Voice Volume 5 point scale Visuals

I have a couple of students who can get very loud when they are excited. This 5 point volume scale has been an extremely helpful tool to help those students regulate their volume. 

I have a large copy on my white board and smaller copies on two of my students' desks. I often redirect then to a level 3 voice.

I found this awesome book on Board Maker Achieve that explains each of the volume levels and when they are appropriate to use. I edited it a little bit to add pictures and just changed a couple of the words. I love the book because it helps explain to the student the purpose of the voice chart. And of course I love the interactive pieces, you all know how much I love my adapted books!

Download the book here and the visual here. Do you use these or similar visuals in your classroom?

Join the conversation on Facebook about your favorite special education curriculum materials and get new ideas from everyone else! I'm trying to figure out what new materials to request for next year already.

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Celebrate Student Achievements with Super Easy Certificates!

If you follow me on Facebook, you might have seen the huge accomplishment one of my students made the day after coming back from break - no swearing the entire day! Say what?! That hasn't ever happened in the three years he has been in our program...so I kinda had to make a big deal about it :)

Today when he came in I had this certificate ready for him. 100% perfect Respectful Language. He was beaming ear to ear. And this even stopped a rant he was on after coming in from the cold! He showed off his certificate to staff and smiled whenever we told someone knew. Today wasn't perfect, but we made it through the day with about 15 swearing instances - still really good! I'm quite optimistic about 2014.

And fellow teachers, the best part about this certificate is it took me about 1 minute to create. That's right. No more than 60 seconds. It's an awesome site called 123certificates.com. You can choose a certificate from their wide variety of options (200+ according to their website) and quickly personalize and print - all online. Easy peasy.

What could you reward a student for? Check out this site now! And tell me what you could use it for! Happy certificate-making!

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Behavior Puzzle for Special Ed Students

So how was your first week back everyone? It was an interesting one for me. I have a new student who just transferred to our school. He is one of the higher students in my class and feels like he doesn't belong. He also is not at all motivated to do anything and has spent most of the week putting his head down on his desk or outside of the classroom refusing to work. He had a behavior management plan at his previous classroom, but when I tried to use the same materials he ripped them up. So...time to come up with a new plan.

Right now the expectation is to participate in class (head up, answer questions, do work given). Those three forms of participation are listed on his daily communication sheet along with his class schedule, what he did in each class, and a place for a + or - for behavior. He will receive a + for behavior if he receives less than 3 warnings. Then the immediate reward for receiving a + (starting at the 5 minute bell and continuing through the passing period) could be 1)lifting weights in the fitness center for 5-10 minutes or 2)take a break walking the school or 3) something else he chooses.

Also, for each class that he has expected behavior he can also receive a piece of a puzzle, either an Xbox or a dollar – whatever the reward might be that he will receive at home (which will change so it will be interesting to see if he responds better to a certain one). There are 7 class periods, so 7 opportunities to earn a piece of the puzzle, and we are starting with just a 4 piece puzzle. Above you can see the example of the puzzle for the dollar reward. Below is the story for the Xbox puzzle:

I enjoy playing Xbox.
My parents will let me play Xbox if I have a good day at school.
I can earn a piece of my Xbox puzzle for each class period I am good.
I need to:

• Keep my head up
• Participate
• Do my work

If I do those things I will earn a piece of the Xbox puzzle.
Once I have earned all of the pieces of my Xbox, I will be able to play my Xbox at home.
 
If you would like a copy of this story and puzzle to edit for yourself feel free to email me. I tried to upload it onto Goggle Docs but the format got all messed up. Also, feel free to ask questions if I made this confusing! :) Anyway, wish me luck with this one!

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A New Kind of Social Story - The Cat in the Hat gets Angry

Social stories are a staple in special education and can be so helpful for a variety of situations! But I wasn't having any luck with social stories for one of my students...but I didn't give up!

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." - One of my favorite quotes but I'm not sure who said it. And I would like to add "and try it a different way."

So, I have a student who has always had some behavior issues, but all of a sudden it escalated to more extreme behaviors which was extremely unusual for this student.

This is one of my highest academic students. He has a ton of language and loves to read! He especially enjoys reading Dr. Seuss books and I am always amazed at the different voices he has for each character. As for his behavior, he definitely knows what he is doing is wrong.

Enter: Social Story. But, he does not like typical social stories and would tear them up and create new problem.  I believe it's because he doesn't like to be told what to do, and that the social stories imply that he was doing something wrong before. So, the social stories I had been writing seemed to be doing the opposite of helping.

But, last week, I wrote a social story and he loved it. All I did was put it on his desk and when he came in this morning I told him I put a new story on his desk to read. He read it independently. I didn't even talk to him about it. He kept it with him the entire day. He had none of his new extreme negative behaviors that first day and not even his whining / screaming behaviors.Not every day since has been perfect, in fact - he doesn't want to read his story right now - BUT he is still keeping it in his folder. Not being torn up and thrown away is a step in the right direction, right?!

What was different about this story? Well, for starters, the social story wasn't about this student (at least he didn't think so). It was about the Cat in the Hat and the Grinch. I honestly took a Dr. Seuss book while I was writing his social story and tried to use some of the Dr. Seuss language as well as incorporating some of the language we use at school. You can view/download "Sometimes the Cat in the Hat gets Angry" on Google Docs.

If you are looking for a way for stories to be more successful with your students, try framing your stories around their interests. I'm so excited about the possibilities! :)

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