First Week Activities in a Special Education Class (with freebies!)

How do you start the first week in a special education class? I've been asked this question a lot lately, and understandably why! I think every teacher, no matter how long they have been teaching, has some sort of nightmares or sleepless nights about the first day/weeks (am I right?!).

Here's what I focus on during those first couple of days.

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4 Ways to Teach Students how to Tell Jokes using Symbol Support (free download)

What do you do for April Fool's day in your special education classroom? This can be a tricky holiday to celebrate. In my classroom, we tell jokes! And not only on April Fool's Day. Jokes are a great way to give student confidence speaking, motivation to communication, and an appropriate way to gain attention.

I have an envelope filled with these 22 symbol supported jokes that my students can use in a variety of ways depending on their abilities.

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God's Love - Adapted and Interactive Books for Special Needs Ministry

If you follow me on Instagram, you know one of my new adventures is leading the special needs ministry at my church! For the month of February, we are talking about God's love for us.

Love can be such a tricky concept to grasp because it is so abstract but SUCH an important thing to learn about! See this post over HERE at Special Sunday School!

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Writing a Class Book with Special Education Students

I love to write books with my class. When we write books that feature my students and things/places they know, my students are motivated to read and become more confident in their reading abilities (even when reading other things). Our class books are always a favorite of my students, and who can blame them. Everyone loves to be a star!

We have written books after our community trips and also with our monthly mascots. For our community trip books, my aides and I take pictures during the trip and then put them together in a PowerPoint slide and together we decide what we want each page to say. Sometimes I need to help a lot, but my students can always contribute something, even if it is just who is in the picture. I say this, because if you think your students can't write a book, think again! ANYONE can do this!

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SPED Tricks and Treats (aka awesome ideas and FREEBIE!!)

Happy Halloween! I'm enjoying spending time with my little dinosaur :) and am excited to join this blog hop to bring you some sped tricks and treats just in time for Halloween. Be sure to keep reading because you can grab a nice treat for FREE!

(This little cutie is one month old already and is already 11 pounds!)

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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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Back to School Forms to Send Home

There are a few things that I specifically like to send home to parents (or pass out on back to school night). These include: an introduction letter, supply list, and questionnaire. I have stolen many of these from my colleagues :) but have edited them and made them my own! Don't start from scratch if you don't have to! I also pass out our syllabi on back to school night, but that's mostly just a formality since my classes are so individualized the syllabi don't really provide that much information, but it's required by all classes in my school. 

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Helping Students Understand the Delegation of Rights

Okay, I don't want to get too much into all of the legal stuff here, but basically, when a student turns 18 they become their own guardian unless parents do something about it (ex. power of attorney or guardianship).

But sometimes, parents haven't been able to complete that process, and we still want them involved and making decisions in the IEP process. The student has to delegate his/her rights to the parents in order for this to happen. There is specific paperwork (3457K - Delegation of Rights)  that needs to be completed, and it is our responsibility, as case managers, to ensure that the student understands what he/she is signing. 

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Adapted Book Symbols for Tangled: Kingdom of Color

I promised to share the symbols for this adapted book once I got 50 likes on this post to see if you guys were interested, and yes you were!

It's been a while since I've added an adapted book to my classroom, but when I saw this Tangled book, I just knew I had to! My girls will love this! (They haven't even had a chance to read it yet, I put it together and laminated it today and plan on binding it tomorrow, but I was just too excited to share it with all of you!)

Book: Tangled: Kingdom of Color - available on Amazon (affiliate link)

Symbols: Adapted Symbols for Kingdom of Color - available in PDF from me! :)

Once you have the book, just print the symbols, cut out, and glue over top of the words on each page.  Then laminate and bind. Super easy!

This page below accurately sums up how I am feeling about this spring weather we are finally getting!

Looking to adapt more books? I share the symbols of most of the books I adapt from my classroom, check them out here.

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Teaching Public vs Private Behaviors

Teaching the different between public and private is important for so many reasons for our students with special needs. When teaching these concepts, I first talk about the difference between public and private places. We come up with a list and sort those places accordingly using visuals of one person versus multiple people. I created this sort from a boardmaker template and uploaded here on Board Maker Online.

After talking about places, we move on to talking about both public and private places AND behaviors. We talk about what behaviors are appropriate in each area. This book and additional resources are found for free from SET-BC here and are available in PDF or Boardmaker files.

(update: direct link here - other link now takes you to search)

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Social Skills / Life Lessons Animated Online Books - We Do Listen

I have an awesome website to share with you today that has a variety of animated books all with a social skills focus. The main character in all of these books is a rabbit, Howard B. Wigglebottom.

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Christmas/Holiday Shopping Worksheets for FREE

Last Friday I took my students to the mall to go shopping for their family members. Thankfully, parents sent in lists so that they, um, I... didn't have to guess what everyone in their family would want for Christmas. I don't know about your students, but my students love to shop for the things that they like...not necessarily what others would like. We need to practice this more in the classroom, so I created some worksheets and am sharing those with you!

Plus, some of our math concepts are just more fun to work with when you add the words Christmas and presents! :)

Some worksheets focus on simple perspective taking and choosing an appropriate present for various people.

Another worksheet works on choosing a present within a budget (with two levels, the first with the exact budget amount and the second with an amount under the budget).

And last, a couple leveled worksheets work on paying for items using the dollar over method.

Enjoy! I hope these six free worksheets make your last week before break a little bit easier :)

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Our Classroom Christmas Cards + Templates for Yours!

It's the season for Christmas cards! I always make one for my family...but had never made one for mu class...until now!

One thing I absolutely love about blogging and following other blogs is getting great ideas from other teachers! Sasha from The Autism Helper posted yesterday about her classroom Christmas cards, and I thought, OMG, why am I not doing this already? That is awesome! So, today, my class made Christmas cards and I am in LOVE! Seriously, how cute is this card?!

So I first found a few backgrounds that I thought would work for cards. I had my students choose which one they liked the best. We counted our votes by putting our picture next to our choice.

Clearly, the blue option won. I then took a picture of each student next to our classroom Christmas tree (which is felt like this one* - best Christmas tree ever, takes up no room, and is easily decorated by students with no additional help. I also love this magnetic Christmas tree* you can get from amazon!) *affiliate links

I then uploaded the pictures into PowerPoint and resized them all together and added a frame. (I love all of the options that PowerPoint has for pictures!) I then printed them on card stock and we cut them out with a paper cutter.

I then had students sign the backs of the cards that would be going home and to a few other "special" people. I thought about doing all of them, but we came up with 30+ people we should give cards too, and let's be honest, I was lucky I got my students to write their name 8 times.

Students addressed our envelopes and they are ready to deliver tomorrow! And we will be mailing home the ones to their families!

And I just have to show you one more time...Isn't this the cutest thing ever?

If you have powerpoint and want to make Christmas cards as well, feel free to download and edit from this template. Four options are available and it will print 2 to a page. You could add individual pictures like I did, or if you're lucky enough to get a nice picture of your entire class, you could add just one instead! :) The size for these Christmas cards is 4x8.

Enjoy! Let me know if you make any!

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Grocery Shopping in the Classroom

Sometimes you have to practice grocery shopping without going to the store. Our official grocery store community trip won't be until January, but we will be practicing our grocery shopping skills, specifically shopping from a list, all year long!

One way we do this is through a simulated grocery shopping experiences. 

Bookshelf Grocery Store: I created a mini shopping experience on a bookshelf. We have a variety of empty food boxes and containers. My first thought was to make mini departments and have a "refrigerated' section...but I haven't had time to be that awesome yet. :)

I created two levels of shopping lists, one including pictures and the other with only words. Each list has 3-4 items on it. I taped a folder with the directions written on it and each level goes in one of the two pockets. 

Students will take a shopping bag, fill it up with items on their list, and then put the list in the bag and move to the next one. I have students complete it this way so that we can check to see if they got the correct items. If you can find the same items I used, feel free to download the lists I created for free.

Work Task Shopping Lists: Another way we practice this is during our work task boxes. This is very similar to the grocery shopping set up, just on a much smaller scale. Student look at a shopping list and fill the bag with those items. I have shopping lists with pictures or with words, ranging from 3 to 5 items. This task is available to download at my TpT store.

Online Tutorials: I've talked about how much I love the GFCLearnFree website before. Seriously, if you are looking for functional life skills, you will find an interactive tutorial in their Everyday Life section! The grocery list tutorial goes over finding the right aisle and then finding those items on your list. Did I mention its interactive? Awesome! :)

Grocery Store File Folders: And then there's my grocery store file folders that I've talked about in detail here. There are a total of 10 file folders, 2 which specifically deal with shopping from a list and the other cover a variety of grocery store topics.

