Use the special ed inclusion documentation forms to keep track of service times, lesson plans, and more. Streamline it all quickly and effectively!
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Listen to this Special Ed Podcast with 15 great ideas for Functional Centers for students with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism in High School. Read more and subscribe today!
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Create a Math Block I can't say this enough. An effective math block will help you tremendously! It creates routine and structure that you need to make sure everyone is on task. This is what I include in my math block: Engaging Mini Lessons Math centers Independent practice visuals throughout the classroom Use A
Our next project is a fun Halloween project. You will use the worksheets as a guide as you roll a die to randomly select the parts of a monster to draw. After you draw your monster you will need to color it in full color. You can also add extra details and textures to make your monster unique. Monsters need to be drawn on the provided paper and fill the page. (No tiny monsters!) You will create two monsters for this project. DIRECTIONS: There are 4 different options below. Choose 1 worksheet per monster and complete all the requested rolls for your monster. Roll the die and draw the corresponding shape that matches the number you land on to create your monster. After you draw the monster parts you rolled, you may add extra touches and color to your monster to make it your own! Virtual Dice OPTION 1 OPTION 2 OPTION 3 AR Standards: CR1.5.1 P5.5.1 CN10.5.1
The first two weeks in a special ed classroom are more than academics. Ideas on what to teach, what to practice, and what you should be doing.
Listen to this Special Ed Podcast with 15 great ideas for Functional Centers for students with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism in High School. Read more and subscribe today!
Beginning of year special education forms - As an inclusion intervention specialist, your first week of school can get hectic fast. You are playing the...
Finding resources to support middle school special education students is difficult, here are the best reading resources that I have found.
Got a talkative class? Check out these 5 ways to quiet the chatter!
One of the most frequent questions I have been asked is how I use Unique in my classroom and how I plan! I have to admit, I am an avid fan of Unique Learning System, however, I do not use ALL components of the unit. I have been using ULS for about 5 years now, enough to have figured out which pieces of the unit fit best with my students. One of the good things about Unique is that they provide you with an abundance of materials. I have not met one teacher yet that is able to use ALL of the plans from the unit (and if you are one of those teachers more power to ya!). For me, the key is to find what works best for your students! Monthly Mapping The first thing I do is grab a monthly calendar and my blank planning template (I will post the link to this free resource below). I mark all the days that we will be off and out of school. Once I have those days crossed off I start my planning. I print the first page from the unit that lists all the lessons. I plan when I will give my pre-assessment and then when I want my students to have their post assessment. If you do not use the Unique GPS, I highly recommend it! You can see student weak areas, what they need to focus on and you can see their growth over the month. I love it! Next, I choose the activities that I feel best introduce the topics to my students and highlight them. After I have all the activities chosen, I add them into my calendar. Unique GPS data FREE Blank Template Download Template Here Selecting the Activities I have used Unique long enough to discover what works best for me and my students. It has changed yearly. This year, I used the following activities consistently every month: Leveled Book (Lesson 1) and corresponding activity Leveled Book Comprehension (Lesson 2) Easy Read Book (Lesson 3) and corresponding activity Easy Read Book Comprehension (Lesson 4) Vocabulary (Lesson 12) Literary Experience (Lessons 15 and 16) Vocabulary Sort (Lesson 18) Science Experiment (Lesson 28) History Timeline (Lesson 29) Supplemental Activities I use: Adapted Book Packs (samples of the packs in the picks below!) I created these book packs to help me supplement the curriculum because I needed more books! I started creating differentiated activities to go along with the books. Each adapted book set comes with at least 3 adpated books each book with 3 differentiated corresponding comprehension activities. 1 file folder game to cover vocabulary, 2 differentiated levels of vocabulary task boxes, and 1 counting card activity directly related to the monthly theme. Some packs include bonus materials! Science Adapted Book Packs I currently have 11 science themed activities listed and 5 science themed adapted book packs available. You can find the link to them above. I also have them available in a BUNDLE. Social Studies Adapted Book Packs I currently have 6 adapted book packs available. I also have these bundled for convenience. You can find the bundle here. Craft Activities related to topic Extension Activities from higher level unit N2Y activities Summer Themes: Summer Camp Theme Amusement Park Theme Planning the Lessons I don't have a ton of time in my classroom to teach science and social studies content. On top of all the IEP work, speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, specials, and getting them out to gen ed, I needed to integrate my lessons. So, my planning had to be