Google Chrome Laptops!! Social Skills Books for Kids!

I'm SUPER excited!!! Yesterday as I was about to start writing time with my kids, the tech guy walked into my class with FIVE brand new Google Chrome laptops!! Never in my 7 years as a teacher, have I ever gotten 1 new computer, let alone 5!!!! My class and I were beyond happy!

It's a brand new style of operating system, so I'm still figuring it all out. It works on the Cloud system so it saves everything as GoogleDocs and stuff. So apparently I can set up the kids computers to link to my school email and be able to access all their work from anywhere I can access the internet and my email. I should have brought one home this weekend to play around with, but I forgot in the midst of grabbing everything I need to do report cards this weekend.

The kids played around with them yesterday afternoon. I put the kids on ScootPad and a few other learning websites we love to use. We're in the process of testing them out to help determine if the school should get more of them for other classes on campus. 

My friend teaches the class one level older than mine and her computers were even worse than the crummy ones I had. So I surprised her with my old computers since I have new ones.

Social Skills Books!

So my little guys seriously lack social skills! Each week my friend the speech teacher and I talk about the things they need to work on, and somehow the list never gets any shorter! I have 2 in particular...maybe 3... who am I kidding?? They ALL need some serious social skills work! 

So I made my read aloud theme of the week "social skills books!" I always pick a theme (sharing, the nearest holiday,  a specific author, etc.). This week my author was Julia Cook. Her social skills books are amazing! Below are the ones we read this week. Click her name in this paragraph to get to her Amazon page with all her books. My kids loved them so much that one little guy begged me to order more! Now if I kid with Autism begs for a social skills book, do you really think I'm going to say no?! Two more are on the way! There is a widget below so you can scroll through all of her books and buy them from Amazon for pretty cheap!

Listening and Following Directions

Responding Appropriately to "No"

Making friends, and understanding it's okay to be different

Spacial Awareness

These are the new ones coming in the mail on Tuesday: