Search results matching tag 'special education'

work box: Flower Power

Anonymous — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:05:00 GMT

This is my newest work box for my students. This box may need to be more teacher directed depending on the student level. The original intent was a beginning sounds activity, but then when I was putting it together I realized that there is so much more I can do with it. This is what I came up with:

Ask the student to find the picture of the...

Have the student pick out a flower and identify the object

Have the student pick out a flower and verbally identify the beginning sound

Ask the student to find a flower that begins with a ...

If you are interested, you can purchase this activity at my Teacher's Pay Teacher's store or my Teacher's Notebook store.

puzzles

Anonymous — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:58:00 GMT

We do a lot of puzzles in my classroom. Puzzles work on fine motor skills, orientation, and also social skills. Sometimes I will have the kids all work on one big puzzle together. However a few days ago they each were working on their own. This provided the opportunity to ask each other for help (I am sure if you read the post about making lemonade then you now have realized that we are working on asking peers for help instead of adults). I keep a lot of different puzzles in my room so that there is variety and a puzzle that everyone can be successful at.

International MPS Awareness Day

Anonymous — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Until I started teaching in my current district 5 years ago I had never heard of MPS. Now, I have been given the privilege of teaching another student diagnosed with disease. Last year I did a post about MPS to give some basic information regarding the disease Since then I have learned new information and found some new sites that can share great information.

MPS stands for Mucopolysaccharidoses.

MPS is a genetic lysosomal storage disease (LSD) caused by the body's inability to produce specific enzymes.(From the MPS Society Website)

Affected individuals may have mental retardation, cloudy corneas, short stature, stiff joints, incontinence, speech and hearing impairment, chronic runny nose, hernia, heart disease, hyperactivity, depression, pain and a dramatically shortened life span.(From the MPS Society Website)

MPS and related diseases are hereditary. (From the MPS Society Website)

There is currently no cure for MPS or related diseases, research is making great strides. (From the MPS Society Website)

Making Lemonade

Anonymous — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:51:00 GMT

Sometimes the simplest activities can be the most fun! This past week for our cooking activity (life skills, measurement reading) we made lemonade and then delivered it around the building (social skills & communication) and the kids loved it! It was so easy, but we got so much out of it.

We started with gathering the items we would need.

Next the kids tried to open the container of lemonade mix. This was difficult and I had them ask each other for help before they could ask me.

We read the directions and decided how much mix we would need. Then each person took turns pouring the mix into the pitcher.

Next we read to find out how much water we needed. We then took turns filling up the measuring cup and pouring the water in.

Then it was time to mix.

Finally, we were ready to drink up!!

Question of the week

Anonymous — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:26:00 GMT

Each week on Tuesday my students do a "Question of the week". They each have a sheet with a question on a clipboard. We walk around the school (usually to the front office, cafeteria, nurses office, etc.) and ask our question of various people. Some students do this verbally while others use a communication device. This activity allows us to practice social skills by giving students the opportunity to start a conversation with someone by asking a question. Some students record the answers themselves, while others will ask the person to record the answer.

I have the sheets printed out and in a folder all ready to go a few weeks ahead of time. I have found a lot of great questions on Make Learning Fun (if you have not checked out this website, I love it! Lots of great ideas on lots of topics). There is section called Question of the Day. The questions cover all types of content and I often am able to find one that fits in with our current theme.

I have received a lot of positive feed back from our question of the week as it allows others to get to know my students more and allows my students to become more comfortable talking to various people in the school building.

** Just in case you are not a Facebook fan, tomorrow I am going to post at least one flash freebie. It will be announced on Facebook, so if you are not a fan come and join the fun so that you do not miss out!!**

My parent wish list

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:12:00 GMT

I have had some really great parents this year and I have been thinking about things I wish parents of my students did all the time. Being a parent myself I think it is important that parents are active members of the IEP team. So here is my wish list....

1. Make suggestions: As a parent, you are your child's first teacher. You know your child best. If you have an idea or suggestion, please share it.

2. Communicate: I love open lines of communication. Please call me, email me, write me a note, stop in and visit. I want to hear from you. Your child's life at home impacts his/her life at school.

3. At the IEP meeting (or anytime), question me or any team member: If something is not correct, if you don't understand, or you think it is a horrible idea, speak up! We all look at things differently and I want to know how you see it.

4. Be involved: Please know what is going on at school. If you can come in and eat lunch with your child, they will love it. Come on field trips, read a story to the class, send in pictures of your child's weekend activities etc.

If you are a teacher, is there something you wish your parents did/knew? If you are a parent, is there something you wish your child's teacher did/knew? I would love to hear what others think on this topic as I feel we all always have room to grow.

Making an Inference

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Making inferences is on of the hardest skills for my students. Having to hear something or looking at something and read between the lines is not easy for a child who is a "typical" learner, let alone for one who has various challenges.

Recently I was given the opportunity to use Inference Task Cards made by Rachelle Lynette who is the author of the blog/website Minds in Bloom (Where she has lots of freebies. I freebies!!). These task cards are for students in Grades 1-2 and present a short story with a question at the end. They can be used in a small group, for an individual writing activity, or as 1:1 intervention. I used them as both small group and for 1:1 intervention. In both situations, the students LOVED them!! Depending on the student, I read the card to the student or the student read it to me (with me re-reading it to them). Then we read the question. Sometimes the student was able to figure out the answer quickly, other times we had to work together to figure it out. I found that life experiences played a huge role in the situations that my students understood. Some have never had the opportunity to go to the beach or they do not have soup when they are sick. This made the cards harder, but also gave me an chance to work on expanding their knowledge of these situations.

