For our learners who need to work on foundational learning skills, such as simple matching, I have always love creating hands on task boxes put-in tasks and color sorting tasks. My classroom closet always looked like it could be featured on an episode of hoarders. I kept every shoe box, coffee container, baby jar, and
One of my absolutely favorite things about being a special education teacher was that I had the freedom to design fun and exciting lessons for my students specific to their interests. I never had a curriculum to follow. No one ever told me what books to read to them or what activities I had to
Steps and advice on how to get a classroom student business for special education students selling beaded bracelets!
Discover the ultimate teaching companion – EL Made Easy™ Module Lesson Summaries! Simplify your lesson planning with quick, one-page outlines, packed with all the essential info for EL Education. Save time, embrace your teaching style, and connect meaningfully with your students. Elevate your teaching game with EL Made Easy™ and make this school year unforgettable!
The best part about Summer Visual Crafts is the real picture step by step directions! This makes this resource SO easy to prep!
Being a special educator is an amazing title that comes with lots of prep work and responsibility! There are just some resources that a special educator really needs to have in their classroom to help keep them organized, data-driven, and their students on track. Whether you are prepping your classr
Making sure our students have enough math practice is vital. Thankfully, there are math websites that are great for special ed!
Incorporating Getting to Know Each Other activities in your primary classroom is critical for a successful school year. See these ideas to build community.
Encourage language development and social skills through music in special education. Engage all students with interactive and inclusive activities.
So in this post im going to share with you 10 hacks that can help you to capture your learners’ attention.
What do you do as a special ed. teacher when a student with autism refuses to work? It depends on the function of the behavior! Learn the 12 Best Strategies!
ESY, or extended school year, is SO important to the kids from my classroom. If they go all summer without their structure, routine, and working on skills it
I feel that it is essential for every English literature student–whether that be honors, regular, or support level– to have the ability to read a single text through a different critical lens. This skill teaches students how to have an open mindset and view the world through someone else’s perspective–which is one of the fundamental purposes ... Read More about Creative Ways to Teach Critical Lenses
Explore the essential stages of pencil grip development in kids and discover how to support them at each step! Learn the importance of a proper grip for neat and efficient writing.
Here are ten student lesson plans for back to school along with resources for parents and teachers to get your year started right!
Here are special ways to enjoy a pirate mini-unit study with your kids. Get fantastic ideas & easy-to-use resources for awesome learning fun!
Self-Contained Special Education Music Classes: tips and resources. Organized Chaos.
Help Kindergarten age kids practice counting, money, letters, colors, and more with...
This resource covers information on the proprioceptive sense and includes proprioception sensory activities for kids.
Including art therapy in the classroom can help students with self-expression, emotional regulation, and confidence. Here's how to do it.
Finding resources to support middle school special education students is difficult, here are the best reading resources that I have found.
FREE Call Backs and attention getters for the kindergarten classroom! Great classroom management tool!
Welcome to Day 2 of Speech-A-Palooza! I hope you enjoyed Whitney's post yesterday! Today's post is from Jen Alcorn, author of Crazy Speech World. Themes are something new I am trying this year, too. I had always done the traditional holiday themes, but I am now trying out a new theme every other week. This post will be helpful for any of you that use themes in your therapy sessions... or are thinking about doing it! One of the most popular questions I get is about using themes for therapy. Mostly, how do I plan my themes? I'm sure other people have different methods, but here is how I do it... My therapy themes are simple and straightforward. Over the summer, I sit down with my calendar and map it out. It takes an hour or two, but it ends up making therapy planning incredibly easier. Why? Because you are able to narrow your focus. When I tackled this project the first time, it was a little overwhelming. But the more you do it, the more comfortable you become with the process and it ended up being pretty easy for me this past summer. Something you may find helpful is from Perkilou Products...it is a four week calendar for every month of the year. It gave me ideas when I was first starting to create my own. My own version is a little different. I center my planning around holidays and seasons, some of which I use for two weeks. You can download my version HERE. I also created a blank version, which you can grab HERE. After this part comes the fun stuff...finding materials! Blogs. I think these are the best places to get inspired and find activities. Pinterest. I have seen tons of Pin Boards dedicated to specific holidays, seasons, or themes. You can even search by theme using the search box. Books. Look through your own or go visit the library! You can find a book on any topic, try to find various levels, as well as fiction and non-fiction. Go through your STUFF! Pull your files out and go through your cabinets. I bet you have tons of your own materials that you can use :) I have started organizing my themes by binders to keep up with it all. I bought tons of page protectors to keep all my original worksheets and materials in, and all of my activities for that theme go in the binder. I also make a list of all the manipulatives that I have that go with the theme...like I have jack-o-latern baskets I can use for Halloween or the Popcorn containers with the carnival theme. I just don't want to forget what I have! We always have so much STUFF! I still use my trusty bag of favorites...CandyLand, Apples to Apples, Chipper Chat etc. to fill in the gaps. Not everything I do is related to the theme, but I love having the organization of using themes in therapy. I really believe that it has positively impacted my therapy and I would encourage any SLP to do it!
