Classroom Jobs + School Vocational Experiences

Giving students jobs in the classroom is important for a variety of reasons. Not only can classroom jobs be helpful in keeping the classroom running smoothly, they can also give students a sense of purpose and responsibility.

There are two main categories of school jobs for students in special education: classroom jobs done either in the morning or afternoon for classroom maintenance, and then work experience jobs that might take up a class period because you are focusing on teaching vocational skills through those jobs.

Here's a list on each of those categories to get you thinking of jobs that your students might be able to do in your classroom and throughout your school!

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How to Set Up an Independent Work Box Station

My independent work box station is one of my favorite activities for my students. It's amazing to watch them grow more and more independent and begin to work on these tasks all by themselves. Also, my students find so much satisfaction and pride in being able to do tasks on their own tool! Plus, I know a lot of classrooms are short on aides. After teaching your students how to use a work task station, you shouldn't even need any aides to run it so you can utilize them where needed (just obviously with someone keeping an eye on things in case a student needs redirection!).

What kind of supplies do I need? Shoeboxes (I got 30 of them at the dollar store), labels and schedules, and random things you can probably find in your classroom or at the dollar store to create the tasks! If you need more space and have small tasks, you can use index card holders (for task cards) or magazine file boxes (for file folders)

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Career Exploration: Vocational Daily Questions, Job Posters, Interest Inventories and more!

As a life skill teacher, one of our responsibilities is to expose our students to different jobs and try to help them figure out what they are interested in doing after they complete school. Career exploration is especially important in secondary education, but is an important part (and becoming mandatory in some states) of elementary life skills too!

These fun job posters and daily questions will help you do just that!

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5 Tips for Writing IEP Transition Plans and Outcomes

Are you lucky enough to be teaching teens? Then you are lucky enough to write a transition plan! In Illinois, all students must have a transition plan in their IEP by the time they are 14 and a half. So, unless you want to hold another meeting at the student's 14 and a 1/2 birthday, you will want to include the transition plan anytime in that year before it is required.

For all transition plans, a student needs to have an education OR training goal (and they can have both), an employment goal, and an independent living goal. Also, we need to be thinking and writing about what this student will be doing AFTER high school (even if that's still 8 years away). Here's a few tips to make sure your transition plan is compliant.

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Student Greeting Card Business for Students with Special Needs

I'm not going to lie, we have a really awesome transition program at our school that has created real businesses to help our students get work experience and to earn money for community outings, like our coffee business. This next business I want to talk to you about is our greeting card business.

Now, the teacher in charge of this business has been doing this for several years now, and is a rock star at all of this, so don't be intimidated by all of the different styles and cool things we have on our cards. You can start simple and add more once you can!

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Stocking Task (aka Matching but with a Work Skill twist)

During the last few weeks of school, a parent donated a bunch of peg boards from an Optometrist's office. I knew we could do something awesome with them and it didn't take me long to come up with the idea to make them into stocking tasks!!!

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Student Coffee Business for Special Education

Our transition age special education students focus mainly on job skills and we are always looking for more real jobs that they can complete in our school. One of the teachers in our program came up with the most awesome coffee business model that was started this past year and has been a huge success! Teachers order their drinks in the morning through a google form, and then students make the drinks using Keurig machines and deliver the coffee to specified locations at specific times.

The teachers throughout our school love their coffee...the students baristas love the responsibility, it's a win-win situation!

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Age Appropriateness Activity for Teenagers with Special Needs

A lot of my students enjoy things that many elementary students like, and well developmentally that's where most of them are. But they are in high school. It really makes me cringe when one of my 16 year old students tells me that his favorite movie is the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I sigh, but at the same time, if that's what entertains him in his free time, at least he has something he enjoys doing for a leisure activity. But you better believe I will continue to press more age appropriate ways of entertainment!

One thing I definitely want my students to know is the difference between items for little kids and items for teens/adults. Lets be honest, many students with special needs are attracted to the Disney character lunch boxes or the bright colorful backpacks that are geared toward preschool and younger aged children. It just doesn't look as cute on a 250 pound high schooler. It doesn't help them fit in either.

Today in my Work Skills class we read about choosing an appropriate lunch box for work in our weekly story. (We use the PCI "How to Get Along with People at Work" book) .

After reading and discussing that, we sorted items for little kids and items for teens. We also talked about being cool and mature. They did really well with this sort! I hope it helps them (and maybe even some of their parents) to realize what is appropriate for them at their age.

You can download this Kids/Teens sorting activity here.

 

Hope you find this helpful in your classroom! I would love to know if you use it.

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Interactive Life Lessons - GFClearnfree.org

GFC Learn Free - have you heard of it? Best website ever!!

This site has interactive lessons (I call them games to my students) on a whole slew of functional topics and skills. (And other stuff like powerpoint, excel, publisher, etc that you might find helpful even for yourself!)

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Special Education: Work Skills Schedule

So this year I am teaching a work skills class with 9 students and 7 adults, and I also have a health class of 3 students and 2 adults running at the same time. It can get a little crazy. My work schedule helps a lot!

Students (and adults) know to check the schedule (by finding their picture) to see what their jobs are for the day, and they can get started without needing too much assistance from me. O, the wonderful power of Velcro and laminating. And then every 2 weeks or so I change up everyone's jobs - or sometimes, as things change, daily.

And, as you can see, I have added a few more jobs that I need to create new boardmaker pictures for, but for now, sticky notes are working just fine!

If you have any questions about some of the jobs we do, let me know - I love to share ideas! Other special education teachers out there, what kinds of jobs do you have your students do?

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Work Olympics - Vocational Assessment

I am excited to share our “Work Olympics” with you!

This week was state testing week. But not for me! My special needs, functional level students do not participate in the regular standardized testing. So, our department has adapted a special vocational assessment day called the Work Olympics. It’s pretty awesome.

So first we grouped our students so that they would be doing activities appropriate to their ability level. Yellow = low, Orange = middle, and Green = high. And, as always in special education, different modifications are given to students so that they understand and are able to complete their tasks. Students all received a card with the activities listed and had to complete all of the activities on their card and then could check out some of the other ones. 

Wipe Table	Rolling Silverware	Sort Laundry	Fold Laundry	Haul Trash
Sticker Items	Sort Silverware	Dry Trays	Wrap Burgers	Size Clothing
			Place Setting	Sort Mail
Mock Interview	Stuff Folders	Application Letter	Chrono. Order	Alpha Order

After completing each station students received a sticker to mark off that they had completed that activity.

Students were timed at each station and the amount they completed in that time frame was recorded on the data sheets at each station. Below are the different stations and a few pictures that I took yesterday.

Yellow Group

Sorting silverware

Rolling Silverware

Sticker/Sort Items

Dry Trays

Wiping Tables

Sorting Laundry

Orange Group

Haul trash

Fold Laundry

Wrap Burgers

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