Special Kids Project
Deborah Meza
2008-2010
Shelyn Elementary
Table of Contents

Introduction ……………………………………………………….........................4

Shelyn Elementary School………………………………………………………...5

Students……………………………………………………………………………..6

Designed Based Learning……………………………………….........................7

Criteria List………………………………………………………………………… 9

Curriculum Integration Chart……………………………………........................10

My Story…………………………………………………………………………….11

Pathways…………………………………………………………………………...13

Pathway #1 NBS Introduction……………………………………………………15

Pathway #2 NBS Instant Neighborhood……………………………………......18

Pathway #3 NBS New You……………………………………………………….21
2
Table of Contents cont.

Pathway #4 NBS Site Location …………………………………………………..24

Pathway #5 NBS Way to Divide a 3D Landscape……………………………...28

Pathway #6 NBS Land Parcel in a Real Location………………………………31

Pathway #7 NBS Shelter………………………………………………………….35

Pathway #8 NBS Ways to Move………………………………………………….37

Pathway #9 NBS Places to Shop…………………………………………………39

Pathway #10 NBS New Neighborhood…………………………………………..41

Conclusion………………………………………………………….......................43
3
Introduction

My name is Deborah Meza. I have been in the field of
Special Education for twelve years.

I currently work for the Rowland Unified School
District at Shelyn Elementary School as a special
education teacher in a Special Day Class.

I conducted the DBL program in my classroom during
the 2008-2010 school years. Eight of students
participated in the 2008-10 project and two new
additional students joined in 2009-10 school year. The
emphasis of my project was to have my students
express themselves more verbally and communicate
with others.

My students have very low speech skills due to their
disabilities. DBL has given them the ability to improve
This is a picture of the 2008-09 school year.
their oral language.
4
Shelyn Elementary School

Shelyn was built in 1969 and serves students in
Group
Percent of
total Enrollment
African
America
n
2.17%
America
n Indian
0%
grades K-6.

“The vision of Shelyn Elementary is to engage all
students in the pursuit of life long learning, to
Group
White
Percent of
total Enrollment
6.51%
participate in a democratic 21st century, and possess
the creative skills in a rapidly changing digital world.

A California Distinguished School.
Socio
economical
Disadvantage
21%
Asian
52.86%
English
Learners
29%
Filipino
5.52%
Students with
Disabilities
15%
Hispanic
or Latino
22.29%
Pacific
Islander
0.39%
This is the 2009-10 chart of the students race ethnicity.
5
Students

Ages varies from 5-10 in the primary severely handicap classroom.

Disabilities are Mental retardation, Downs Syndrome, Hearing Impaired, Cerebral Palsy.

Services they receive are Speech, Adapted Physical Education, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy,

Hearing Impaired. (services depend on each (IEP) Individual Education Plan).

Students require a lot of repetition, modeling, physical assistance and a lot of visuals and hands on activities.

Each student uses the SEACO curriculum. (Special Education Administrators of County Offices). This guide
enables students with moderate to severe disabilities access to the core curriculum areas of the California State
Standards.
6
Design-Based Learning

A field of study that has students perform challenges
that are project- based. All curriculum consists of
hands-on activities.

The Doreen Nelson Method of DBL consists of
Backwards Thinking™, which aims at promoting
creativity and is a process that takes six and half
steps.

The first challenge is addressed below to show
examples of the 6 ½ steps.

In the first step I asked myself what do I need to teach
my students. My students lacked communication skills
and socializing with others.

In the second step I identified a problem or difficulty
my students had in the classroom. Introduction was
important because skill students lacked difficulty
communicating with others.
Doreen Nelson 6 ½ Backwards Thinking Process
7
DBL cont.

In the two and half step I stated it as “Never Before Seen”. I modeled and showed my students what it means to be
different. I modeled, modeled, modeled then introduced myself...My students introduced themselves by sharing an item
brought from home with their classmates.

In the third step a criteria list was created. The list consisted of a “Don’t Want” and “Needs” column. The list was based
on required curriculum and each students individual needs. I created the list with the input of my students. The criteria
list gave my students guidelines that needed to be followed through the challenges.

