OLMatters - The School Paper
Capturing Memories for the Future
Vol XIII - August 2017 - July 2018
A FUN PLACE TO LEARN!
Nearly thirty years ago, a resource center was created with the purpose of helping students who do not speak English or Portuguese learn either or both languages. As the necessity of providing assistance to students with learning difficulties arose, the resource center expanded, creating the special needs department.
The resource center itself is divided into two departments: the special needs support and the language development support. The language development side simply teaches students the new language, while the special needs helps with matters such as taking tests.
When assisting students, teachers instruct them with basic words and, if needed, mimic in order to achieve a deeper understanding. Ms. Maia is the coordinator of the resource center and her job is to make sure everything is working and functioning properly.
The resource center creates a more developed and sophisticated environment for students and without it, OLM would not be fit to accept as many students as it does now.
by Alessandra Oliva (´17)
It is truly a pleasure working with these children!
They impress us daily with the amount of effort they put forth throughout the day always keeping a smile on their faces. They approach each content area with enthusiasm and perseverance always trying their best.
Celline, Bernardo, and Mari work hard throughout hands-on activities so that they can develop not only math skills but also memory strategies, fine motor skills, visual perception, spatial organization among others. We also focus on critical thinking processes needed for them to build and reinforce mathematical concepts and relationships in their own mind. They have been exploring, discovering, discussing, and meaningfully constructing mathematical concepts and relationships in contexts that involve real-world problems and projects that are relevant and interesting to the learning process.
On our field trip to the supermarket, they had to calculate how much money they would spend on the ingredients to make brownies and their change. Upon return, after cooking and using their knowledge of fractions, they calculated the cost of each brownie and for how much would they have to sell each to have the return of what they spent plus some profit.
The brownies were delicious and the experience AMAZING!!
Olga Martins - Carolina França
Resource Center