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Do you have access to a motor room at your school but don't know how to utilize it? Are you looking for some new ideas? Do you wish you had a routine that was easy to teach for your students and/or your paras? Keep reading to see how we manage motor room time at our school. We start out by having each student grab their motor room visual . This allows our kids the opportunity to be "independent" in the motor room. It is also a great mini-schedule for your students who need to know exactly what is going to be done in the motor room. The kids also have access to dry erase marker to cross off the activities once they have completed them. Each group of my students spends 30 minutes of structured time in the motor room a day.  (5 minutes) Each week our OT (occupational therapist) selects one of our gross motor activity visuals and posts it under the gross motor sign. The visual shows a picture of the object the kids will be using and a description on how to use it. Our studen...

Are you looking for engaging ways to teach math concepts to students with significant needs? Are you in need of some fresh ideas? Keep reading to find out how I incorporate math into my students daily schedules. This post is going to be geared towards students with significant needs. Students who are working on very basic math concepts and/or need a lot of support with communication (non-verbal) and routines. I started with taking a look at my students IEP goals. I found that a lot of the students have similar goal areas. I decided that these overlapping areas would be our focus of the day. Here is what our schedule looks like:      Monday:  Numbers (1-5)     Tuesday: Shapes     Wednesday: Colors     Thursday:  Days of the Week     Friday: Months of the Year It would be nice to be able to teach a whole group lesson but even within this group of students there are diverse needs. I find it more beneficial to teach concepts i...

After moving into a much smaller classroom this year I needed to have a plan on how I was going to help keep myself  my students organized. In the past, I had individual binders at each center. I liked this because no instruction time was lost. The students showed up to the center and could start working instead of having to run back to the last center to grab their binder. With my new space there was no way I could do this, so I decided to make 1 binder for each student. Keep reading to see what I included and how they are organized! Last year I used wall schedules....again with the smaller classroom this just wasn't an option. I have the schedules set up so they are the first thing the student sees when they open their binder. I have a variety of levels in my classroom so student schedules vary from student to student. For my students who still have velcro schedules I have included a pocket on the inside cover for them to put their schedule pieces when they are completed. In...

I have been getting a lot of questions about tips for first year teachers so I figured I would write a blog post about it. Now that you have nailed down the job, gotten the keys to your classroom and shared the news with your family and friends it's time to get started. Here are a few tips to get you started in your first special education class (these are in no particular order). Make sure to get your hands on student files ASAP. These files will help you get a better picture of your students. They should drive how you setup your classroom, organize your aides and let you know the types (if any) of visual supports they need.The files should also give you a little glimpse of their family life. This isn't always written into the IEP but check out the parent input section. Take the time before school starts to meet the staff. Get around to as many people as you can. Take the extra time to introduce yourself to the secretaries, specials teachers and general education teachers who ...