Student rewards don't have to be expensive or complicated! Incentives for middle school students just have to be fun and consistent.
50 Easy Process Art Activities for Kids
Four supplies - five if your kids are artistic - are all it takes to make artificial fish swim. This was loads of fun, which is my favorite way to teach science concepts. What You Need White craft foam Baking dish of water (either jelly roll or 9- x 13-inch casserole dish) Liquid dish detergent Permanent markers What to Do Cut fish shapes approximately 2 inches long from the white craft foam. Decorate your fish with permanent markers if you want. Cut a small rectangle out of the tail fin of each fish. Fill a pan with about an inch of water. Place your fish in the water, pointed in the direction you want it to swim. Carefully drop a drip of dish detergent in the fish's tail fin notch. Watch your fishy zoom forward! To repeat, you'll need to dump the now soap-filled water and refill with plain water. Note: We wanted to race two fish but found that it was tough to get the drips of soap in two fish so quickly. As soon as the soap disperses in the water, the fish won't swim. How Does it Work The detergent breaks the surface tension of the water, forcing the fish forward as the water molecules break apart because of the soap. Read The awesome activity came from a collection of everyday at-home science experiments. I highly recommend Kitchen Science Lab for homeschoolers, supplemental after school science lessons, mad science-themed birthday activities, etc. Why not teach your kids about fish along with this activity? We read the following books, which inspired the designs of our fish and our REAL understanding of how they swim in the wild.
The activities below are available for free download, and are to be used in educational and/or private settings. They may not be used elsewhere or for other purposes (such as for profit) unless exp…
Assessing student learning is often boring, but this post describes creative and fun ways to assess student learning - especially for formative assessment!
Need a creative idea for teaching money to kids? The Money Game is a fun hands-on way! Inspired by the Beth Kobliner Book- Make Your Kids a Money Genius
Hey y'all! Earlier last week I posted over on my Instagram about using Unique Learning in my classroom, trying to figure out a doable schedule, and choosing which activities are worth my time and which are just not a great fit. If you have ULS, you know that it is VERY overwhelming with an insane amount of materials and information. Let me just preface this with: I am NO expert on ULS. I have no idea what I'm doing half the time (honestly) but I've been trying to find a good groove this year and here is what I've got so far! So as November began, I sat down with a glass of wine and started digging through all of the November lessons. This month is all about People Long Ago, which is great for November and adding in some Now vs. Long Ago work! There are certain lessons I ALWAYS do (the comprehension ones for 1-4 and the vocabulary sorts always happen!). There are certain lessons that I HATE (that might be a strong word but there are a few lessons on the Elementary level that I truly do not like at all). Some of the lessons I never use are the telling time, the "history" lesson (which is always a timeline and basically just ordering numbers in numerical order), the scrambled sentences, and a few others. Again, these things are just MY personal preference, and obviously things change with different groups of students! I started by emptying out this tub (ignore the tabs, those are all wrong and I still need to update them!). Inside the tub I put all of the printed materials in order from beginning of the month until the end of the month. Once I get around to changing the tabs, they are going to have the days of the week on them to go along with my monthly plans calendar! I assigned 1-2 activities to each day of the month and do most of them in whole group format this year. This lesson (lessons 3 & 4) is a must-do this month. It is a great way to work on comprehension but also adds in some History standards to cover those bases with my kiddos! The other comprehension lessons (lesson 1 & 2) are always another "must do" with my students. I love that they differentiate the comprehension questions page (3 levels: 1 with just words, 1 that you see above with pictures, and another that has pictures but only 1 question per page). It provides easy differentiation when you need it! We also did the additional materials that went along with this lesson which was awesome because there were no wrong answers for the "needs" web! This vocabulary sort lesson is another lesson I always do with my students! It's a great way to practice the material we are working on while also working on sorting, cutting, gluing, etc.! This now & long ago sort is another activity we are using this month (it is a part of my Now and Then Activities Unit) along with some now & long ago bingo! This will be a great way to practice sorting those items that we are learning about from the past and the present and to check for my student's understanding. These are also the crafts we are doing in the coming weeks (you'll see them on my calendar!) and they are all from Gabrielle over at Teaching Special Thinkers. I LOVE her Easy Art Crafts! We also have a subscription to News2You, which I LOVE, and we do that once a week during our whole group time. If you don't have News2You, I would definitely look into it! It's cheaper than ULS and has a tons of worksheets that go along with the weekly paper which is awesome! Obviously we are doing more than what was pictured above from this month's ULS, so take a peek at my monthly calendar up above to see which lessons we are hitting this month! I might not use all the same lessons next month, as it depends on the content, but hopefully this gives you a good idea of how I'm using it for now! I feel like I could go on for days about different things inside ULS and would love to hear what some of your challenges, strengths, and favorite parts are! How do YOU use this in your classroom?!
