Some Basic Reading/Math Ideas

When I posted a couple of my products on Teachers Pay Teachers this summer, I had not yet used them myself.  I had brainstormed the ideas over the summer for my new kiddos!  I knew that I would be receiving more kids than any other year (and no additional adults) and I needed more ways to incorporate independent work for my students to keep them busy and learning all day (which prevents boredom and temper tantrums!).  For my students with higher academic and social skills, I was not too worried...I have plenty of stuff to keep them busy and they are great at adapting to new activities (check out this post for what my higher academic students do at Reading/Math Centers).  However, for some of my lower functioning students independent work is harder to come up with and new activities do not go over very well (this group of students in my class struggles a lot with any sort of change).  As you probably know if you have read my blog, I love using work in binders for my students.   It keeps the work predictable and lets students know exactly how much work they have to complete.  It also allows for switching different work in and out without the student feeling like too much has changed.  I store these binders in a little plastic bin.  I put a piece of velcro on the side of the binders....that way when a student is bringing their schedule picture to the station, they attach it right to the binder they are responsible for completing.

This is what is in my reading binders for students who can match letters.  This is from my Functional Spelling Product on TPT.  The product also comes with pages that have blank boxes, for kids who are beginning to spell words on their own.  I store the pieces in a labeled baggie on the back of the previous page.

I use these in my reading binders as well.  This is from my product Sorting Pictures by Letter from A-Z on TPT.  Each kid only has 3 or 4 letters worth of pages in their binder and we switch them around every couple weeks.  Again, pieces are stored in a baggie (I ask for these as school supplies in the beginning of the year since we use so many).  For the example below, students sort pictures of alligators to the left side page and apples to the right side page.

I also have some students who are not yet able to match something as complicated as a letter and cannot yet sort.  For these students, in their reading binders, I use matching pages from my Easy Matching product on TPT.  When I made this, I tried to make each item on the pages (there are only 4-6 pictures per page) a different color to help aid in visual discrimination for some of those beginning matchers.

Not all of my students make it to my "Math Centers" station which takes place in the afternoon because we get so busy with inclusion and functional skills stations (life skills classroom, science lessons, social time, drama time, etc.)  Don't worry, we still work on math...just not independently as often as reading.  So, these binders are a bit less developed.  Right now, I am just using pages from my product Patterns and Beginning Math Skills on TPT.  Students match patterns in blank boxes below a given pattern.  I tried to use picture of common items/things my students like to make this activity more engaging.

That was kind of a long post...happy Tuesday!