In the fourth step my students designed a 3D NBS object using the criteria list in order to solve the problem. Here I
encouraged my students to ask questions and expand their vocabulary. I asked them to describe their design. Such as
the color, size, what the function is, why they made it. I encouraged them to talk, talk, talk…The 3D object created was a
poster size replica of their favorite item and was worn as a costume.

In the fifth step I taught guided lessons that consisted of different subjects such as ELA, Math, Science and Social
Science. Students did write ups, made comparisons and stated differences and graphs. Some of the guided lessons
included write-ups about a favorite object, drawings and worksheets.

In the last step my students revised their design. They added to their already made 3D object or changed it entirely.
Students applied lessons previously taught and were assessed for comprehension and understanding.
My students drew and introduced different objects to the classroom.
8
Criteria List

Don’t Want
Criteria List is a chart that is divided into two sections:
Needs
Don’t Wants and Needs. Students with the guidance
of the teacher choose what they wanted to include and
not include in the challenge. It was a visual guideline
Large object
Small object
Alive
3D object
Time consuming
Look like object
for students to follow.

The items listed on the chart to the right gave the
students steps to follow.

The don’t want section was in red and needs in green.
My students are very visual, so they understand red
means “stop” don’t do and green means “go”.

We always read the list as a group, which helped
improved their speech skills.
This criteria list developed by me with the input from my students.
The chart taught the students follow the criteria that needed to be
followed to complete each challenge.
9
Curriculum Integration Chart

Creating a curriculum integration chart led me to be
more organized and to develop lessons that were
curriculum based. It taught me be more focused and
keep track of the lessons I needed to teach my
students.

The following items are in the curriculum integration
chart: The yellow boxes represented the California
State standards that students need to meet in each
challenge. The upside down red triangle represented
the challenge. The orange boxes represented the
guided that were taught to reinforce the challenge that
was completed.

The sample on the right showed the guided lessons
that would be taught to reinforce the challenge.
This is a Curriculum Integration Chart and it is used to
organize the teacher with the challenge and their
corresponding standards and guided lessons. These
guided lessons are taught after completing a challenge.
10
My Story
The students began by introducing each other to get better acquainted. They brought an object from home to use
to introduce themselves in the NBS Introduction . As they talked and got better acquainted some students became
good friends because of their similarities.
As the students continued on their conversation I decided to have them build an NBS Instant Neighborhood they
would like to live in. The NBS Instant Neighborhood was created as a group to form a community. In the neighborhood
streets, landscape and shelters were made for basic survival. All the group wanted shelters and wanted to be
neighbors with each other.
Students needed to get to know each better to have a closer community. They chose objects that symbolized
them and were their favorite objects then dressed up as those objects as they became NBS New Skin. As they got
better acquainted they discussed having a real destination to live in their community.
I led them to select on NBS Site Location that would give them access to what would be important to survive.
Choosing a site in their own neighborhood that the whole group agreed on took time and patience.
As they came to agreement they decided on how to divide the land equally so each could have a piece of property
to develop. The land needed to be distributed equally amongst ten students. Everyone received an equal part of the
land in our NBS Way to Divide Land.
11
My Story cont.
As a group a map of the location was created and divided equally among ten students. The class then
each selected their own NBS Land Parcel. The students enjoyed being neighbors with their friends.
They needed to survive in the new land. What was important for survival was a question that they needed to
answer. They built a place to protect themselves. The NBS Shelter was then created to form the
community they imagined. Different sizes of shelters were made to accommodate everyone living
in the community.
This new land would be different than their NBS Instant Neighborhood that they made quickly because it would be
larger and more detailed with more shelters, ways to move, places to shop for their expanding population.
Then once they had places to protect themselves they needed to move from one place to another. They
created a NBS Way to Move. They built devices with wheels to roll around in, floating devices, devices that
can fly, jump, etc. All the devices were tested.
After creating ways to move the group needed NBS Places to Shop. They decided on having places to
shop that would sell food, toys, animals.
The story ended when the challenges were put together to form the NBS New Neighborhood. This challenge
reviewed the whole project. The students chose their favorite part of their neighborhood and drew a picture of the
their favorite object of their NBS New Neighborhood and the pictures were put together in a book for the class.
12
Pathways

The Special Kids Project was a year long series of
challenges and guided lessons that were organized as
Pathways. The pathways became the sequence for
the story. The guided lessons were linked to the
California State Standards. I organized the pathways
on seven Long-Range Planning Boards that showed a
sequence that went from simple to more complex and
showed the story of building a community in the
classroom.