simplified and integrated. During my small group/morning meeting I decided that when I was reading books, they needed to be adapted and content related. So my first step in my planning is mapping out my literacy activities. You can see those in the picture below color-coded in purple. After I have those planned, I go back and plan on my specific content related activities, which are usually only 15 minutes long. Those are in the picture below color-coded in green. The best part about planning this way, is once I have one month planned, I can pretty much easily plug in the rest of the year's lesson plans! I just re-use the same format and timeline from the first month. Some adjustments might need to be made based on days off, special activities, but for the most part, it's quick and easy to plug in my plans for the month! Ideas for Lessons Vocabulary I always like to introduce the topics from the unit by introducing the new vocabulary. Some things that I have done in the past to make these activities fun and engaging: Mystery Box- add items to a box and have the students feel items and take guesses on what the new unit is going to be about. Example: for the light and sound unit I put a light bulb and a tamborine in the box and had students feel and guess what the items were. Play Hide and Seek- Hide new vocabulary words around the room and have students find them. When they find a vocabulary word have them read it to you. Mystery Word- Put vocabulary words in a brown paper bag and have students choose a word from the bag and tell class and hang up the word Put students in charge of changing the words- Our words are hanging on the wall next to our white board, I like to lay all the vocab words on the table and ask the student to find ______ and hang it on the wall. After I have introduced the vocabulary we play the corresponding match game the next day. I like to incorporate the leveled books during my literacy lessons. Typically, I will introduce the first book, and have students find the vocabulary words and highlight them. For my lower level students, the adapted book packs I use incorporate the vocabulary making it quick and easy for you to assess using the books. I typically read the book and have my students make selections from the icons from a field of 2 or 3 depending on the student. I make sure to emphasize the unit vocabulary words during the story and direct instruction. We do the vocabulary sort around three weeks into instruction so that I know the students have a had good quality time to absorb the content. I usually use this as an assessment, and students complete either individually or with some physical assistance. For my higher level students they complete independently and have very little accommodations. For my lower level students they complete with some assistance (for physical needs) but I color code their sorts to make it more independent for them. Color-Coded Vocabulary Sort (Not from Unique, but strategy I use for differentiation) Adapted Books/Literacy I use both of the leveled books provided in the unit. I adapt them so they are interactive and the students can use icons to engage in the story. If the book warrants, I will use props to keep the kids excited about the story. I use these books to cover content, otherwise I would not have time! My typical routine for literacy is: Introduce the book Read and emphasize vocabulary Have students match icons to story from a field of 2 or 3 Complete literacy activity and discuss vocabulary Re-read book focusing on content Comprehension assessment I repeat these steps for the five books that I use during the unit. I created my adapted book packs so that I would always have a content related book to read and an activity to correlate! It makes my literacy planning so much easier! I love using the literary experience. I use these monthly but pick and choose upon availability of the books that correspond with that lesson. Adapted Books for "Plants Can Grow" Unit Adapted Book Packs Props for acting out story "Bunny in the Garden" Science Experiment I love doing the science experiments with the kids! I love getting them excited about them! I typically do my science experiment the third week of instruction however in this example (May) I needed to do it sooner due to the nature of the experiment (keeping plants healthy). I break my experiments down into smaller sections to increase engagement. Here is my typical routine for science experiments: Day 1- Introduce experiment- show items used in experiment, pass out experiment packet, look through experiment and discuss our steps. Day 2- Re-read experiment, discuss and make hypothesis, "check off" materials to make sure we are ready to go! Day 3- Conduct Experiment - following steps of experiment Day 4- Review our experiment, complete conclusion I try to do experiments on Thursdays because we have extra time on this day because we have no specials! One fun way I like to get them excited is to purposely leave materials for the experiment out around the classroom. When they find them, I say, "I guess you'll have to wait and see for experiment day!" Science Experiment "Keeping Plants Healthy" Crafts I like to do crafts related to the topics of our units. I usually just pinterest or try to think of my own. Also, if you have access to the intermediate level of the unit, they have crafts as part of their lessons! I usually pull from that unit as well. Craft for "Our Impact on the Environment" Unit Craft for "Plants Can Grow" Unit How do you plan your units? I would love to hear new tips and tricks! Drop a comment below if you have any suggestions for me! Follow my classroom journey on instagram for more ideas, tips, and fun!
