Disability Awareness Week-5

DISABILITY AWARENESS WEEK
3rd Grade Disability Awareness Unit

Dear Parents and Guardians,
We are excited to let you know about our next unit “disABILITY AWAREness.” Over the
course of the next week your child will be learning and becoming more aware of different
disabilities that some students may be affected by. We will be learning new vocabulary words
having to do with the disabilities as well as new terms that we will be discussing about how our
activities may change their perspectives. Your child will be learning the importance of
understanding the characteristics of the different disabilities and how we can come together to
see things from the perspective of others.
During this week, your students will experience what it is like to live with a few different
disabilities. We will start the unit by creating an Awareness Week Journal where students can
decorate them as they like and dedicate a couple pages for each disability. In these journals
they will take notes and write a daily reflection. These reflections are their homework
assignment where they will write a paragraph about what they have learned and how their
perspective has changed.
Each day we will focus on a different disability and go through activities in groups as well
as a whole class. We will use children’s literature to introduce students to each disability. We will
be discussing how we can create an inclusive environment to help make everything equally
accessible to all the students.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter about our new exciting unit on the
disability awareness. I am looking forward to beginning the unit and starting this adventure with
your child!
Miss. Cyr and Miss. Morris

L1: Autism
1. STANDARDS
a. Common Core Standards: 4.2.G; 5.1.G; 7.1.G; 8.1.G; 8.1.M

2. INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES AND MATERIALS
a. Awareness Week Journal
b. Pedro’s Whale by Paula Kluth
3. OBJECTIVES
a. CONTENT
i. The students will be able to understand how people with autism are often
bothered by things such as noise, movement, and background noise as evidenced
by completing an activity that involves simulating how it might feel if you were
to be in their shoes.
b. LANGUAGE/KEY VOCABULARY
i. Autism, Sensitive, Noise, Movement
4. ASSESSMENT
a. INFORMAL/FORMATIVE
i. Walking around the classroom while students are completing the activity and
listen to comments that they may be making about how they feel.
b. FORMAL/SUMMATIVE
i. They will be asked to write a paragraph in their Awareness Week Journal about
what they learned through this activity. They will talk about how it made them
feel and if their understanding of Autism has changed. Through these writing
sections I can assess where they are in their understanding of the material.
5. INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES AND LEARNING TASKS
a. ANTICIPATORY SET
i. ENGAGEMENT
1. Read Pedro’s Whale by Paula Kluth
ii. ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
1. Ask the students after reading the book if they know anything about
autism.
2. First have them turn and talk to a neighbor and discuss what they think
autism is.
3. Have them raise their hands and share what they think about the word,
autism, and what they think it means.
4. Ask them if they have learned anything about what they think autism is
from the book that we just read.
b. INSTRUCTION AND MODELING
i. Autism powerpoint
ii. Work through all the slides with the students asking them questions from each
slide and make sure there is enough time for them to absorb all the information.
iii.
After the powerpoint is finished, introduce the activity that they will be
completing to help them better understand what it is like for others who are
autistic.
iv. State to the students, “The activity that we will be doing is to help show us how
people with autism are bothered by things most people don’t notice. They can
often be extra sensitive to noise, movement, and even things like background
noises that we might not notice. Remember though that not all those with autism
deal with some of the things that we will be discussing today though.”
v. Then divide the class into groups of 5.
vi. Explain to them that one student in each group will play the part of someone with
autism, and the other 4 students will have other jobs to play.
vii. List to them the parts that there are in the groups as well as give project the
different roles on the projector.
1. Person #1 – You will play the part of a person with autism. Your job is to
try and listen to what Person #5 is reading to you so you can take a test
on the material. Try to ignore everyone else.
2. Person #2 – Stand behind Person #1 and rub the edge of an index card
against the back of their neck.
3. Person #3 – Grab a book, lean close to Person #1 and read the book in a
loud voice the entire time
4. Person #4 – Pat Person #1 on the head and shoulder the entire time
5. Person #5 – using a normal voice, read a paragraph to Person #1 then ask
them questions about what you read. Do NOT try to drown out the other
noises.
c. GUIDED PRACTICE
i. Students will be playing their parts in their groups of 5 around the classroom.
ii. They will take turns so that all students get the opportunity of being the one with
autism. I will be walking around the class and watching as the students are
working through the activity and listening to some of the conversations that they
are having when they are switching parts.
d. CLOSURE
i. Bring the class back together for a discussion about the activity that they just
completed.
ii. Ask them how it felt to have so much commotion going on.
iii. Did it make them want to scream or get away? Were they able to concentrate on
the paragraph that was being read to them? What might have helped?
e. INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
i. As part of the formal assessment students will be sent home with homework that
is asking them to talk about what they learned through this activity. The
homework assignment will ask them to write a paragraph in their Awareness
Week Journal about what they learned and how this activity made them feel. It
will also ask if this activity has changed how they view autism.
6. INCLUSIVE PRACTICES
a. Students with dysgraphia and dyslexia: For the written reflection students can type their
paragraph and glue it in their Awareness Week Journal
b. ELL Students: have a separate sheet with Spanish instructions for the students to take
home
L2: Communication Disorders
1. STANDARDS