The planning boards displayed the ten challenges that
were linked to each other.

The legend on the left of the long-range planning
board is colored coded in the following: yellowChallenges, orange-History/Social Science, red- Math,
purple-Science and blue- English Language Arts.

The boards state the guided lessons with the
corresponding State Standard right below it.
This Long-Range Planning Board displayed the challenges and
guided lessons with standards for the first two months of school.
The legend is on the left and the challenges on the right. The
first challenge is NBS Introduction followed by NBS Instant
Neighborhood.
13
Pathways Long-Range Planning Boards
I made 7 Long-Range Planning Boards for the class and administration to understand the sequence of the project
story and to know what was planned throughout the year.
14
Pathway #1 NBS Introduction

At the beginning of the school year an introduction got
students acquainted with each other.

This was done as a group by having students bring a
favorite item from home.

Students chose up to three items from home to share
with their classmates.

The students then briefly discussed why the items
were their favorite.

Diego brought a baseball, phone and watch to the
classroom to share. He shared with his classmates
that he enjoyed playing baseball with his father
everyday when his dad got home from work..
Jane brought legos from home. This is her favorite toy and she said
she enjoyed building houses with her sister.
15
NBS Introduction cont.

As a group a Criteria List was created.

This was the first criteria list that was developed.
Most of the input was given by me.

My students used 2 to 3 word phrases to describe why
Don’t Want
Needs
Large objects
Small item
Alive
Item brought from
home
Time consuming
Use complete
sentences
the items were important to them. I modeled for them
ways to use complete sentences when describing
their items.

The guided lessons included completing and All about
me” worksheet, classifying objects, expressing wants
using complete sentences, drawing simple picture,
modeling turn taking, etc.
The criteria list names the important things to complete in this
challenge. The first list was short because I wanted the list to be
comprehended by my students and as the challenges got more
complex the list would get longer.
16
NBS Introduction cont.
“When they introduced themselves they learned to identify their likes and dislikes then expressed
their feelings.”
I started the lesson by introducing myself and the item that was important to me. I then prompted and modeled that they would
also be taking a turn and talking about their items. Two students identified their objects and gave a brief description of them.
One of my students brought a baseball, phone and watch. His ball was important to him because “I play with dad”,
describing a special moment with his father. The phone was important to Mielena because “I call mommy”. I needed to
assist some of my other students because some were to shy to speak. One of the lessons they really enjoyed was the “All
about me worksheet”. This worksheet listed the following: favorite color, food, cartoon, and special moment. They enjoyed
filling it out and posting pictures of themselves and their families they brought from home. The guided lessons integrated from
This challenge in English Language Arts was about “The Family”. My students constantly looked at the board and
admired the pictures of their families and themselves. They expanded their vocabulary as well as improved in their oral
language. Students were graded by seeing if they could express themselves orally using phrases and or complete
sentences. The challenge encouraged them to be more verbal. I repeated the challenge in the 2009 school
year with the same group and the two new students as a review and the only ones who had difficulty were the two new
students. The purpose was to check on comprehension and to achieve more language from my students.
17
Pathway #2 NBS Instant Neighborhood

Together they created an imaginary NBS Instant
Neighborhood.

In their neighborhood they created shelters, streets,
landscape where they lived as a community.

My students were shown visual prompts during the
challenge. The visuals shown were (books, pictures)
and the term “neighborhood” was discussed. My two
assistants helped the students.