If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen Lesson Plan Similar Resources:
Start your fine motor skills task box collection with this free set of playdough activity cards! This freebie also includes a label and instructions.
Flexible seating on a budget . . . does it really exist? When it comes to outfitting your classroom with flexible seating, there are lots of options available - but not all of them come with a hefty price tag. You can find a variety of flexible seating choices for students without breaking the bank.
I was introduced to this lesson by Claire Kirk & Katie Flowers. Both amazing artists and art educators I have had the honor of knowing and working with over the years. From observational drawin…
If you're looking for interoception activities for kids to improve internal body awareness and self-regulation, these ideas will inspire you!
What is design thinking, and how is it useful in educational settings, for both students and teachers? VideoAmy's playlist of clips explores the topic.
In 2008, I developed a self-portrait art lesson to help students express both their inner and outer selves, combining drawing, collage, and typography. I recently updated the project to include techniques like mixing skin tones, understanding facial proportions, and depicting diverse hair textures. This refreshed lesson not only enhances students' artistic skills but also encourages self-expression and identity exploration; find the full lesson plan on my website or TpT store.
This post may contain affiliate links. That means that if you click the links and make a purchase I may receive compensation at no additional cost to you. I do not recommend any companies that I do not persoanlly use and love. Please read our disclaimer for more info. Will they ever learn!? Every year, I am always surprised at the eighth-grade students who pass in papers with their names written without capitals. They just aren’t doing the editing! If you ask an eighth-grade student whether they know to capitalize names, they always say they do. And yet I repeatedly receive assignments passed in with the same error. In the past, I have used checklists to remind students of the different things they need to be looking for when they are editing their writing assignments. But, the students who really need to lean on the checklist are often the ones that leave them on the floor. Check out the checklists that I use here. Editing Stations This year I was trying to find a new and interesting way for the students to work on editing. I found some different ideas online of ways to use stations to work on editing. So, I decided to create a lesson that used stations as an engaging way to have the students edit their work. google.com, pub-8344856003157368, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 Editing Stations The purpose of this is to give the students a different thing to focus on at each station. You can use the signs that I have created, or you can do your own thing depending on what issues you are seeing in your class. I have a station for capitals, a station for punctuation, a station for their introduction, one for their body, one for their conclusion, and one that focuses just on their thesis statement. I came up with these ideas based on the common errors and weaknesses that I found in their last writing project. How to use them: You can make the stations as basic or as deep as you’d like. Just ensure that if you have them looking for multiple things, that you give them adequate time. My stations are really looking at small things and you could probably give each station about 5-10 minutes depending on the class. I have the students each take a Chromebook because my school has given them all Google accounts. Google accounts are fabulous because it saves their work for them. Plus, no matter what computer they’re on; they always have access to their work. Previously when we had to use thumb drives there were so many issues. Students would lose their thumb drive, break their thumb drive, or forget to save their document at all. Google accounts fix these problems. I have the students each take a Chromebook and they move from station to station looking at each sign and checking their writing assignments for the things that are highlighted at that station. You could do this with hard copies of their writing. But, I feel like having them move around with a Chromebook, they can make the changes to their document immediately, and you are not wasting as much paper. How do you work on editing with your students? Also, check out: Awesome Resources for Middle School Reading Intervention Pre-reading Strategies for Middle School 502 Bad Gateway 502 Bad Gateway nginx
