The Activities That Miguel Does In His Summer Playschool (LSEN)
We enrolled Miguel in a summer class in his school about two weeks ago. When I saw a post on the Facebook page of Miguel’s school regarding its summer class offerings, I immediately thought of enrolling him and Rafa. I thought that it would be an enjoyable way for the children to learn something new as well as the opportunity to mingle with other kids. It’s a good thing that Miguel’s teacher also recommended that I enroll him in a Learners with Special Education Needs (LSEN) class.
The Activities That Miguel Does In His Summer Playschool (LSEN)
However, the Twinklers class where I intended to enroll Rafa was too early. He wouldn’t enjoy waking up before 8:00 AM just to rush to his class. If it were a little later in the day, I’m confident that Rafa would love playing with his teacher and classmates and learning new concepts.
As for Miguel’s LSEN class, its primary objective is to develop the socialization skills of children with special needs. It fosters an environment that will help encourage the development of self-esteem, independence, confidence, responsibility, and respect for others. It’s also facilitated by special education teachers to give parents the confidence that their children are being taught by professionals who know how to adjust to the varying needs of the kids in their class.
So, what goes on in an LSEN class? Honestly, parents are not allowed to watch or observe what’s going on in an LSEN class but since I stay in the waiting area of Miguel’s school, I get to listen to the majority of the activities that go on in their class.
Here are some of those activities that I get to listen to while waiting:
Music and greeting to start the class
Identifying colors
Identifying letters and numbers
Writing and coloring
Playing with other kids
Washing of the hands
Snacks
Continue with activities
Packing away song
Goodbye song
Nursery rhymes are played throughout the class (think of Cocomelon songs)
There are also cute activity sheets provided to facilitate the kids’ class for the day like the following:
Schoolbag and school item cutouts
The kids were asked to identify the items and paste them onto the school bag.
Worm-shaped cardboard
In this activity, the children were taught about the circle shape. Next, they were instructed to make the "worm" by pasting together the circle shapes to form the segments. Then they were asked to trace the mouth and the eyes of the worm, paste the first five letters of the alphabet (A, B, C, D, and E) on the worm's body, and finally paste the corresponding pictures whose names begin with each of the letters.
Sequencing
The pupils were asked to identify numbers one (1), two (2), and three (3) and then paste these onto the activity sheet.
Play Kitchen
The children were given a round piece of paper which they had to imagine as a pizza crust. They colored it red for the sauce and then pasted paper cutouts of the pizza ingredients on the crust.
Epilogue
The LSEN class was intended for children with special needs to learn basic classroom skills while socializing with other children. The advantage of this class is that they’d learn to take in information amid distractions.
With regard to Miguel's class performance, I got good feedback from his LSEN teachers that he is doing quite well when sitting still or during waiting time. However, we still need to work on his ability to identify colors and letters as well as in his matching activities. It’s pretty consistent with the feedback from his occupational therapy class.
Do you think enrolling your child in summer playschool is beneficial? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.