Stop taking away recess and using other punishments to control your students. Find success with 10 powerful classroom management strategies!
From foundations and grants to books, bikes and benefits - a big list of places that can help out with free stuff for kids with disabilities
We had another class Monday night with our new dual/ELL staff members, and this time we focused on differentiation and what that may look like across the subject areas. As we have done in the past, we had the teachers participate in a gallery walk and thus rotate around with their groups to add to a series of posters focused on this topic of differentiation. Yet again, our wonderful staff did not disappoint and came up with a wide assortment of ideas as to how instruction can be differentiated for our students! I typed up their ideas on a nice one page spread for them, and thought you all may find it useful as well! Click on it to grab a copy for yourself or a friend. Graphics/Fonts: Scrappin' Doodles, Rowdy Fonts, My Cute Graphics Also, (as if you haven't already heard ;)), I wanted to let you all in on the big secret. TpT will be hosting a "3 Million Teachers Strong" sale February 27-28th. In using promo code TPT3, you can get up to 28% off at my store along with so many more! How exciting is it to see this community of teachers growing and working together :)!
Don’t get me wrong — I love candy. And, a jolly rancher, a tootsie roll, or a starburst can work wonders in the classroom for student motivation and enthusiasm. So can pizza parties, and cupcake days, and brunch, and…I’ve had so many types of food parties I can’t even keep track! Recently, however, I’ve been […]
With World Down Syndrome Day and Autism Awareness Month right around the corner, this is the perfect time to think about hosting your own disability awareness day to help students throughout your school better understand different types of disabilities! Last year, I used this Disability Awareness Day Kit from The Bender Bunch to host a schoolwide awareness day for 3rd-5th graders. I was lucky enough to have a principal that let me get a sub for the day to run this wonderful event. I set aside about an hour and 15 minutes per session and did each grade level at their own time. For the event, I sent out parent volunteer forms and got parents to sign up for a time slot to help run a table! Traci from The Bender Bunch included so many great things for me to use during this event. There are some things that you need to grab ahead of time that you'll see in my pictures, but overall it was really just making copies, finding volunteers, and setting up the stations! For my event, I created my own questionnaire to send out to teachers about a week before the event to have their students fill out. This gave me a great idea what they knew about disabilities already, what questions they had, etc. They answered a very similar questionnaire after the event so I could see what they learned! I also spend about 15 minutes at the end of the the event talking to each grade level about ways they can be a good friend to someone with a disability, asking them questions about what they learned, and answering any lingering questions. Overall, it was a GREAT success! In the future, I'd love to do it again (with help!). I did this event last year all on my own and although it turned out amazing, I would love to do it again with a little less stress (and someone to help me answer questions, those kids had some awesome questions!). Each station was set up at a table like this with everything you needed to run the station smoothly! I grabbed a bunch of gloves from our school lost and found and had the students trying to pick up pennies, tie their shoes, etc. It was eye opening for them! Finger spelling word puzzles, these were awesome! One of our stations had Google Chromebooks set up with a couple different things. One was white noise where they had to listen to the white noise while doing the specified activity. I also had some set up to show them a video through the eyes of someone with Autism. They all loved this! I e-mailed the Autism video to classroom teachers in case someone didn't get a turn. You can see the video HERE. I loved this station. All of the kids were like "I can't see that!!!" and I'm like "that's the point ;-)" haha! Have you ever done something similar at your school? If not, I highly recommend doing it! This event was a huge eye opener and big hit!
The green and red choice board is a universal support available for all students to support their social-emotional behavior.
Are you looking for free preschool curriculum? This is the ultimate list of free preschool curriculum to help you make the best choice!
Teaching kindergartners how to cut – quick resources for teachers. Here are some bright ideas to teach how to cut for thoses that need it in your classroom.
