Happy August! Many of you will be getting back at it this month and with that comes new folders, new markers, and now, new forms! Whether you’re a new school social worker just starting out or looking to update the outdated forms you’ve been using since the mid 90’s, the pack is sure to meet ...
Target "size of the problem" by describing and solving problems for emotional regulation. Activities, visuals, social story and goals!
Learn About the 7 Continents! Exploring the 7 Continents has never been more exciting! It’s a Small World Continent Study is filled with over 35 activities to help your students gain a greater understanding of the seven continents. This 130+ page unit is filled with great resources, posters, printables, activities, and projects that will open […]
A one page worksheet on interrupting. What interrupting means. When it's ok to interrupt. The polite way to interrupt.
Self-control is an important life skill. Here's 4 ways to teach self-control to children using modeling, stories, practice, and consequences.
Use this list of free resources to use as social emotional learning activities to help you work with kids and young adults. As a special educator for 10 years, I can say without a doubt that we need more social emotional learning supports for kids and young adults. Some of my best days in the classr
special education, behavior, behavior plans, BIPs, writing a behavior plan
Throughout my years teaching middle school, I have had the experience of seeing many "work refusals". These are the situations when kids, for a variety of reasons, just refuse to start the work you give them. They might shut down and rest their head on their desk or lash out in anger, shouting about
Click on the picture to download your own copy of the poster, or you can order a hard copy for £2.
Happy Monday friends! For today’s classroom management Monday I am going to be talking a little bit about PBIS. It is something that I think every school should have and implement because when done well, it can really do great things for your school. So, what is it? PBIS stands for Positive […]
This personal space social story will help your child understand the concept of personal boundaries. It explains how there are difference boundaries depending on the relationship you have and touches concepts of consent.
If you are wondering how to help your child overcome fear, here is a 4 step process to help them manage and overcome feelings of worry and fear.
I'm sure we've all heard this term before. If you are a teacher, especially a special educator, you know this term well. You might...
The Pathway 2 Success SEL Curriculum is a complete social emotional learning curriculum to teach critical SEL skills for the entire year. It is filled with over 180 lessons and activities targeting social awareness, confidence, SMART goals, social skills, study skills, managing emotions, understandi
Check In Check Out is an evidence-based tier two behavior intervention. Here's my best tips, tricks, and resources to help you succeed with CICO.
Tons of helpful growth mindset activities for elementary students in one place. Easy to implement ideas to motivate kids to build a strong growth mindset!
I am so excited to launch my first "series" of blog posts! It's making me feel all grown-up and blogger-like :)My first series is going to be on increasing student engagement in the classroom. Over
It's hard to talk to students without making it a lecture. Empower students while you teach them about respect using hands on activities
Effective social responsibility strategies to teach kids to solve problems peacefully and resolve conflicts independently.
Paper Bag Dramatics: A fun activity for Team Building and Developing Community. Here's an idea that can be used just about anywhere at any time. It encourages groups to solve problems, think creatively, and work as a team.
A bundle of free zones of regulation printables that you can download and use as a supplement to the Zones of Regulation curriculum.
We all have had students who have a difficult time with impulse control, planning ahead, time management, starting a task, completing a tas...
Through the years I have had a few students with selective mutism. When I met my first student with S.M., I thought she was just very shy. For this post, I will call her Sally but that is not her real name. But, after a couple of weeks of school, it was clear that there was more going on that a case of shyness. That is when I asked for a meeting with Sally's parents to get their insight into what was happening. Her parents told me that she would only talk to the people in her immediate family and one neighbor. She wouldn't even speak to her grandparents or cousins. After observations and meetings with her pediatrician, counselor, speech pathologist, she was officially diagnosed as having selective mutism. Luckily, Sally's parents were very open to ideas and happy to try anything that we suggested. Sally's mom would send me something to school on a weekly basis. Sometimes it was a bag of cookies that Sally and her mom had baked together. Other times Sally's mom let her pick out a packet of stickers to donate to our class. Sally's job was to hand the item(s) to me. We set the following goals: 1st: Hand the item to the teacher without mom standing beside her. I said thank you but did not ask her any questions about the item. 2nd: Hand the item to the teacher while looking at the teacher. I said thank you but did not ask her any questions about the item. 3rd: Hand the item to the teacher and say you're welcome. I said thank you but did not ask her any questions about the item. 4th: Hand the item to the teacher while looking at the teacher and say you're welcome. I said thank you but did not ask her any questions about the item. 5th: Hand the item to the teacher while looking at the teacher and say you're welcome. Answer teacher's question with one word. I said thank you and then asked her a question that could be answered with one word - usually a yes/no question. 6th: Hand the item to the teacher while looking at the teacher and say you're welcome. Answer teacher's question with 2 or more words. I said thank you and then asked her a question that required a few more details. Once again, Sally's parents provided extra support to help her build relationships with her classmates. Sally and her mom loved to bake. Usually students only brought treats for their birthday. I gave her mom permission to send in treats more frequently. When Sally passed out the treats to her classmates, she was concentrating on the actual process of passing out, and less about her anxiety about communicating with her classmates. We set goals for this too. 1st: Pass out treats without teacher support. 2nd: Pass out treat and make eye contact with classmates. 3rd: Pass out treat, make eye contact with classmates, and smile when student says thank you. 4th: Pass out treat, make eye contact with classmates, and say you're welcome when classmate says thank you. Sally received weekly support from our school counselor. Our counselor let Sally choose a buddy come with her. She and the buddy played games in the counselor's office. In the beginning, Sally would only smile and shake her head for yes or no. But, over time she slowly began to whisper to the counselor and her buddy. I think it helped that there was only one buddy and they were in a quiet office so she felt more comfortable. By the end of the year, she was able to invite 3 buddies to go with her. As you can imagine she became very popular because she got to pick her buddy(ies). Word quickly spread that if Sally chose you, you got to go play games. Students wanted to sit by her at lunch and invited her to play games with them at recess. There are different reasons why a student may have S.M. Sometimes it is an anxiety issue. Click HERE to read more about this topic. Interested in reading more posts? Click on the pictures below.
