The fourth really was quite the good day for the teachers! The Family and School Association treated the teachers to lunch in celebration of Teachers Appreciation Day. What a tasty feast was provided for them culminating in a tray of cookies and the best crumb cake of Middlesex County! Thank you, FSA, for always thinking of the teachers.
Then Mrs. Shumny went quickly through a short agenda focusing mostly on the end of year activities, of which there are many. (We may be a small school but you wouldn’t know it by all we do.) She stepped up the speed of our meeting to allow time for a professional development called “Classroom Strategies for the Distracted Learner.”
This was presented by Lora Gandolfo, MS OTR/L. She was well prepared and her expertise showed in all she presented. However, the absolute best part was near the end when she explained and demonstrated Bal-A-Vis exercises. Bal-a-Vis stands for balance/auditory/vision exercises. Well! The teachers had a ball, literally.
All the teachers were given handballs that they used to practice exercises in rhythm, visual tracking, and movement. It sounds simple but all the exercises needed some practice. A metronome was used for a regular rhythm to do things such as V-ball clap over and V-ball behind the back. There may be a lot of ball bouncing in the future at ACS as the teachers left the professional development inspired by a new skill to help their students.