2. INSTRUCTIONAL ASSESSMENT AND MATERIALS
b. My Friend Daniel Doesn’t Talk by Sharon Longo
3. OBJECTIVES
a. CONTENT
i. The students will be able to understand how people with communication
disorders are often unable to speak or have their speech understood by
completing two different activities that simulate how it might feel if you were to
be in their shoes.
i. Communication Disorder, Language, Speech
4. ASSESSMENT
b. FORMAL/SUMMATIVE
feel and if their understanding of communication disorders has changed.
ii. Through these writing sections I can assess where they are in their understanding
of the material.
a. ANTICIPATORY SET
i. ENGAGEMENT
1. Read My Friend Daniel Doesn’t Talk by Sharon Longo about selective
mutism to the class.
communication disorders.
2. First have them turn and talk to a neighbor and discuss what they think it
is.
3. Have them raise their hands and share what they think about this word
and what they think it means.
4. Ask them if they have learned anything about what they think some
communication disorders can be from the book that we just read.
5. Have them raise hands again to discuss what they think.
i. First state to the students that “Communication disorders are disabilities that keep
a person from being able to speak or it makes their speech hard to be understood.
This is something that can be caused by several things some of which being from
different disabilities or injuries. Some people that have difficulty with their
speech by use sign language, gestures, or small pictures that they can carry
around with them.”
ii. Tell the class that we will be doing two different activities that will help us better
understand what it is like for students who may have communication disorders.
iii. The first activity that we will be doing is called “Different Words” which we will
be completing together as a class.
iv. Ask students in the class if there are any that speak another language and if they
would be willing to come up and volunteer in the front of the class.
v. These students will then say one sentence in their language and the class will
then try and guess what they said. (If there are two that speak the same language
have them carry a conversation in the front of the class).
vi. The class will then turn and talk to their neighbors and discuss what they think
the student/s said.
vii. Then discuss as a class how it feels to not be able to understand something. How
quickly did you give up? How is this similar to people with disabilities who can
talk but are hard to understand?
viii. Then move on an introduce activity 2 which is called “No Words”.
ix. Break the class up into groups of 5 and give them a stack of index cards with
different sentences on them.
1. “I feel funny”
2. “I want a coke”
3. “I lost my homework”
4. “My parents are getting a divorce”
5. “My foot hurts”
6. “Can I go and get some water”
7. “I don’t like pizza”
8. “My arm is hurting”
x. The students are not to look at the cards unless it is their turn in the activity.
xi. Each student will take turns going around in a circle and reading the sentence to
themselves and then working to get the rest of the students to figure out the
sentence without writing, speaking, or using any letters of the alphabet.
c. GUIDED PRACTICE
i. Students will be acting out their sentences in groups of 5 around the classroom.
ii. They will take turns so that all students get the opportunity to feel what it is like
when they are not able to use their voice when trying to tell someone something.
iii. I will be walking around the class and watching as the students are working
through the activity and listening to some of the conversations that they are
having when they are switching parts.
d. CLOSURE
completed.
ii. Ask them, “Was it difficult to communicate using this method? What would have
helped? How can we communicate with someone who can’t talk back? How can
we help them communicate?”
will also ask if this activity has changed how they have now come to understand
communication disorders.
home
L3: Hearing Impairments
1. STANDARDS
2. INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES
a. Slide show
b. Awareness Week Journal
c. Newspaper article
d. Foam ear plugs
e. Hands and Hearts by Donna Jo Napoli
3. OBJECTIVES
a. CONTENT
i. The students will be able to understand how people with hearing impairments can
cause people to either hear certain sounds or not hear anything at all by
completing activities that involve simulating how it might feel if you were to be
in their shoes.
i. Deaf, Hearing Impairment, Hearing Aid, Lip-Reading
4. ASSESSMENT
b. FORMAL/SUMMATIVE
feel and if their understanding of hearing impairments has changed.
ii. Through these writing sections I can assess where they are in their understanding
of the material.
a. ANTICIPATORY SET
i. ENGAGEMENT
1. Read Hands and Hearts by Donna Jo Napoli about autism to the class.
hearing loss or deafness.
2. First have them turn and talk to a neighbor and discuss what they think it
is.
3. Have them raise their hands and share what they think about this and
what they think it means.
4. Ask them if they have learned anything about what they think hearing
