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
This easy office work task box is great for students who need to practice vocational tasks. Grab the video tutorial and tips in the post.
Variety of TEACCH work task boxes to help promote student independent work. Great for students with autism and special needs.
From developing fine motor skills, letter and number recognition, sight words, sorting, sequencing, reading, and math, these task boxes for autism tasks will help develop important life skills and beyond!
At the beginning of the year, I am always that hot mess teacher; HOWEVER, there is always one thing I make sure I have running smoothly by the end of September... independent work stations. Without independent work, SPED teachers would literally never get anything done. Plus, work boxes are a great way for students to
I am focusing on assembly work tasks for the the first Workbasket Wednesday of the new year! I thought I would share some assembly tasks
I hope you're excited for Work Tasks #2! Again, my work task station is one of my favorites in our morning routine, because students are expected to be independent and they shine given the opportunities! I give students three letters on a mini schedule and they find the boxes and then complete them in order, ideally moving from one box to the next on their own.
A blog about autism resources and support from a special ed teacher with first-hand experience.
TEACCH is a structured teaching method specifically for children with autism. Find out about TEACCH and how to use TEACCH at home.
Check out three easy to make task boxes to encourage and engage your students to practice their fine motor skills!
From developing fine motor skills, letter and number recognition, sight words, sorting, sequencing, reading, and math, these task boxes for autism tasks will help develop important life skills and beyond!
TEACCH is a structured teaching method specifically for children with autism. Find out about TEACCH and how to use TEACCH at home.
At the beginning of the year, I am always that hot mess teacher; HOWEVER, there is always one thing I make sure I have running smoothly by the end of September... independent work stations. Without independent work, SPED teachers would literally never get anything done. Plus, work boxes are a great way for students to
From developing fine motor skills, letter and number recognition, sight words, sorting, sequencing, reading, and math, these task boxes for autism tasks will help develop important life skills and beyond!
Task boxes can be highly beneficial for special education students for several reasons: They provide structured learning by way of presenting learning materials in an organized way, they provide visual supports, repetition & practice, and skill generalization. Task boxes can also be customized to meet each individual student’s needs and IEP goals, promote independence, and […]
In February I blogged for the first time about what was actually INSIDE my work boxes. My first post focused specifically on "put in" work t...
Who is prepping more work boxes this summer? I just love getting new ideas, especially for our older life skill students! Christina Bailey, a transition life skill teacher, offered to share a bunch of her work boxes on my blog! Thank you Christina! Christina works with transition aged students (19-26 years old) with severe cognitive and/or health impairments. Her school serves students from multiple school districts within the county who learn best in an alternative placement. Are you ready? Here they are!! Putting together (or taking apart) flashlights. Bonus points if students can get the batteries in correctly and get the light to turn on! (Motivation!!) Ice cube tray and colored pebbles with tongs. I love the fine motor aspect added here. Marker packaging. I absolutely love this task and would be a great one to buy during back to school marker sales (especially on those really cheap markers you don't really want to use in your classroom!) Erasers on pencils. This has always been one of my favorite tasks! Silverware sorting. A must for every work task station, am I right? And a super easy and cheap one to put together. Silverware rolling / packaging. I love this task as it is perfect for vocational preparation. Putting together curlers. Ribbon threading around a wire basket. I never would have thought of this task! I love using the wire basket to thread the ribbon, and bet students would have fun with this task too. Sewing kit packaging. Packaging tasks like this are great! Tea candle sort. I love this age appropriate color sorting activity. Toiletry packaging. Wouldn't it be awesome to get donations of items like this and put together kits to give out to the homeless as a classroom service project? So, there you have it! Did you get some more good ideas? Happy task box prep! If you ever have anything you want to share, feel free to email me. I love being able to share your fantastic ideas with other special education teachers like yourself!
I love the TEACCH Autism Program. It is a program I use every day. I completed the comprehensive course a few years ago when I was starting to work in an Autism Class in a mainstream school. Since …
There is a reason behind every component of a independent work system. Do you know the 4 questions each work system should answer? Click through to find out.
