Core Skills Analysis
English
Arrie practised oral language by engaging in conversations, explaining her iPad-created outfits, and participating in Simon Says, Truth or Dare, Would You Rather, and collaborative storytelling. She took turns contributing ideas and listened while others added to shared drawings and stories. Arrie also communicated her feelings and boundaries when discussing a friendship fallout, choosing not to share the full experience while accepting reassurance. These activities supported speaking, listening, narrative development, social communication, and expressing personal perspectives.
Creative Arts
Arrie designed outfits on her iPad and showed her creations to the support workers, using digital tools to communicate ideas visually. She also joined a turn-taking drawing game and helped create stories with others. These activities developed imagination, visual communication, creative decision-making, and confidence in sharing original work. Arrie demonstrated ownership by choosing what to create and when to present it.
Health and Physical Education
Arrie participated in outdoor games, spinning, sensory movement between two chairs, and exploration of the outside environment. After tripping while spinning, she communicated distress by crying and accepted water and reassurance from familiar adults. She later identified that she was tired and chose not to leave home for the library, demonstrating awareness of her energy and comfort needs. Arrie also independently brushed her hair, showing progress in self-care.
Mathematics
Arrie’s requested visual calendar provided an opportunity to understand daily organisation through days, routines, and the sequence of supports. She could use the calendar to identify when activities and support sessions occurred. Taking turns in games also introduced informal counting, order, and rule-following. The activity supported practical time awareness and planning rather than formal mathematical calculation.
Humanities and Social Sciences
Arrie expressed interest in visiting the library, demonstrating awareness of a community resource and a possible community-access goal. She then considered her energy after leaving home the previous day and decided not to go, making a personal choice about participation. Conversations about friendship and group games supported understanding of relationships, communication, boundaries, and respectful participation. Arrie also practised cooperating with others by sharing turns and agreeing to group activities.
Tips
Tips: Use Arrie’s calendar to plan a short, low-pressure library visit, perhaps beginning with choosing one book or spending ten minutes there. Extend her outfit designs into a mini fashion catalogue with names, descriptions, and a preferred audience, linking creative work to writing. Revisit the drawing-and-story game by creating a beginning, middle, and ending together. Continue offering movement choices with clear safety rules, and invite Arrie to identify her energy level before and after each activity.
Book Recommendations
- The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires: A creative story about designing, persistence, frustration, and trying again.
- The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson: A sensitive book about feeling different, sharing experiences, and finding connection.
- Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña: A story that connects community experiences, perspective-taking, and noticing value in everyday places.
Learning Standards
- English – AC9E6LY01: Arrie used interaction skills, turn-taking, spoken language, storytelling, and personal communication to participate with others and express boundaries.
- Mathematics – practical time and organisation: The visual calendar supported sequencing days, recognising routines, and planning activities; the supplied standards list does not include a directly matching Year 6 time code.
- Science/Health-related observation: Arrie noticed tiredness and responded to movement-related experiences, but no supplied Science code directly matches this activity.
- HASS – community awareness: Arrie identified the library as a community resource and made a decision about accessing it; this connects broadly with community participation, although WAHASS31 specifically addresses local government decision-making and is not a direct match.
Try This Next
- Create a weekly calendar worksheet with spaces for support times, energy ratings, and one chosen community activity.
- Design an outfit catalogue page: draw the outfit, name it, list its colours and materials, and write where it could be worn.
- Story-building cards: choose a character, setting, problem, and solution, then tell or write a short story.
- Make a safe-movement checklist covering space, speed, stopping signals, and how the body feels afterward.