Time Saving Tips and Resources for Digital Special Education Classrooms

Are you back at school? Or at home teaching? Whatever your situation looks like this year, I know teaching virtually, in-person, or hybrid brings about new challenges, especially when teaching in special education. You are not alone, the Breezy Special Ed community is here to help!

I heard the analogy this weekend that teachers are currently building the plane as they are flying it. Sounds about right, right?! So be sure give yourself some grace and ask for help when you need it. This was definitely not anything we were prepared for in college, am I right?!

Don't try to reinvent the wheel if you have been thrown back into virtual teaching for this school year, you have more than enough on your plate already. 

Here's some things that may help you save some time and be more effective this year.


Even if you are back in school in person, it is probably helpful to use some of strategies to get your students familiar with the digital type of format so that the adjustment to remote learning will go smoother as that may happen at some point.

Need a quick way to turn your existing worksheets into digital ones?

Many BSE worksheets are great to send home as packets or to complete digitally!

BSE journals errorless journals (level 3 seen above), life skill math packs, reading comprehension (with symbols or no symbols) national days, weekend reports, calendars, and so much more are all available to complete digitally using the TpT digital tool (compatible with Google Classroom).

To use the TpT digital tool on your existing TpT purchases, go to the resource page, and click the red "create digital activity" button, as seen below.

From there you can select pages to assign you students and edit if needed (but I've already added the text boxes you need, hooray for more time saved!) Check out this blog post tutorial on TpT Digital Tool to learn more.

Alternatively, if you can't use Google Classroom, you can also upload PDF worksheets to many online classrooms, such as SeeSaw and have an interactive layer students can type or draw on to complete.

Yet another option, you can also use these free google forms to have students practice typing along with the symbol reading comprehension! 

Need a way to collect data remotely?

Boom Cards and Google Forms are your new best friend.
Just be sure to give parents or whoever is helping your students a reminder to not assist them with answer questions during this time and let the program collect the data for you! Boom. Done!

I have both Google Forms and Boom Cards included in the digital task card bundle which includes 28 different topics (and is growing)!

Need activities for students who don't have internet? 

If you have devices to send home with students but they don't have internet, they can still use the interactive PDFs included in the digital task card bundle. Once downloaded these activities can be used without internet which is a complete game changer for those without internet!

Breezy Special Ed errorless journals, life skill math packs, and reading comprehension (with symbols or no symbols) all include 2 weeks of activities in each set which makes it so easy to print and send home!

The National Day journals are also great to use as send home packets, especially when every day seems the same.

Send home a choice board to have students do academic activities at home, some ideas include: unload the dishwasher, match socks, count your books, go for a walk, etc. Make a copy and edit this one started for you!

Boom Card Books

 It's so nice to be able to offer story time for students, but some students have a hard focusing if they can't directly interact with the story. Enter....drag and drop book books! These books are read out loud to students and they need to drag and drop to match an item on each page or follow the directions before moving on. This helps keep students engaged and learning.

This set of 4 following directions books are themed around food and work on left/right, top/bottom and even have students fill orders at the end! These are only $1/book right now when you purchase on TpT.

Another new addition is this ABC book. Students will drag and drop both the picture and letter to each page.

And these books are read out loud to students so no reading is necessary! Check out these other boom learning books and grab this free cooking utensils book too!

Simple Virtual Class Schedule

Overwhelmed by the Bitmoji classrooms that are all over teacher land and think your students might be too? 

Here's a simple classroom sample you can make a copy of and edit!

How to keep a work life balance while working at home

When working at home, it can be even hard to leave work at work. But it's just as important to set boundaries and make time for yourself.

Some ideas teachers in the Breezy Special Ed Insiders group have were:

• go for a walk before and after school starts as a way to start and end each school year
• turn off your school email on your phone
• set specific office hours and don't answer emails/messages outside of those times
• keep your teaching materials in a separate room and shut the door when you're done or move the materials so it's "out of sight, out of mind"

What else has been helpful in starting this year? 

Let us know what has been helpful and has made this year maybe just a little bit easier for you so far this year. Pssst, you might also enjoy these back to school 2020 tips!