impairment is from the book that we just read.
5. Have them raise hands again to discuss what they think.
i. Tell the students, “Hearing impairments can mean a few different things. It can
range from being able to hear different sounds to being completely deaf and
being able to hear at all. In many instances hearing loss doesn’t just mean that
sounds are not loud enough, rather it means that sounds are garbled or unclear.”
ii. Inform the students that we will be working through two different activities today
to help us better understand what it would be like for those who are not
completely deal and those who are profoundly deaf.
iii. The first activity we will complete as a class.
iv. Pass out foam ear plugs to all the students and show them how to put them in
their ears.
v. Put on “white noise” – YouTube video of white noise.
vi. Read a long newspaper article or a passage from a book rapidly using a soft
voice, mumbling monotone, running words together, and pausing in odd places.
vii. After reading ask the students questions from the content that you just read to
them while continuing to talk quietly in a mumbling voice.
viii. Have them then remove their ear plugs and turn off the white noise and discuss
how not being able to hear clearly felt for them.
ix. Introduce that they are now going to do a second activity that will help them
understand what it is like to be profoundly deaf.
x. Divide the class into pairs, say that one student will be Student A and the other
will be Student B.
xi. Explain the activity and how they will me taking turns lipreading while their
partner “reads” a list of words.
xii. They need to go through each reading before they can share the answers with
each other. Pass out the instructions for each person to all of the pairs and have
them start.
c. GUIDED PRACTICE
i. Students will be playing their parts in their pairs around the classroom.
ii. They will take turns so that all students get the opportunity of being the one that
can’t hear.
iii. I will be walking around the class and watching as the students are working
through the activity and listening to some of the conversations that they are
having when they are switching parts.
d. CLOSURE
completed.
ii. Ask them how it felt to not be able to understand what their partner was reading
to them. Did they feel sad or frustrated when they were unable to understand?
Were they able to understand the paragraph that was being read to them? What
might have helped?
will also ask if this activity has changed how they understand hearing
impairments.
home
L4: Learning Disabilities
1. STANDARDS
b. Projector
c. Sentence strips
d. Bag
e. How I Learn by Brenda Miles
3. OBJECTIVES
a. CONTENT
i. Students will be able to understand what it may feel like to have a learning
disability as evidenced by completing the deciphering the sentence activity.
i. Learning disability
4. ASSESSMENT
i. Teacher observation
b. FORMAL/SUMMATIVE
i. Written paragraph in Awareness Week Journal
a. ANTICIPATORY SET
i. ENGAGEMENT
1. Read to the class How I Learn by Brenda Miles
2. Put this page on an overhead projector
3. Have the class read it out loud. They must read the color the word is
written in, not the word itself.
1. Have students sit in a circle. Discuss how they felt during this activity.
Ask the students if they have ever felt these feelings before in class or
while working on an assignment. (Students may say that their brain
wanted them to read the actual word but it was hard, or they had to read
the words at a slower pace.)
2. Tell them that this is an example of how difficult it is for students with
learning disabilities to get through the day. Their brain understands what
needs to be done, but they have to struggle to make it come out right. Not
being able to do this activity does not mean you are not smart. It just
means that your brain wants you to do something different.
iii. INSTRUCTION AND MODELING
1. The teacher takes out a bag that has paper strips in it. On each paper strip
is a sentence written backwards.
2. The teacher pulls a sentence strip out of the bag and puts it on the
projector.
3. The sentence strip reads: “ehT kcalb tac tas no eht toh nit foor”
4. She tells the class that she is going to set the timer for 10 seconds and try
to read the sentence correctly. While she is trying to read the sentence
she has the assistant teacher/co-teacher tell her to hurry up and ask her
why it is taking her so long.
5. The teacher is not able to do so in that allotted time.
iv. GUIDED PRACTICE
1. The teacher pulls another paper strip out of the bag and puts it on the
projector. She tells the class they have 10 seconds to try to figure out
what the sentence says.
2. She sets the timer for 10 seconds.
3. As the students are trying to read the sentence, the teacher interrupts the
students urging them to hurry or telling them that “This should be easy
for you.”
4. Once the 10 seconds are up, she tells the class to write what they think
the sentence is in their notebooks.
5. The students share their sentences with a partner. The teacher calls on a
couple students to share with the class.
v. CLOSURE
1. As a class, discuss what were the difficulties the students faced in
