you roll a die, you could use a digital die too, I have an app for that. And you pick a question that goes with the number you rolled. So some of the questions are school-based, like what's your favorite subject? And some are personal: do you have siblings? And some are more hearing related: what problems you run into with your equipment? It's just another way to start some conversations with students in a non awkward way.
K: These types of themes and activities are so important in the beginning of the year. I like to think of the start of the year in terms of working directly with students as almost a fifty fifty between getting my after summer baselines for student goals and doing icebreaker activities to get us back into the swing of things. But always starting with icebreakers/get to know yous. It's so important, have some fun and build rapport, comfort, and trust, and also try to learn some tidbits of information about each student that you can incorporate into future sessions and activities. We've talked before about how even just mentioning a student's interest that they've mentioned before can make a big impact and those first couple of sessions in the beginning of the year are gold mines for this type of information.
D: For sure. For younger students I like to do like some coloring activities because it's a preferred activity. The kids get to be creative and you get to chat and have some of those conversations with them in the process. So the packet has all about me coloring pages. One has like a hearing aid, one is a cochlear implant, one as a BAHA, and there's a generic one. So students can color the sections while answering some questions, like something they like, something they're good at, like it's all pretty low stress but it sets a nice tone for the year. And it sets the idea that their hearing devices are positive and shows the student that you're a trusting and supportive adult.
K: So I've talked about this packet before. I've used it I love it. And I also like these pages that Deanna's talking about because they're low stakes I've used them for like an an informal check-in on where the students are at. Especially new students to your caseload when you're starting off in terms of like equipment knowledge in the beginning of the year. So like super simple terms, like do you know which picture matches what's on your ear? And if they say yes that one that's a cochlear implant. And then I also snuck in questions about the part of their hearing aids or cochlear implants while they were coloring. Like do you know what that's called? Like maybe they know what the ear mold is called or having them take the one hearing aid off their ear and like looking at the picture and seeing if they can match up the parts and tell me which parts, like where is their battery, where is their ear mold. They had a lot of fun doing that after they colored in the picture.
D: Yeah I like some of these like device coloring sheets at the beginning because it just shows the student that their devices are like cool and fun and like that's what you're there to help them with and to help differentiate me from speech a little bit.
Both: [laugh]
D: For older students I tend to forego some of the get to know you activities and jump more into like helpful things with them. There's a few different activities I like to do depending on the students' needs. Their goal setting, going over the schedule, seating, equipment, and a student interview. So I kind of mix a match depending on what's appropriate for the student. So for goal setting, we discuss what goals apply to them. So it might be IEP goals which might cover like self-advocacy, listening or language, could also be personal goals, academic goals doesn't matter. We discuss why setting goals is helpful and either go over the IEP goals together so they understand what we're working toward and why, or come up with some personal goals together. It's helpful to find out what the students want to achieve like maybe they want to be in an AP class next year or they want to make the varsity team or they want to be in charge of their own equipment. It really depends on the student. We identify two goals to work on and we write some action steps for that goal. And this is something we can revisit throughout the year and this goes back to our engaging middle schoolers episode. Giving the students some ownership of the session focusing on the goals they care about can set the tone for a good rest of the year. I also think it's really important that the students know why they are receiving this service and what specifically you are working on. IEP goals shouldn't be a secret. The student should know what they're working on and how it can help them succeed. So like I have a goal setting page, you could very easily take this idea and do it on a whiteboard but the idea is to go over the goals with your student at the beginning of the year especially students who are old enough to understand why they're in this session.
K: Another activity that I really like from the packet is going over the student's schedule. At this point they've probably been to all of their classes at least a couple times. And so you can list out all of the classes and then think about the potential positives and the potential issues for each class. There's a list at the top that helps with this. Positives could be: it's quiet, easy to hear the teacher, student feels confident in the subject, student is interested in the subject, it's in a good location, etc. Potential issues that could pop up are: poor classroom acoustics, it's hard to hear the teacher, it's a challenging subject, it's a boring subject, or it's in a poor location like right next to the band room or something. And then you can identify the potential issues for each class and brainstorm some possible solutions together. And getting ahead of these issues is nice because it shows the student that you can help them with their problems and it lets you know what classes you might have to visit or what teachers to check in with. It also gives the student a chance to come up with solutions on their own with a little support from you. And then you can check back in the next session to see if they followed up on what they were going to do. Did they talk to their teacher or did they ask for extra help? I like to give the student a choice in like do you want to try to handle this yourself, do you want to do it together, do you want me to talk to your teacher? But I usually try to encourage student to be as independent as possible and at least try to find something they can do on their own to address an issue. And you can also come back to this page throughout the year. Like if a student's talking about something that happened in the class, you can come back to the list at the top of this page and talk about like okay well, what's still good in this class or what are some of the issues that you're facing.