Grocery Store Field Trip Prep: I created this grocery store community unit that is packed full of materials including Bingo games, social stories, vocabulary, coloring pages, worksheets, and more! We will start using that unit the month of our grocery store trip.

Honestly, I didn't realize I had so many grocery shopping resources when I started to type this post! What other things do you do to prepare your students for grocery shopping? I'd love to hear about them!

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School Assembly / Pep Rally BINGO Freebie

Our homecoming was this past week, and while it's a ton of fun and full of great experiences for our students, there's lot of new experiences. One of those being the school assembly! It's loud, different, and new! We prepared for the assembly in the funnest way I know how....BINGO!

I went though all of the cards as I would in a social story type of way. If that doesn't make sense, here's an example. "Today after class we are all going to go to the...'GYM!' In the gym we will sit on the bleachers and Mrs. Holtrop, Annie, Megan, and Kathy will all sit on one side because they are all....'GIRLS'. The 'MARCHING BAND' will play and it might get kinda 'LOUD.' If it's too loud for you, you can wear...'HEADPHONES'. You kinda get the progression.

I uploaded the school assembly boards and calling cards to BoardMaker Online, so if you want to download it and edit to fit your school you can do so! Just switch the school, principal, and colors and you should be good to go! Our school does competitions between girls and boys, but you might want to switch those to grades with a couple others if your school does something different.

I hope this Bingo game will help your students prepare for a pep really or school assembly as well!

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Eric Carle Adapted Books and More - downloads for you!

A while back, I wrote this post about how to adapt books for students with special education. I've had some requests lately to share some symbols with you so you can create your own, and of course I will!! I have linked the book to Amazon (using affiliate links), sometimes you can find great deals online, especially used, but of course, it's better if you already have it or can find it at a thrift store of something!

Book: Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Eric Carle
Symbols: Adapted Symbols for Polar Bear...+ pictures of the book for adapted pieces (I just copied one of the pictures from the google image, pasted in word and enlarged to an appropriate size)

Book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Symbols: Adapted Symbols for The Very Hungry Caterpillar + pictures for adapted pieces (same method to use these as Polar Bear...). You'll also notice pages, such as the one pictured don't include all of the words, rather it simplifies it to "Wednesday, 3 plums."

Book: The Way I Feel by Janan Cain 
Symbols: Adapted Symbols for The Way I Feel - These are an added sentence for each page that follows the same format, "I feel ____ when ...."

Book: Frog's Lunch by Dee Lillegard
Symbols: Adapted Symbols for Frog's Lunch

Book: Dinosaur Days (Step into Reading) by Joyce Milton
Symbols: Adapted Symbols for Dinosaur Days - This one was created by one of my awesome paraprofessionals, John, who was kind enough to send this to me so I could share it with you! It has a sentence for each page, like a summary, as there are a lot of words on this one.

Want more? Be sure to check out this post for more symbols to add to existing books!

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Adapting Step-into-Reading Books with Symbols

So many of you loved the Frozen books symbols that I shared a while back, so I went through and saved a few more that I had created so I could share those with you as well!!!  I love adapting the step into reading books because they already have simple language, and so many of them are high interest to my students so they actually enjoy reading them. And, in my classroom, I consider Disney to be age appropriate (especially when compared to Teletubbies and Dora!)

I have linked the book to Amazon (using affiliate links) if you want to buy the book there and then you can download the symbols for free.

Book: A Dream for a Princess  - a Cinderella book
Symbols: Adapted Symbols for A Dream for a Princess

Book: Old, New, Red, Blue! - a Cars movie book
Symbols: Adapted Symbols for Old, New, Red, Blue!
*Since I only used the symbols for this book, the words typed out along with the symbols don't have proper punctuation and wording all of the time, so just use the symbols and you'll be good! See this book in this blog post on how to adapt books*

Book: Run, Remy, Run! - a Ratatouille book
Symbols: Adapted Symbols for Run, Remy, Run!

Book: Me Too, Woody!  - a Toy Story book
Symbols: Adapted Symbols for Me Too, Woody!

Get the Frozen book A Tale of Two Sisters and the adapted symbols here.

