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About UCP Bailes Campus UCP’s facility was designed with the children's needs in mind. It’s
design is adapted to not only the visual needs of the children, but also the social organization, and emotional environments that are essential to meeting all the needs of each child.
The facility includes: 21 spacious classrooms
Infant rooms, Toddler rooms, Pre-Kindergartenrooms, and Kindergarten-3rd grade rooms
Observation rooms Gross motor room/therapy gym Cafetorium (Cafeteria/Auditorium Area) Multi-purpose room (for Art and Other Projects) Virtual reality center Conference room 2 Playgrounds, ball field, nature and garden area
Toddler Classroom
Observation Room
UCP’s Philosophy UCP’s philosophy is that each child has different strengths, and all
children should be given equal opportunities to serve as leaders. UCP places a strong emphasis on developing effective communication,
active cooperation, thoughtful problem solving, individual and group initiative, pride in uniqueness, development of talent, and embracing differences. The curriculum was developed from theories on brain research, multiple intelligences and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). They also provide comprehensive education and use an integrative, hands-on approach to learning. Therefore, children develop skills in all academic, social and emotional areas throughout their day.
Two elements that are central and unique to the UCP Bailes program are the integration of the arts and technology. By integrating these two resources into daily and weekly lessons, they are able to offer students opportunities to explore and expand upon new skills and abilities.
My Project While at UCP Bailes campus I had the privilege of
working in a toddler age classroom with 16 young children.
I went to the school every Wednesday morning and stayed till around 1:00pm, or until after-care started.
In the particular classroom I was in the students did centers everyday. The centers included Blue Square (assessments conducted by the teacher), Green Triangle (worksheet/activity of choice), Yellow Star (working with computers), Red Rectangle (self reading) and the Purple Circle (speech and writing).
Demographics I worked with Kindergarten aged students. There were 16
students in the classroom. The students were from all different ethnic backgrounds such as White/Caucasian, African American, Asian, and Hispanic.
These students had disabilities such as: autism; emotional disturbance; hearing impairment; multiple disabilities; specific learning disability; speech or language impairment; traumatic brain injury; visual impairment
(including blindness).
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Number of Children With Disbaiity
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Centers In Classroom
Free Activity After Worksheets are Complete
Green Center-Worksheets
Computer Center
Circle Time/Reading
Reading Center
Engagement Activities As well as centers in the classroom, the students had
“specials” every day. The specials included Art, Physical Education, Science, and Nature. Students also had Recess everyday.
Soccer During Physical Education
Red Light, Green Light During Physical Education
Free Play/Recess
Engaging Activities (contd’)
My Activity In the classroom, the type of technology that I used
was a program called BoardMaker. I created a matching activity using the program for the children. Their assignment was to divide 20 pictures into 4 different categories. The categories were Fruits, Clothing, Sports, and Transportation.
Every student had a chance to complete my assignment. I worked in groups of 3-5 students giving each student a chance to place a picture into the correct categories using laminated pages, and Velcro.
My Activity
Reflection Initially, I was intimidated by working with children with
disabilities, because of fear of not knowing their limits, and not being able to teach them according to their specific needs. Upon completing this assignment, I now feel much more comfortable working with children with disabilities. I find it very rewarding at the end of the day to have known that I made a difference in a child’s life.
Connecting to the Course This project was completed for the EEX 4070 class at UCF. Some concepts discussed in this course that the service
learning project helped me better understand were the: Strategic Instructional Model: SCORE Skills:
Share ideas Compliment others Offer help or encouragement Recommend changes nicely Exercise self-control
Cooperative Teaching Intellectual Disabilities
This service learning project has encouraged me to work more hands-on with the children, and has opened my eyes to being more active while teaching in the future.