In the packet, Rachel includes a tracking sheet so that students can keep track of which cards they have done (all of the cards are numbered) and also an answer sheet. These cards are ready to be printed off and then used. All you need to do is laminate (if you choose) and cut them out. Rachel even includes a label so that you can put your cards in an enveloped and already have a matching label to go with on it.

Rachel has developed an entire site dedicated to Task Cards and how she uses them. You can check it out to find more ways to use the Inference Task Cards or other task cards Rachel has developed.

I am heading over to Rachel's store now to see what other cards I would like to purchase for my classroom. I am sure I will not be able to choose just one!

Easter Activities

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:12:00 GMT

Yes, I know Easter was 2 weeks ago, but things have been a bit hectic around here (more about that in another post) and I want to share 2 of the activities that we did in my classroom prior to Spring Break.

Can you find the eggs?

The first was an egg hunt. Now, I had to make it educational, so I put sight words in the eggs to practice reading the words. Some of my students counted the eggs or identified the color eggs they found. There is a lot of room for differentiation in an egg hunt. The way I made this work was the kids and I read a story about an egg hunt. Then the fantastic paras who work in my room took them on a walk to find Spring things in the hallway. While they were gone, I hid the eggs all around the room. When they came back I gave them each a basket (I forgot to bring baskets, so I quickly ran around the room dumping stuff out of baskets to give them) and set them loose. I told them that they could only find 15 eggs as a way to try and help my not so quick students to also have an opportunity to find eggs. The kids really had a blast with this!

The next day (which was a half day) we did our weekly cooking project.(I love all of the life skills and fine motor cooking involves!) I really wanted to use up some of the stuff we had left over from previous cooking projects so we made Trail Mix. I did pick up some of the ingredients at the store, but the rest was just a mish-mosh of cereals. We used the white dipping chocolate that was left over from making our supposed to be snow-man pops to make chocolate covered pretzels. To do this we melted the chocolate in the microwave (the kids each took a turn pressing the buttons) and then stirred in the pretzels Next we spread the pretzels on a cookie sheet and stuck them in the fridge to harden while we worked on the rest.

For the trail mix part I gave each student their own plastic bag and let them dump in the various ingredients (Of course they had to help me open the marshmallows and m&ms because I am way to weak to do that on my own, just have to watch out for the student who tried to open the bag with his teeth!) After we put all of the various ingredients in, we added the pretzels I made my bag extra big so that we had some ton share with our friends around the building. We shook the bags to mix everything up. It was a hit with the kids and adults!!

Also don't forget today is the last day to enter the Autism Awareness giveaway!!! Click here to hop on over to Teaching Through Turbulence.

A US History Teacher and a Special Ed Teacher (plus a BONUS rant!)

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 05:36:00 GMT

Today was exciting.
I excepted a job posting to teach high school US History. When I arrived at the school this morning, I found out that, despite what the job posting said, I was only getting a half day's work (and pay).
Something similar to this happened a month so ago in this same district. I had planned on registering a very firm complaint about this at the end of the assignment. Before that could happen, though, I was asked if I could fill in the rest of the day for another teacher, who's sub had not shown up. I was told that if I accepted I would be paid for two half days, rather than one half day.
I probably should have complained anyway, on principle, but by the end of the day I just wanted out of the building.

The second half of the day was spent with a special education class. I had a lunch period separating the two parts of my day, and I ate in the special ed room so that I could go over the lesson plans. The remaining two class periods of the day were rather vague. They simply talked about taking the kids to the library, with no mention of what they were supposed to do.
Near the end of lunch another teacher came in, asking if I knew about the trip to the library. I told him that I had seen it mentioned, but no specifics were given. At this point he explained that my class was meeting up with two other special ed classes, and they were all taking a public bus across town to the public library.
The trip was really very easy. I was told that the teachers usually just spread out around the building and read, trying to set a "good example" for the students, who pretty much just screw around the whole time.
We returned to school with about 25 minutes left in the day. The kids were wound up pretty high, and I was not left with any material to fit the situation. I told them to "sit and read quietly." Most did, the rest sat and talked, thinking I couldn't hear them.

Okay, so, here's my question to all you other subs out there...
If you accepted an assignment online which was posted as being an entire day (at a full-day's pay), and when you arrived you were told that the assignment was only a half day... would you be upset? Would you feel cheated? Am I being melodramatic?

Personally, I won't accept partial day assignments unless it is the day of, and there are no full-day assignments available. I feel like the district is cheating me - a "bait and switch" sort of deal.
As I said, I had a similar problem with this district a while back. I didn't write about it, and I probably never will. I usually try to keep the material here positive and funny (or at least light-hearted).
Suffice it to say, I was under the impression that the district understood why posting jobs incorrectly (in regard to the pay scale) was not in their best interest.

Autism Awareness Blog Hop Giveaway

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:00:00 GMT

I hope you all have been enjoying the blog hop and all of the great stories (a few tear jerkers out there) and freebies. Just in case you missed any of the posts, below is a list that will take you directly to each stop.

Don't forget to stop by Teaching Through Turbulence where Heather has a fantastic giveaway set up. There is a $25 Amazon Gift Cards and a a surprise item from Therapy Shoppe (Check out this post for a hint. Shhh don't tell anyone I told you.)!