I Swam in October!
I Swam in October!

I Swam in October!

Not having time is an

excuse for not prioritizing properly.

Hello my dear friends,

This week has been really good, fun and crazy at the same time! The school year started for my students on Wednesday, so I finally had the chance to put my OWN lesson plans to action! Turns out the kids really enjoyed the new and creative ideas I planned, so I will be continuing those for several weeks.

An example of an activity that was very popular among kids with Autism, is the Personal, Social and Emotional Development section of the curriculum. Children with autism often need visuals in order to better understand instructions, so I created an interactive game to encourage the students to engage with each other. Basically, one learner will start, and choose one of the other learners to give them an object. Then, the first learner will choose the object amongst

several choices, and finally, will actually give this object to the learner they chose! This encourages not only sharing, cooperation, interaction and sociability, but also demonstrates that the child is in control of who they interact with, and can hopefully encourage them to continue doing so without the prompting from adults. My goal is to eventually only ask for the learner to choose another learner and choose an object from one visual, so the action is more and more independent. 

Another activity that was very popular was Simon Says, which the children really enjoyed! I am loving my job as a teacher, and I can’t wait to see progress within the children. In a week, I will coordinate my lesson plans to a Halloween theme, and I am so excited! 

Balancing Goals and Fun isn’t Easy!

I have posted a motivational vlog last week on YouTube, which you can watch here. I have to be honest, I haven’t been great at keeping up with my goals this week, however Emilie and I cooked a lot together, and kept the apartment very clean! In fact, we realized we only went out three times since she got here, so we are treating ourselves to sushi tomorrow evening and a movie!

However, at the beach today, I planned my week, specifically starting from Wednesday, when Emilie will leave, so I can continue focusing on my goals. I am not looking forward to her leaving at all, but I am still glad that I at least have been writing blogs or filming Vlogs! 

One thing that I mentioned in my Vlogs that has worked for me, is creating a list of musts, shoulds and coulds for the week, and this system has been quite successful. You can see an example of this below. This schedule was for the previous week, and it will be quite similar this week. 

My mood has also been better recently, and the more I search for happiness within myself and not from external factors, the better I feel. I have been going to therapy weekly, and it has been helping me so much.

I have been getting closer with my coworkers, and we even went out to a work dinner the other day. My good friend Carla left to Spain on Friday, so I am quite sad about that, but I know I will see her soon. Nothing in life is permanent, which is good and bad, because it means sadness and pain isn’t permanent either.

I am excited to see what this fall season will bring to Malta, but so far I have been gladly swimming in the sea!

Yours truly,

Anastasiya

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