They collected left over bottles, milk cartons,
construction paper, tissue paper, etc in the classroom
to make our 3D neighborhood.
Students made their homes from milk cartons and chose the
color for their house. Each personalized their home by placing
their picture on their home.
18
NBS Instant Neighborhood cont.
“When they built a neighborhood they learned to identify parts of it, such as homes, places to shop, streets,
school then they compared and contrasted places in their neighborhood.”
I began the challenge by introducing the class the word “neighborhood”. I read the students two different books
about the neighborhood. Some of the students recognized apartments, market and school. One student described the
time she went with her mom and bought ice cream at the market. Mackenzie told the class that she lived in a big
apartment. These two students used prior life experience and associated it with the lesson. When they began building
the NBS neighborhood, students made their homes from milk cartons and placed them on the piece of land. Fatima
could not wait to name all the students and where their house was located. Diego wanted to live by Mielena and placed
his house next to hers. I taught the students that there are different stores in a neighborhood. As a group they came up
with a market, toy store, laundromat and pet store. They used these words because NBS words were too abstract for
my students to comprehend. One of the students expressed himself by coming up with the idea to use links for streets.
All the students wanted to place their street by their home. Some of the guided lessons that the students succeeded
were in role playing occupations, identifying tool to job occupation and identifying the different shapes in a house.
These guided lesson were integrated in a Social Science and Math lesson. Students were assessed by
19
NBS Instant Neighborhood cont.
understanding the different parts of the neighborhood and the results of the guided lessons. Only two students out of
ten remembered the different parts of the neighborhood and the guided lessons were completed with assistance.
I decided to repeat this challenge because so many of my students could not recall the information. I began by
identifying the different parts of the neighborhood from the previous time and had the students add to their
neighborhood. Most students added windows to their house and some students added trees made out of construction
paper. Constructing was minimized this time because the emphasis of understanding and remembering the different
parts of the neighborhood was the purpose. By repeating the challenge and being clearer it gave four students the
ability to state the different parts of the neighborhood. The results improved from the first time of
completing the challenge.
20
Pathway #3 NBS New You

Students needed to get to know each better to have a
closer community. They chose objects that
symbolized them.

They selected items that they enjoyed playing with in
the class.

Students dressed up like their favorite object in the
class.

I prompted students to interview each other. I asked
what are you? Why do you like it?

Mielena expressed herself by saying” I love abc song.
I puzzle”. She met the purpose of the challenge.
Fatima chose to dress like the alphabet puzzle. She
told her classmates that today she was a puzzle.
21
NBS New You cont.

They then began creating a criteria list. The list again
Don’t Wants
was kept simple.

Needs
Students wanted to choose large objects at first, so I
had them go back to the criteria list and reviewed it as
a group.

Large objects
Hand Held
Alive
Human made objects
For students to be
confused
Look like object
(front/back)
Throughout the challenge I continued to refer to the
criteria list because some of my students did not follow
the list.

The guided lessons that followed in this challenge
included a writing sample, description of shapes in
object and a drawing of their object.
22
NBS New You cont.
“When they made a NBS New You they learned to identify with an object then they learned to label the
different parts of the object and its function”.
I began the challenge by having each student choose their favorite item in the classroom. They chose
puzzles, crayons, and number chart. Most of the students went directly to the item and some needed some
prompting. Having them choose an item that symbolized was a difficult concept, so I had them choose an object
that they enjoy playing with in the classroom. Mackenzie and Diego chose a body shape puzzle. I instructed them to
draw the puzzle on paper to be large enough to fit their bodies. Mackenzie said “costume like Halloween”. I replied by
saying yes you will be wearing it like a costume. My students lack a lot of fine motor skills, so I helped them draw the
details of the puzzles. They then colored in the drawing to match the puzzle. This challenge gave them practice with
their fine motor skills as well as their oral language skills. Diego kept mentioning the different body parts on the puzzles
as he colored them and traced the corresponding word. Two other students chose an ABC puzzle to become as their
new skin. Mielena played with this puzzle every morning, so she completed her drawing while singing the abc song.
23
Pathway # 4 NBS Site Location

The students decided to continue on their journey until
they reached their desired destination. They selected
a NBS Site Location that would give them access to
what is essential to survive.

Their Instant Neighborhood had no specific location
because it was imaginary.

This time they looked at maps and pictures to give
them background knowledge for this challenge.

I taught them that a map was a resource to guide
people when they are lost.

