Classroom Tour: Work Station

So, the strike is OVER!!  And I finally get to go back in my classroom and teach my lovely students again.  Our first day back went pretty well (I feel like we started up almost exactly where we left off a week and a half ago...not too shabby!).  Now that I am able to work again, I wanted to give you a tour of my classroom.  It is still a work in progress...but over the next couple days, I will go station by station around my classroom to give you some ideas of activities that work well for kids with autism.  A couple weeks ago, I showed you my morning group area. (click here).  Other areas in my room I will show you are:

Work Station

Reading Centers/Math Centers

Science

Teacher Time

Language

Quiet Reading

Today I will start with Work Station.

This is an area in my classroom where students complete independent work on concepts which they have already mastered.  The purpose of this area is to get my students to work 100% on their own without any adult prompts or attention.

How it Works:

*Students come to the station and check their drawer for work.

*Students take their work out of their drawer, find a desk to work at, sit down, and complete their work.

*When their work is finished, students put work back in their drawer.

*Last the students request a preferred item as their reward.

(Teaching assistants take apart the work and set-up for the next day.)

In my school, we have multiple classes of kids with autism.  My coworker and I set up a couple stations in our classrooms for both of our classes.  That way, our kids can switch classrooms throughout the day and have a greater variety of activities to complete.  This is one of those stations (as you can see, it is set up for about 20 students).  

Set Up (what you need):

*Place for students to find their work when they arrive at the station  (I use these drawer bins).  Each student's name is on a label on their drawer (I blurred the names for posting purposes).

*Place to store each students' additional work (I use these blue bins).  This way, you can change the work students complete each day.

*Place to store supplies students may need to complete work.  

*Work for students to do (I use puzzles, file folders, worksheets, sorting tasks, etc.)  See any of my Work Task Tuesday posts for ideas.

*Rules/Directions posted

*Reinforcer List (left image) and Choice Board (right image).  For the reinforcer list, each student's name is written in a box (I blurred them in this image).  In each box, we keep a running list of items each student prefers as well as pictures of those times (on the choice boards) for students to use when requesting their reinforcer after they finish their work.  The marker is velcroed to the wall above the reinforcer lists for whenever we need to add a new preferred item.