Adapting the books is really easy to do. All you need to do is cut out the symbols and then tape or glue them to the page. Sometimes I cover the words in the book (especially when they are a lot of words such as in A Dream for a Princess and A Tale of Two Sisters) and other times I cut out the symbols and paste them above or below the actual words in the books (in books like Me Too, Woody!, Old, New, Red, Blue!, and Run, Remy, Run!). This is a great task to do while you are watching TV or something like that. You can still relax and tell yourself you're preparing for school :)

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"Vending Machine" Sorting Work Task

Don't you just love when you can get your students excited to work? :) My students were begging if they could do this task!

I made this task at the end of the year and my students loved it! Seriously, my students who never want to work, would work on this task. I got this small container from Wal-mart in the fishing department and taped in the pictures that you see above. I then laminated a couple of sheets of the pictures which then I cut out to go into each section.Students then sort the pop and the chips. It's really just a simple sorting activity, but is more fun because, let's be honest, everything is more fun with food! Plus, it actually takes a decent amount of time to complete, but it holds their focus.

Download the images that I used here so that you can make your own! 

And hope your Wal-mart also has this same box in their fishing section :)

Update: This post is now a few years old and people are having issues finding this exact box. This one on Amazon (affiliate link) looks like the exact same box, but you can possibly find other similar boxes that will also work, even if the spaces aren't exactly the same!

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Extended School Year - Community Trips

I really thought I'd be posting more about ESY, but wow do those days fly by! I forget to take pictures that I can share with you guys, but with some cropping I am at least able to share these from a few of our community trips so far.

We went to the grocery store to pick up from materials to cook with this summer. We are able to use one of the culinary labs, which I absolutely love, because each student can have their own microwave and sink! I made a visual shopping list of the items we need for cooking, and then cut it up so each student had a section to shop for. (Check out our shopping list here for our easy cooking ideas). 

Each student had $5 to spend (which they put in their pouches/lanyard wallet things that we got from the bus presentation we had earlier. It's perfect since not all students bring wallets or have pockets, and this way students can hold onto their own money.)  At then we saw a Burger King in the same parking lot, so we stopped there for ice cream and ICEEs for only a $1!

Update: I've recently added these visual cooking materials that would be perfect for ESY or year round!

Our theme is Chicago this summer, and the White Sox gave us a tour of U.S. Cellular field! The kids all had a blast! We also went to the Chicago History Museum and if you follow me on instagram @BreezyBrieJoy you will see me as a Chicago style hot dog. I, of course, made all of the students become hot dogs as well. The museum was a lot more fun than I expected it to be.

We walked across the street to a local diner one day to have lunch. It was great to see my students order. Some of them were fabulously independent, like this student, who unexpectedly asked for a diet coke to go with his burger and fries! Plus, we got to work on skills like crossing the street at the light when the walk sign is showing. I have a couple of runners who all behaved like angels on this trip. YAY!

I have a couple more trips planned for the rest of this summer (we have a break this week and then only two more weeks left!) We are planning on going to the Willis Tower with another class which should be a blast! And then we will also take the train to the library. Taking the train with my students kinda terrifies me in a way so I'm going with another class and that teacher will show me the ropes. :) I just don't want anyone to be annoyed while we load the wheelchairs!

How's your summer going? ESY or relaxing? I'd love to hear about it!

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Free Tracing Apps for iPad / iPhone

I have downloaded so many free tracing apps for my students, and let me tell you...most of them aren't that great for what I need. My students need tracing practice that is clearly defined (they can't be allowed to draw all over the screen). I have found two that I love for my students. The majority of my students are working on writing their own name independently (with practice tracing) and working on tracing letters.

AlphabetTrace: I like this app because it shows a video on the side of the order in how to create the letter, but you don't have to necessarily follow the video. You also can't make the letter wrong. You have to stay in the "road" but you have to draw a line in each spot otherwise it will make you do it again. The settings are helpful on this app as well, such as the ability to adjust accuracy needed, time, etc.

Little Writer - The Tracing App for Kids: One of my students chooses this app to play almost daily during her break time! It's cute and fun, students start with the large animal or whatever it might be and follow it to eat all of the little fruits, or hay bales, or something. You have to complete each line correctly the entire way or start over. Also, I'm not sure about some of the letter formation, but it's fine for what my students use it for. You can also customize this app by adding your students name and your (or your students voice).

Those have been my favorite in the free tracing category so far. Do you have any other tracing apps that you enjoy? Please share in the comments! Thanks!

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