I had an actual map and they used it to locate the
school and surrounding neighborhood. Then as a
group they chose an area to concentrate for this
challenge.
They located the school first on the map then drew a house and a
shark (school mascot) to symbolize our school. A tree was included
to symbolize park.
24
NBS Site Location cont.

I explained what a map consisted of and that it was
Don’t Want
Needs
how it is a tool for locating different places and ways to
reach the location.

Students chose the locations and landmarks on the
Time Consuming
Group Work
Large Scale Map
Include Visuals
Overcrowded with streets
Small Scale Map
map that were relevant to their reality.

They included symbols to represent different areas on
the map.

The guided lessons completed after this challenge
included measuring land, landmark worksheet, identify
landmarks.

Ruby successfully completed her landmark worksheet
and identified school, park and streets surrounding the
school.

Fatima located the school, by pointing to the shark.
Major streets, school site,
parks
Creating a criteria list for locating a site location on a map
was challenging. I prompted the students when creating the
list.
25
NBS Site Location cont.
“When they selected an area on a map in their own community they learned to identify landmarks such as
schools, parks, etc then they differentiated between these lands.”
I started the challenge by introducing the function of a map. I then told students that they would be choosing a
location on the map and drawing it on the butcher paper. Ruby then said” my daddy map in car”. Ruby was letting the
class know that her dad carried a map in his car. I reinstructed Ruby to state her comment in a complete sentence. I
reinforced that the school needed to be included and had them locate it on the map as a group . A site location was
agreed upon and I drew the section of the map on a large piece of butcher paper. I told students that the drawing
would be much larger than the original map, so everything could be more clearly seen. Yarn was used to measure the
dimensions of the outline and transferred it to the butcher paper. Jane counted as she measured and then took the
yarn and traced a line on the butcher paper. Once they measured and traced the area on the butcher paper Diego said
“rectangle”. He recognized that the shape of the area selected was a rectangle. They located the school on the map
and drew a shark to symbolize it to help my students recall it. A shark was used because it is the school’s mascot. The
second landmark that they all agreed to include was the park. I drew a tree to represent the park. Last the major streets
on the map. I kept the map simple, so they could be able to locate the areas on the map and comprehend the
challenge. I assessed the students to see how much they
26
NBS Site Location cont.
comprehended from completing the challenge by having them identify their school, park and major streets. Four out of
seven students identified the two major landmarks. They also identified the streets by the dark bold lines, but did not
recall the street names. Fatima was able to say “shark” for school and “tree” for park. The symbols made their map
more visual and simpler for them to understand. I graded them by completing worksheets that matched name to symbol
and simple oral questions. I implemented English Language Arts and Math guided lessons as part of this challenge
and overall my students successfully completed their assignments.
27
Pathway # 5 NBS Way to Divide a 3D
Landscape

They were going to redo the NBS Instant
Neighborhood by slowing the process down and
having each student owned a piece of the selected
landsite.

I gave the students background knowledge on
fractions by bringing them cookies and learning whole,
half and one fourth. This took a lot of repetition as not
all students comprehended the concept.

Students re-measured the previous map and placed
the yarn on the enlarged map.

Diego again recalled the shape of the map.

Math was incorporated throughout this challenge
through measuring, counting, shape identification, etc.
Diego was able to transfer the information to the
large map and traced the lines to divide the landsite.
This was a significant moment for the students
because they were able to complete the challenge.
28
NBS Way to Divide a 3D Landscape cont.

A lot of visuals were used throughout the challenge. I
had a number chart, flashcards etc. for the students.
Fatima was the helper by holding the chart and
assisting the other students numbering the map.

Students referred back to their criteria list when they
were not following it. One of my students wanted to
just draw circles on the map, but as soon as I
redirected him he was back on task.