Take a visual approach to math and patterns and use counting bears worksheets to teach numbers, colors, patterns, and more.
This Dysgraphia Intervention Kit addresses the concerns, needs, interventions, and documentation for students with dysgraphia. The interventions may be done in any classroom and do not require any special equipment or materials. Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects writing, which requires a complex set of motor and information processing skills. DYSGRAPHIA INTERVENTION KIT incorporates the following academic areas: Writing Spelling Handwriting Processing Visual-spacial difficulty This resource is perfect to use with RTI / Response to Intervention groups that are suffering from symptoms of dysgraphia. (RTI, SPED, Learning Disability) Included in the 166-page kit: Informational handout: What is dysgraphia? What are the symptoms and signs of dysgraphia? Dysgraphia Intervention & Strategy suggestion page Dysgraphia Intervention Checklist (use for individual students) PRINTABLE FORM EDITABLE TEMPLATE FORM Dysgraphia Checklist - Ages 12 to Adult (use for individual students) PRINTABLE FORM EDITABLE TEMPLATE FORM Dysgraphia Checklist - Ages 5 to 12 (use for individual students) PRINTABLE FORM EDITABLE TEMPLATE FORM Dysgraphia Checklist - Up to Age 5 (use for individual students) PRINTABLE FORM EDITABLE TEMPLATE FORM Dysgraphia Student Intervention Log (use for individual student documentation) PRINTABLE FORM EDITABLE TEMPLATE FORM Important Dysgraphia Intervention Terms Dysgraphia Accommodation Options & Additional Considerations Note Taking Interventions List of Common Abbreviations List of Common Symbols List of Common Contractions Strategy: Word Mapping Word Mapping Intervention Checklist Strategy: 2 Column-Style Note Taking 2 Column-Style Note Taking Intervention Checklist Creating Models of Written Work Air Writing Strategy and Intervention Checklist Warm-Up Strategy and Intervention Checklist Letter Formation Strategies and Intervention Checklists Dysgraphia Tracing Interventions: 1 shape and Intervention Checklist Dysgraphia Tracing Interventions: 2 shape and Intervention Checklist Dysgraphia Tracing Interventions: 3 or more shape and Intervention Checklist Dysgraphia Tracing Interventions: Cursive Letters and Intervention Checklist Dysgraphia Tracing Interventions: Printed Letters and Intervention Checklist Dysgraphia Binder with dividers to organize all interventions and student documentation Looking for more resources like this one? Setting Goals with Students Folder Intervention Log Kit with Binder Covers Instructional Coach Forms - Fully Editable! Digital Intervention Logs for RtI & Small Groups Digital Parent Communication Forms Guided Reading Planner PLC Meeting Notes & Forms Digital PLC Meeting Notes - hot pink style Customer Tips: How to get TPT credit to use on future purchases: Please go to your My Purchases page (you may need to log in). 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 on the product. I value your feedback greatly as it helps me determine which products are most valuable for your classroom to create more for you. ☺ Be the first to know about my new discounts, freebies, and product launches: Look for the red star near the top of any page within my store and click it to become a follower. You will now receive customized email updates about this store. ☺ Thank you for visiting Teacher Karma. For additional learning strategies, please visit my educational blog, Teacher Karma. All the best! Jen Bradshaw
Helping K-2 Teachers Like You Save Time, Grow Instructional Skills, and Teach With Confidence!
If you're a parent or teacher looing for pathological demand avoidance (PDA) strategies for kids, this post is a great place to start.
What is dyslexia? Learn the signs, causes, and how you can help. Dyslexia is a learning disabiltiy that makes it difficult to read and spell.
Use the special ed inclusion documentation forms to keep track of service times, lesson plans, and more. Streamline it all quickly and effectively!
Getting kids started writing STORIES in Kindergarten is not impossible! In fact, I have done this MANY times with my students, and I c...
Area and perimeter are two of my favorite math concepts to teach. It's easy to have fun learning area and perimeter.
Games are a great way to help students practice vocabulary. For newcomers that are just learning English, they are a fun way to practice basic Tier 1 terms. For students at higher language levels and native speakers, they are great ways to practice content-specific vocabulary. It is important to review vocabulary words with ELLs before