I could never say enough positive things about using a work box system in the classroom-- for any child. I've used them with typically developing peers in the classroom as well and it's an amazing way to in-bed practice and skill maintenance, all while working on attending to a task as well. Over the summer I did a whole post on how I structure this system in my classroom. You can check it out {here}. But one thing I've never done is actually post photos of the activities I have in my boxes. My boxes have grown since I last posted a photo this summer. I have 83 work boxes available in my classroom at all times. I know that sounds like the only thing that make up the shelves in my classroom are work boxes, but I promise it's not. It might be close, but it's not! I don't have a lot of remaining storage in my classroom. So to constantly be changing out activities and finding a storage system for previous activities is a little challenging for me. So I prefer to just have a lot of boxes available. We also need a high number of boxes to complete each day. Let's break it down. I have 10 students total, 8 of whom complete work boxes at some point doing the day. Children complete anywhere between 1-10 boxes a day. Right now, as a class, we are completing 28 boxes a day. We come to school 4 days a week, so that's completing 112 boxes a week. And planning so strategically that a child doesn't repeat a box during the week. It's a huge planning challenge. And my paras are awesome at catching my goofs! I'm hoping to come across some appropriate shelving between now and the end of the year to expand our boxes even more. Sounds crazy I know, but it will make the planning challenge so much easier when there is a larger amount to pick from. So the whole point of this post-- what's in the boxes?! I use a combination of handmade activities, printable activities, and existing manipulatives from my classroom to make up my boxes. Our lowest tasks are simple "put-in" activities and our higher tasks include activities like capital and lowercase matching using clothespins and sight word matching mats. I've been trying to come up with more and more put-in activities so that's what I'm going to share with you today. In another post I'll share another category. For this activity I saved a small peanut can from the grocery store. (Yes I washed it out) I simply cut slits in the lid--these lids are super easy to cut into which is nice. It's the perfect height for dropping these mini popsicle sticks into. This activity is another saved container- an almond one. I have saved a ton of these! They are a great size and again, the lids are easy to cut into. This one has a circle in the middle of the lid and heart erasers to put into the container. This activity I found on pinterest. I simply saved a Parmesan cheese shaker, washed it out and added q-tips. When students open the box the cheese shaker is already open. (It would be too challenging for my little guys to get open independently- it's tough!) This task I clearly didn't make. It is courtesy of Lakeshore Learning. Students simply place the buttons in. This jar is one of three included in the pack and can be purchased by clicking {here}. If you wanted to make a more challenging task for a student you could place two jars into one task box so the student has to sort as well. This is the second jar included in the Lakeshore pack. I used another almond container for the activity. And obviously a hole punch to put the holes in the lid. Students have to put the beads into the container through the holes. I saw someone else blog about these small paint containers they found at the Dollar Store. They really are great! I bought four of them and used one for this work box. Students simply push the pom-poms into the container. This activity is similar to the Lakeshore bucket with buttons. I found the small yellow containers at the Dollar Tree in the baby section. They come in a multi-pack which is nice, BUT, they are a pain to cut holes in the top. It's a much harder plastic than I thought, and it cracked in the corners. If I hadn't gone through so much trouble to cut the slot in, I probably would have used another almond container. This was one of the first work box activities I made. I recycled a cookie dough container and cut holes in the lid. Then students just have to put pom-poms into the holes. I'd like to re-do this container at some point because most students catch on that the middle hole is big enough to just drop the pom-pom in versus pushing it through the hole. I don't know if you would call this a "put in" task, but I do. They're putting pegs in a peg board! I can also guarantee you that this peg board is older than I am. For this activity students push down the lever on the gumball machine to get a stone out, then they have to place the stone in the container. I liked the idea of students using their index finger to get the lever done-- additional fine motor practice. Sometimes more than one stone may come out, but that's okay. So there you have it. Those are our current "put in" activities. I hope you get some new ideas for your own work boxes from these. Next I'll share our sorting activities.
It’s been a while since I linked up for Workbasket Wednesday, but I finally snapped some pictures of my Workbaskets and just had to share them with you all! Check out these adorable Back to School tasks with a focus on fine motor skills! This task has been a classroom favorite. Students use the ... Read More about Workbasket Wednesday!
From developing fine motor skills, letter and number recognition, sight words, sorting, sequencing, reading, and math, these task boxes for autism tasks will help develop important life skills and beyond!
Foster meaningful and enriching environment while having many opportunities to demonstrate skills at their level through work tasks.
Work Boxes in Autism Classrooms are great to help students work towards independence! This article explains more on how, why, and what you should do next!
Using work tasks with your special education students increases engagement and independence as they practice important life skills.
Setting up structured work systems (TEACCH) are a staple in many autism classrooms. Here are 10 tips to get your started on setting up and using them.
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Start your fine motor skills task box collection with this free set of playdough activity cards! This freebie also includes a label and instructions.
From developing fine motor skills, letter and number recognition, sight words, sorting, sequencing, reading, and math, these task boxes for autism tasks will help develop important life skills and beyond!