By completing this challenge the students felt
ownership of their own land.
Final product of challenge. Students divided the land
equally, numbered their parcels and selected one by
placing their name on it.
29
NBS Ways to Divide a 3D Landscape cont.
“When students made an enlarged map of their area around their school they learned to divide and distribute
pieces of it then compared and contrasted the differences between their parcels”.
The students reviewed the map by focusing on the street names and landmarks. Mielena, Diego, Mackenzie and Ruby
were all able to say “shark was school and tree was the park”. Fatima recalled that we used yarn, so she decided to get
theyarn and measure one side of the map; each student then took turns measuring. Diego removed the yarn and then
placed the same sized yarn on the butcher paper. With the background knowledge I taught about fractions and dividing
things the students still had a difficult time dividing the land. Finally the land was divided into seven parcels, one for
each student and each parcel was numbered. Fatima and Mackenzie identified the numbers and traced them with no
difficulty. However, Ann Marie and Andre needed hand over hand assistance tracing their number on the map. Each
student choose a number on the map and I assigned that land to them. This gave them ownership of their land. As a
group I completed three lessons on fractions using cookies, precut circles and rectangles to asses my students comprehension
on this challenge. Fatima, Diego and Mackenzie learned whole and one half, but found it a difficult time understanding one fourth,
and one third.
30
Pathway # 6 NBS Land Parcel on a Real
Location

Now the landsite that they selected to redesign had
land in a real location. For the land to be more visual
with 3D objects to make it look more realistic, a model
of the enlarged map was made.

I explained that everyone needed to add to their own
parcels and place objects that correspond to the
original map.

Their NBS Instant Neighborhood was reviewed for
background knowledge.

As I showed them their Instant Neighborhood Diego
and Mackenzie recalled making their neighborhood
and named parts of it.
Diego and Mielena placed different objects on their land parcels.
Colored links were used for streets.
31
NBS Land Parcel in a Real Location
cont.
Don’t Wants

A walking fieldtrip around the actual neighborhood
Needs
Incorrect objects
Shelters
Forget geography
Major landmarks
(school, park, streets)
Time Consuming
Places to shop
gave the students more visuals and an understanding
of what is around their school. Photos were taken to
be used as an aid in creating their own individual land
parcels.

Introduction of books about neighborhoods were also
shown for background knowledge.

A lot of repetition and referring back to the criteria list
was needed through the challenge. We read the list as
a group to help the students recall the objects to
include on the parcels.
Landscape (trees)
Developing this criteria list required prompting and visuals to
complete it.
32
NBS Land Parcel in a Real Location cont.
“When they designed and built on a parcel of land they learned to place shelters, ways to move and places to
shop on the land then they compared what was on their land parcels to others”.
Students got their pre-divided land parcels that they chose in their previous challenge. I placed post it notes on Fatima’s
land for the school and Diego’s for the park. I asked Fatima what the shark symbolized and she said “my school”. She
recalled the information talked about during the previous challenge. Fatima placed a cup and glued numbers on it
because she said “Numbers at school”. I saw that she was able to associate the challenge to her everyday life and what
she had learned in class. Diego placed a green container with links on it and said “swings”. All the students placed shelters
on their land. They decorated their milk cartons as shelters and placed their picture on it to make them more personal.
Mackenzie was the first one to place apicture on the carton and then everyone followed. Fatima remembered she used
links for street, so she decided to use it again. Students used soda bottles with sorted pictures to symbolize places to shop.
Not all the students wanted stores on their parcels. The other students placed crumbled up tissue paper for trees
after Mackenzie did that on her parcel. Some students needed assistance locating were their parcel belonged on the
map. Fatima and Mackenzie recognized that all the parcels had shelters on their land. I described other similarities and
33
NBS Land Parcel in a Real Location cont.
had students with assistance pointed out the similarities and differences of each land parcel. Some of the guided
lessons included in this challenge compared parcels, classified objects, identified similarities and identified color, size,
and objects on parcels. The curriculum integrated in the guided lessons were in Social Science, Math and English
Language Arts and Science. Each land parcel was reviewed and I individually assed the students by asking them
1)What are the similarities 2) Which parcel is small and/ or larger? 3) What objects are on their parcels? Some
students responded to the questions and helped their classmates with their land parcels. Six out of ten
students answered questions #1, Seven out of ten answered question #2 and all ten students
mentioned some of the items on their parcels.
34
Pathway # 7 NBS Shelter