D: I like that. I didn't usually revisit it but I find that's a really good idea. Another activity I like to do at the beginning of the year has to do with seating. Basically I have the students sketch each class and identify their seat and then we discuss if the seat works for them like why or why not. There's different factors to consider like if the student's stronger on one side, if they're using a HAT system, different sources of background noise in and around the classroom. Then if the student identifies a poor seat and the seats are assigned, you have 2 options. You can either advocate for the student and talk to the teacher or you can teach the student how to advocate for themselves and make a plan for them to discuss it with the teacher. For me, it really depends on the student. I like to get all my students to the point where they're comfortable with advocating for themselves. But sometimes it's nice to build rapport by doing them like a favor at the beginning of the year and letting them see that you're like supportive and helpful and then as the year goes on I can build up their confidence so maybe they advocate for themselves next time they change seats. But I find going over seating to be really valuable like early in the year activity.
K: I also using that page and like while they're drawing the seats, it's also a good time to talk about do they know what things are effecting their hearing in the classroom? Do they know like also can they see the board as part of like what makes a good seat in the classroom as part of it too. You know does the teacher keep the classroom door closed? I always brought like into the discussion as well and then sometimes while they're drawing the picture they might just also start talking about other things or you can start talking about other things. So it's like can be a little bit like downtime to also have a discussion. So I also use that page for that I like that.
D: Yeah I feel like half the battle is just you need something in front of you and then you're okay, like you just need something to get you going and sometimes something like seating opens up conversations on like a lot of other topics and it's good like informal data on what they know and what maybe what gaps they have.
K: Yeah, absolutely. The beginning of the year is also a good time to talk about equipment. This is something I often teach and come back to throughout the year but it's nice to start off the year with good habits. I'm mostly talking about HAT systems so like, Hearing Assistive Technology, like FMs or DMs. But it applies to personal devices too. First I make sure they know the names of all of their equipment, that they know where it's stored and charged. We make a checklist of what they need to do each day to make sure everything is working appropriately. This varies student to student but some of the listening check stuff, the checking the battery making sure everything sounds clear, making sure the HAT system is connected, getting it from its location, etc., writing out the checklist that were all on the same page of the equipment. All of this can be you know applied to most of the students that use this kind of equipment.
D: Yes, in lieu of getting to know you games for older students, I like to do a student interview. This is just me asking them questions so I can write down the important information that is relevant to my sessions with them. So this includes uh classes you don't mind being pulled from versus classes you don't want to be pulled from, any school interests, if they prefer writing, typing, or speaking, did their TOD do anything last year that was helpful that I can also do. It's not as much like fun facts as it is information that I can use to support them in a helpful and effective way. So instead of wasting their time with a get to know you game, if they're older I just tell them like "hey I'm going to interview you so I have this information so that I can help you" and usually they're pretty receptive to that.
K: Yeah I found a lot of my students also like added information when I was asking them those questions. They'd be like "oh yeah and this..." I just like it was a conversation starter in addition to the helpful information that was already on the page. I think a lot of this part of the conversation also goes with our engaging middle schools episode but can also be applied to high schoolers. In that episode I mentioned this packet and the schedule page and interview page and that I used those pages to try to help make my schedule for the year so that the student had a voice in their scheduling. If I can make it work obviously I would. And to check in on where they were with their comfort level and with like self advocacy and using their equipment. I just think this packet is amazing for all of that.
D: [laugh] Thanks. In addition to this packet that we've been talking about I also have like a Google Slides activity I like to use with older students who have Chromebooks. Sometimes digital activities are just a little more engaging for them. And it goes over some of the same topics but is specifically geared towards high schoolers. And we discuss equipment, seating, accommodations, how to ask for help, goal setting. Each slide has some questions for discussing. Some examples are: think of a 1 to 2 sentence explanation of your HAT system and practice with me so we can explain it if someone asks. These are all topics that are great for the first few sessions because they address issues that will be helpful to students right away. So starting off the year on the right foot can make a big difference for our students. So between the packet and the Google Slides activity I'm usually pretty covered for my first like two to three weeks of school.
K: We hope some of these ideas for the first few weeks of sessions are helpful for you. I know I personally found this packet from Listening Fun to be a lifesaver last year and it's linked in the show notes so you can grab yours too. If you have any other activities you love for the beginning of the year, feel free to send us a DM on Instagram and we'll share it out to the TOD POD Community. I'm Kimmy @TheHardOfHearingTeacher and Deanna is @ListeningFun. As always a full transcript, show notes, and links to all the things we mentioned are available at listentotodpod.com and we'll see you next week!
Both: Bye!