ABC chain

ABC . . . Antecedent Behavior Consequence

This has been DRILLED into my brain because of my job. To break this down, an antecedent is something that happens before the person chooses their behavior. An example of this is like Mom says, "Go clean your room." Child's behavior could either be to clean, or not to clean. Then the consequence is based on the child's decision. Sometimes it is hard to remember consequences are both positive and negative.

Many of the kids at my school don't understand this. So every aspect that we can talk about this we do. We are trying to drill it into their brains because it is such a fundamental social skill they MUST know to succeed in life.

I've been thinking about this a lot outside of working at Spectrum. Everything we do revolves around this ABC chain. I've also been thinking about what I believe and how this all works together. This is an example of what I mean. I am against abortion. If someone chooses to have sex (behavior), a possible natural consequence is pregnancy. If you don't want to get pregnant, don't have sex. You can always choose your behavior.

Now I find myself analyzing everything with this almost every aspect of my life. That's different because I'm usually an emotional thinker, not a logical thinker. It's easy to see how everything fits together. Hopefully I can help my kids think "What consequence do I want? What behavior do I need to choose so I can have that consequence?"

Recipes

Would anyone be interested in swapping recipes via blog? Let me know your thoughts...

Interesting Turn of Events

I have had an interesting week. I have learned a lot about myself
and my husband.

Erick is amazing. He took REALLY good care of me while I was recouperating from my surgery and my tragic ER visit. Anything I needed or wanted, he did (even though he ended up with a sinus infection). He even helped me wash my hair (a foreign concept "You need conditioner too?")

Tonight we had dinner at my parents' house (our usual Sunday routine). My parents have a Wii and some pretty fun family games. We were playing Mario cart and Kristyn whacked me in the forehead with her steering wheel. Then when she went to hug me to apologize, she GRABBED
MY FACE. So, to get even with her for grabbing my hurt face, I recorded her playing Cookin' Mama (She is stirring something, and her arm got REALLY tired... it's funny but there is no sound. I recorded it from my cell phone so it's not a great quailty.)

I'm finally feeling better! And I get to go back to work tomorrow! It will be great to get back into a normal routine after having Christmas Break off!

I've Had a Bad Day...

I had to have oral surgery to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth today. I actually felt pretty good. I'm on pain pills, but I felt pretty good.

Until 3:30. Erick just came home from buying me some soup from Leatherby's for lunch. I was light headed and leaning against him... The next thing I knew, Erick was standing over me "Jess.. Are you okay? You just passed out!"

I told him I was fine, but my head hurt a lot. He put his hand under me to provide a pillow when he realized I was bleeding.

So, a 3 hour ER visit resulted in 4 stitches in the back of my head.

I'm fine, but I was pretty embarrassed. Hopefully I won't have any more ER visits while I'm re cooping from my wisdom teeth. And now I'll have a super cool scar on my head.

Holiday Wreath

My class made these SUPER cute holiday wreaths. It was very easy to make, so I thought I would share it with all of you.

Supplies:

1 wire hanger

1 box sandwich baggies (fold down, not zipploc)

sequins/glue

ribbon

Bend the hanger into a circle. Tie the baggies around the circle you created (only need to do half-knots). Squish baggies together to create puffed look. Glue sequins directly onto the plastic baggies. Tie the ribbon onto the hook of the hanger.

This is a great fine motor skills activity. That is an area where a majority of my kids struggle. Some of my kids had a melt-down, but after they figured it out it was great.

Out of the Mouth of Babes...

Kids say the darndest things. Here are some of the funny things I've heard recently:

"It's okay Ms. Jess. It's only a legend and it only happens at sunrise."

"It's loosing it's wet!" (Talking about a clorox wipe becoming dry)

Vocabulary card with "which" - "Witch... EW! I don't like those things!"

"Come see my Jelly Fishing dance."

"It looks like a hurricane is going to happen." (I said, "Hurricanes don't happen in Utah because the hurricane can only start in an ocean and we don't live by an ocean.) "Oh! No wonder I've never seen one!"

"I can count by 15's. Wanna hear?" (And he did!)

We talked about different areas like mountains, deserts, etc. "Hey! I'm in Kobe's habitat!"

We went to see Ballet West's Nutcracker. "The boy who took the nutcracker from Clara is a BIG BULLLLLLY!"

A Day in the Life of a Paraprofessional

I love my job. I love my kids and I love the teacher I work with. I am entertained everyday.

We have a school-wide behavior plan. If the kids are having a good day, we call it a "green day." If they're being a little naughty, it's called a "yellow day." If they have having a completely rotten day, its a "red day."

Yesterday, 5 boys in my class were on red. They were talking and talking and WOULD NOT stop no matter what we said or did. In our class, when you are on red you don't have any priveledges (ie. adult takes you to the bathroom, you don't get drink priveledges during class, etc.) The boys didn't care.

So, I got to teach those 5 boys how to clean a bathroom. It was hillarious. The best part was cleaning the girls' bathroom. The boys' bathrooms are so much yuckier than the girls', but just gong into the girl's bathroom was a problem. haha Eight year old boys are funny.

They did a good job cleaning. And they all had a better day today. No toilet cleaning.