They created their own land parcels. But realized in
their journey that everyone needed shelters to survive
such as animals, people and they needed to create
shelters of all sizes to accommodate everyone.
They reviewed different types of shelters and saw
flashcards with pictures of shelters. The shelters
introduced were houses, apartments, mobile homes,
dog houses and bird houses.
Everyone used different materials and objects to built
their shelters including milk cartons, legos,
construction paper and paper bags.
The criteria list listed visuals, different types/size of
shelter, recyclable materials in the needs and time
consuming, spend a lot of materials on the don’t wants
section.
Diego built a shelter for animals. He enjoyed looking at books with
animals. He used a lunch bag and used markers to decorate it and
placed different pictures of animals on the bag.
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NBS Shelters cont.
“When they built shelters they learned to identify different types of shelters such as those for animals or
people, then compared and contrasted the different kinds of shelters”.
I gave students butcher paper, construction paper, scissors, tape, etc. Fatima began by getting a paper
bag and decorating it. She said brown was her favorite color and she would but windows and doors to make it
her home. I corrected her by saying the correct word to use is “shelter”. It was important to differentiate words
because the meaning to each was different This was a vocabulary word for the day and they need to use it instead of
the word house or home. Mielena created a two floor shelter just like where she lived. She decorated the cup with
scrapes of paper and placed it on top of a green strawberry box. Jane needed some assistance, but she completed her
shelter by placing one lego on top of another. Then she placed a car next to it and said “For dog”. All the shelters the
students built were for people to live in. However ,Diego decided to make this for his dog “Bambi”. Some of the guided
lessons addressed after this challenge were comparing and contrasting shelters, writing assignment and identifying
shapes on shelters. Students identified the differences from shelter to shelter. The vocabulary words they used were
big, small, dog, two floors, window and doors. The students were assed by the use of the vocabulary and oral
description they expressed about their shelter. Such as the vocabulary words stated above and the word “shelter”.
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Pathway # 8 NBS Ways to Move

They had a place to live, but how did they get from
one place to another was the obstacle that the
students had in their journey.

They needed to built ways to travel and get around the
land.

I modeled different ways objects moved from one
place to another and read them books. Some of the
ways discussed were rolling, pushing, flying, or
jumping.

The items on the criteria list included the following: the
speed of the object, the weight of the item and what it
would move.
Mielena decorated a paper with markers and crayons and placed it on
the container. She glued tops of a container onto the ends of the
bottles, so the object can roll.
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NBS Ways to Move cont.
“When they built different ways to move they learned to identify different methods people used to get from one
place to another then they compared the similarities and differences between each form of movement”.
Marianidett decided to use a cup because it rolled. My aide helped her with the cup because she did not
understand the concept of moving. She got scraps of paper and crayons to decorate the cup. Then she rolled
the cup across the table, to show the way it moved. Andre also had a difficult time understanding the concept.
My aide worked with both students to help them complete the challenge. Diego was able to understand the
concept a little better. He put pipe cleaners on each side of a plastic bottle and he then showed the class that
his container moved by pulling either side of the container. Mielena enjoyed playing with cars. She placed
two lids on each side of the container to make it move from place to place. Most of the students had a hard time
understanding the concept of movement. In my guided lessons I concentrated on transportation worksheet, identified
characteristics of movement and identified similarities and differences. They were assessed by successfully completing
the lessons. Diego and Mielena identified their objects and showed the way it moved. Diego then explained how both
of them had used plastic containers for their objects.
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Pathway #9 NBS Places to Shop

They wanted food, toys and animals on their land.
Lets make places to shop that sell items students
needed and wanted.

I took the class on a walking fieldtrip of our
neighborhood shopping center. They took pictures
and went into stores and made lists of items sold in
each store. This was the background knowledge for
them.

