Morning Attendance

I always thought the idea of calling out each kid's name, and waiting for them to say "here" was a silly thing to do with my students....but then I started thinking about all the times we call our students with autism by name and they show no response at all.  
                                                               



So over the last couple years, we have made attendance a regular part of our morning routine.  And it seems to be working!  By the end of last year, my entire class (even my lowest functioning students) would raise their hands and/or say "here" when their names were called.  I am hoping now to see if this generalizes to other areas of our day! 

I have a special attendance folder where I keep a list of my students names.   Even though I have memorized the list of kids, I still hold up the folder each day as a visual reminder to my students that it is time for attendance.  Towards the end of the year, "being in charge" of attendance became a special treat for students with good behavior!

 I also make attendance a part of daily math work.  Here is a sheet a made for my class a couple years ago.

 Click Here for a blank version....all you have to do is write in the boys/girls in your class and its ready to use.

I have done two additional things with this worksheet to make it re-usable:

1. For Writers: I laminated the sheet and had my students write in the numbers themselves each day with an overhead marker.

2.  For Non-Writers: I laminated the sheet and put velcro in each square and then gave the students numbers to velcro into each square to indicate their answers.