I usually like to plan a “back to O&M” activity for my students to transition back into the grind of school and services. Last year it was an art project. This year, the activity idea came from my principal at the staff meeting. He had all the teachers write on the board what we hope for our students this year. Then, he encouraged us to pose the same question to our students. At first I thought, “Yeah this totally doesn’t apply to me or my students”. But it does!

For our first lesson this year, I had my students write out what they hope for this year. It could be anything they hope for, but at least one hope needed to be O&M related. For example, it could be what they hope to learn, what activity they hope to do, etc. They can also come up with something fun they hope they can do once they accomplish one their IEP goals and have learned a new skill. We used scented markers– to make the activity more fun. For my braille students, I had them braille out their hopes for the year. I kept all their hopes, so at the end of the school year we can come back and see which hopes came true.