The criteria list included different places to get things,
small places, big places, and used a lot of visuals.
Students referred to the list as needed throughout the
challenge.
Mackenzie made a place to shop that sold dinosaur items. She
glued dinosaur pictures and tissue paper on a milk carton. This was
her favorite animal.
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NBS Places to Shop cont.
“When students built NBS Places to shop they learned to identify the different items that people need then they
compared the similarities and differences between stores in their community”.
Fatima was excited to make her own place to shop. She decided to make a Hannah Montana Store because that is her
favorite television character. Fatima told her classmates that she watched the show with her sister Denise everyday.
She used a plastic container and placed different Hannah Montana items on the container. Diego then made a car place
to shop. He enjoyed racing cars with his father, but had difficult time cutting pictures of cars to place on his milk carton.
Mielena made a market by placing different items on a cup. She included cookies, milk, bananas and cereal. She said
“Mommy market”, she explained that she goes to the market with her mother. She transferred her everyday life experience to
the challenge. During the guided lessons they wrote a simple shopping list, compared kinds of shops, made a drawing of their
object, and a wrote short description of their shop with some assistance. They were assessed on completing the lessons.
The shopping list was created as a group during the walking fieldtrip. Students compared the kinds of shopping places by the
different items each student had. The write-up was completed by two of the students writing a complete sentence about their item
with some assistance.
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Pathway # 10 NBS New Neighborhood

In the Pathway #2 they created the NBS Instant
Neighborhood, but it was too small to accommodate
the imaginary community. Now they created a NBS
New Neighborhood which put together all the previous
challenges of shelter, places to shop and ways to
move. They added streets and landscape to
accommodate the whole community.

This challenge was a culmination of everything they
learned during the school year.

Students recognized each part of their neighborhood
and reflected on the times they completed the
challenges, as they placed the different objects on
their neighborhood.
The was the final product. Each parcel was put together and combined
with all the challenges.
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NBS New Neighborhood cont.
“When they built a NBS New Neighborhood they learned to identify the different parts of the neighborhood
that needed to be changed then compared and contrasted these to existing places in the
neighborhood”.
This last challenge reviewed of the whole school year . Through observations and questions I saw the students progress
and understand the challenges. They got together as a group when I asked what they learned during the school year.
Many responded by naming the different parts of neighborhood because it was placed in front of them, others said building
and having fun. Students who were are not very verbal said words like car, houses, stores, market. All my students recalled
an experience they had through the challenges. Some of the students expressed themselves better through the challenges,
others improved in their writing skills. The guided lessons completed after this challenge compared their Instant Neighborhood to
their New Neighborhood. They drew a picture of their neighborhood and wrote a simple letter to a neighbor. As stories were
read they recalled the challenges and the objects they built.
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Conclusion

My Special Day class students vary in IQ, but the Special Kids project taught them to become more expressive in their
communication skills. They achieved this through the challenges and objects they made. Most of the students used their
imagination as well as the background knowledge provided by the teacher to complete the various challenges throughout the
year. They had many obstacles to overcome, because many of the challenges were way beyond their ability, but with repetition,
modification, visuals and assistance the challenges were completed. Before the project I found students were very limited with
their speech. They spoke in one to two word phrases and some would not express themselves. They now express themselves
more verbally by using more description and vocabulary, and seem excited about their work.

As a teacher I learned a lot through developing the Special Kids project. It taught me that I needed to step back and let the
students explore and come up with their own ideas. I learned to provide a lot of background information because some of the
concepts were too difficult for the students to comprehend. Some of the challenges needed to be completed in parts because
some of the students became too overwhelmed with the challenges lasting for a long period of time. Making the challenges in
parts provided me with more feedback on what needed more instruction when returning to the challenge at a later time. I made a
list of items and concepts to review and assessed the students on their comprehension before beginning the challenge.
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Conclusion cont.

I learned the importance of keeping the objects made in the class for future reference. In the past I sent them home for
students to show their parents. However, I started taking pictures and sent those home instead. My parents really
appreciated that because many would place the pictures on their refrigerator and my students would discuss the pictures
with them. This provided more opportunities to improve their communication skills. By keeping the physical objects in the
classroom I could go back to the challenge when needed and use it as background knowledge for a future challenge.

Using the Doreen Nelson method of DBL taught me the importance of sequence and to show that each challenges builds
on each other. In the past I taught one topic and then a different topic. I did not realize this way of teaching was not effective.
I believed what confused them is I did not tie all my subjects to the lesson I was teaching. DBL has taught me through the
use of Curriculum Integration Charts that I can plan a challenge and tie all subjects to the guided lessons. By improving my
planning skills I have achieved more detailed and organized lessons for my students.

My project taught me the importance of hands-on activities for special needs students and the benefits it provided for the
students and myself.
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