deciphering the sentence? Did being told to hurry help or make it harder?
What would have helped?
vi. INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
1. Students will write a paragraph in their Awareness Week Journal about
what they learned and how this activity made them feel. Students will
include how this changed their perspective on learning disabilities.
a. Students with Visual Processing Disorder: Have them sit in the front during the read
aloud and during the Engagement activity
b. Students with Auditory Processing Disorder: Let students sit closer to the teacher during
the Read Aloud and during the instruction modeling
c. Students with dysgraphia and dyslexia: For the written reflection students can type their
d. ELL Students: have a separate sheet with Spanish instructions for the students to take
home
L5: Physical Disabilities
1. STANDARDS
b. Wheelchair
c. How Katie Got Her Voice by Patricia Mervine
3. OBJECTIVES
a. CONTENT
i. Students will be able to understand what it may feel like to have a physical
disability as evidenced by the wheelchair and one-hand activity.
i. Physical disability
4. ASSESSMENT
i. Teacher Observation
b. FORMAL/SUMMATIVE
i. Students notes in their Awareness Week Journal
ii. Written paragraph in Awareness Week Journal
a. ANTICIPATORY SET
i. ENGAGEMENT
1. Read How Katie Got Her Voice by Patricia Mervine
1. Ask students if they know what it means to have a physical disability.
Discuss that there are a large variety of different physical disabilities, all
of which can range from a mild problem to incomplete immobility. Many
people will have more than one disability, such as not being able to use
their legs or hands.
i. Inform the students that they are doing two activities today. Both of which take
place outside the classroom.
ii. Activity 1:
1. Borrow a wheelchair from a disability agency or see if the school nurse
has one.
2. Model to the students how to sit in the wheelchair and how to move it
around
3. Have each student take a turn sitting in the chair and have them try
different activities. In their Awareness Week Journal have students list
what activities they did and how it made them feel.
4. Write a list of activities on the board that the students can reference:
a. Going from one part of building to the other
b. Going through the lunch line
c. Getting a book off the top shelf in the library
d. Playing a game in the gym or playground (i.e. soccer, basketball)
e. Going to the bathroom
f. Going through an outside door
g. Being in a group where everyone else is standing up
iii.Activity 2:
1. Inform the students that they are going to try different activities using
only one hand. In their Awareness Week Journal have students list what
activities they did and how it made them feel. Tell them that they can do
this activity independently or with a partner.
2. Write a list of activities on the board for the students to reference:
a. Tying their shoes
b. Going through the lunch line
c. Eating lunch
d. Opening a jar that has a screw-on lid
e. Playing catch
f. Holding a stack of papers and handing out one at a time
g. Going to the bathroom
c. CLOSURE
i. Discuss how the two activities made the students feel.
ii. First focus on the wheelchair activity. Ask students what emotions they were
feeling and would have made things better.
iii. For the second activity, discuss the problems the students had. What if they
couldn’t use either hand?
iv. Discuss what problems would arise if they were in a wheelchair and couldn’t use
their hands.
d. INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
i. Students will write in their Awareness Week Journal a paragraph about what they
learned and how this activity made them feel. Students will include how this
changed their perspective on physical disabilities.
a. Students with Visual Processing Disorder: Have them sit in the front during the read
aloud.
b. Students with Auditory Processing Disorder: Let students sit closer to the teacher during
the Read Aloud.
c. Students with dysgraphia and dyslexia: For the written reflection students can type their
d. ELL Students: Have a separate sheet with Spanish instructions for the students to take
home

Disability Awareness Week-5

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Disability Awareness Week-5

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DISABILITY AWARENESS WEEK

3rd Grade Disability Awareness Unit

Miss. Cyr and Miss. Morris

a. Common Core Standards: 4.2.G; 5.1.G; 7.1.G; 8.1.G; 8.1.M

a. Common Core Standards: 4.2.G; 5.1.G; 7.1.G; 8.1.G; 8.1.M

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Disability Awareness Week-5

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Disability Awareness Week-5

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DISABILITY AWARENESS WEEK

3​rd​ Grade Disability Awareness Unit

Miss. Cyr and Miss. Morris

a. Common Core Standards: ​ ​4.2.G; 5.1.G; 7.1.G; 8.1.G; 8.1.M

a. Common Core Standards: 4.2.G; 5.1.G; 7.1.G; 8.1.G; 8.1.M

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi

3rd Grade Disability Awareness Unit

a. Common Core Standards: 4.2.G; 5.1.G; 7.1.G; 8.1.G; 8.1.M