Personalized Pizza

This back to school get-to-know-you activity is a lot of fun--and tells you a lot more about your students or clients than just their pizza preferences.

In this activity, students first fill out a worksheet, answering a handful of questions about themselves, like whether or not they like pizza, what season they were born in, and what some of their hobbies are. Next, they translate those answers into pizza code--every question they answered is represented in the way they build their pizza and what they put onto it.

Finally, you can display the pizzas, and host a guessing game based on their answers--who can decode the pizzas more quickly? Even staff get in on this. :) For all materials, details, and adaptive art suggestions, click here to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store and get this resource for yourself!

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Movement Ideas with Music, #1: The Parachute

I finally got a parachute! It has taken me way too many years to acquire one! In fact, it's been a windfall year for parachutes--a 12' parachute was donated to me and a 6' parachute was finally found at a super affordable price that fit my budget. I'm really glad it worked out that way, as I need the smaller one for my tiny groups, but the big one is great for my big groups and my big kids! After check-in, I like to begin my groups with a fun movement activity. This energizes the group, increasing their attention and motivation for the course of the session, and setting the stage for whatever work we will do later. Sometimes it's just something fun, and other times it is directly related to other goals we will address later in the group. This is a simple activity that is paired with a relatively recent pop song, so I find it appropriate to use with all ages of children. Grab your parachute and a copy of " Shake It Off " by Taylo...

Emergency Calming Session

My littlest kiddos came in after a rambunctious round of PE outside that had been punctuated by a lot of larger students also outside--who were out of control and interfering with their group. As a result, my littles were escalated and upset and out of sorts when they came to me. So my emergency calming protocol kicked in. Every class includes our hello song, a movement activity, an instrumental play activity, and a boo k , capped by a goodbye song. Today we still included all those components, but changed them up a little. First we dimmed the lights. I have 3 rows of lights, and I turned off 2. Next, I began fingerpicking on guitar, using the chords for our hello song. Once everyone was seated and settled, we began our hello song intervention, but I shortened our greeting practice, decreasing demands but increasing support in order to improve emotional regulation. We did some gentle movement imitation, using scarves to this relaxing AniMusic video ....

PDF for The Green Grass Grows All Around

You can view the song from this blog post and find the file available for download here ! I've notated the song in the key of C--transpose to whatever key best fits your needs. I also notated most V chords as straight Vs, but you are of course free to spice them up as V7s, or get more inventive with the chord progression as a whole--whatever best fits your population!

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