The term "choices and consequences" sounds harsh, doesn't it? It's missing that warm social-emotional feel other topics like empathy and calming strategies have. You know that helping students learn to reflect on the decisions they make and the results are some of the most essential SEL work you can do. So let's dive into five
How can you support the development of self-regulation in kids? This huge resource is full of self-regulation games, information, books, and more!
Welcome to one of my hundreds of character building posts. Today we focus on respect. These 20 ways to teach kids about respect include my previous lessons, crafts, activities, book collections and thoughts about teaching kids the importance of showing respect. I am also including other ideas I’ve found around the web so you are...Read More
This product is designed to support students learning about appropriate personal space. It may be helpful for students with autism who have difficulty with this social skill. Worksheets included are to be used in conjunction with discussions about ‘personal space circles’ and ‘the one arm rule’. Includes worksheets, sorting activity, a social narrative, visual supports and 3 classroom posters. Suitable for Kindergarten, Pre-Primary, Year One and Special Education classrooms. Worksheets Draw a personal space circle around the people. Color the people that are too close red/ color the people giving personal space green. If you enter someone's personal space how might they feel? Color the correct responce. Sort the good and bad personal space choices (cut and paste). I can use the one arm rule (with and without dotted thirds). What can I say and do if someone is in my personal space? Coloring Pages Coloring pages boy and girl versions. Sorting Activity 12 color clipart images to sort into 'respecting personal space' and 'not respecting personal space'. Social Narrative Social Narrative: 'Giving my Friends Personal Space' (10 pages). Visuals Visual supports: Hands to myself, too close, personal space. Classroom Posters Classroom posters: Sitting on the mat, talking to my friends and lining up. UK/Australian spelling versions included. Please see preview before making a purchase. ***************************************************************************** **This product is also part of my social skills saving bundle. Find it here!** ***************************************************************************** Customer Tips: How to get TPT credit to use on future purchases: Please go to your My Purchases page (you may need to login). Beside each purchase you'll see a Provide Feedback button. Simply click it and you will be taken to a page where you can give a quick rating and leave a short comment for the product. Each time you give feedback, TPT gives you feedback credits that you use to lower the cost of your future purchases. I value your feedback greatly as it helps me determine which products are most valuable for your classroom so I can create more for you. ☺ *****************************************************************************
Free printable social scripts for kids about asking for help
tips for successful parent teacher conferences, parent teacher conference forms, resources for parent teacher conferences, advice from veteran teachers
You can use these free LEGO printables to start a dialogue about emotions when a child's emotions start to get out of hand.
If there is one thing I have learned from working with preschoolers and now, homeschooling my own preschooler, it is that they love, more than anything else,
Talking about responsibility can easily be a boring lecture for kids. We made it fun and interactive by talking about "whose job is it" for the important responsibilities in their lives!
These 6 simple strategies to teach social skills when it doesn't come easy to your child will help you in teaching social skills to your child who struggles
We created the Positive Traits printout as a bit of blank canvas. It is, quite simply, a list of 58 positive traits. Try being creative with this tool! If...
Explore social-emotional activities for preschoolers and toddlers that support cooperation, interaction, and relationship building.
This week I have been visiting third grade classrooms to do lessons on strategies for success on the SOLs. Third grade students will be taking the SOLs for the first time starting May 13th. Some of them shared that they are feeling scared, nervous, worried, excited, etc. The goal of this lesson is to build their confidence and give them strategies to help them do their best. The lesson is titled "You're In Control". We started by watching this video: Next, we moved on to identifying strategies that can help students be successful on the tests. There are many things students can do before, and the day of the test to help them do their best. We talked about being in control of our success. We used the buttons on a remote control as examples for things we can do to stay in control. As a class we came up with lots of ideas and then students picked their top 10 for their remote control. Here is an example of what your student might be bringing home: Here is a list of some strategies the classes came up with: Prepare and study-use your resources Take your time, you have as long as you need Relax and take deep breaths Flag questions you want to go back and review Reread Get enough sleep Eat a good breakfast Take breaks: water, walking, bathroom Circle key words Wear comfortable clothes and dress for success Cross out wrong answers Use your tools remove distractions BE CONFIDENT! You're going to rock this test!
This is an awesome activity to use during the first week of school. You can use it as morning work or as a group activity as you are going over school rules for your class. Be sure to download it here! You Might Also Like:Classroom Road SignsFree Book Fair BannerPractice with Cause and EffectValentine Word ... Read More about School Rules Freebie!
