This was the third and final day at Stars and Rain. While Megan and Danica spent time in the classrooms with teachers, parents and students, I spent the day in the Group Home with staff and older students.

Tuesday, the staff asked me to observe their Morning Meeting time and to offer suggestions how to make it better. Shuai does a wonderful job in Morning Meeting engaging the students with communication, pictures for support and with learning functional skills. It is hard to make suggestions to a group of professionals who do such good work, but they insist there are always way to improve and seem to enjoy the brainstorming and collaboration. We discussed using some layered group techniques to engage students when it wasn’t their turn. The staff started with one student and we spent the rest of the morning making a lap book. Today was the “test”. As you can see in the picture, the student loved the lap book and was definitely more on task during this lesson time. All students will now be getting a lap book for Morning Meeting. The students next to him even take a peek now and then!

I have been so impressed with the staff and the changes they have made in the past year. They continue to strive to make their program better and to provide effective interventions for their students. Since last year, they have started a small workshop in the group home setting. The students are now packaging slippers for a local hotel, making cookies and packaging them to sell as well as making pizza to sell the parents in training at Stars and Rain.

Wednesday evening we said so long to the Stars and Rain staff and their families at the BBQ. It was hard to leave such a wonderful group of people. Our journey continues…

~Peggy