Other Field Trip Visuals

Here are some more visuals we use on field trips.  Like I said before, most of our trips are for food :-)  Since this is so motivating for our kids, it has been helpful in reducing our kids' anxiety and enabling them to be more independent in the community.   We have even heard many stories from parents on how their children are more willing to go into the community and that their behavior has improved in the community with their parents as well.

This is the menu we use at the mexican restaurant.                         Here is the menu we use at the local diner.

Subway Field Trip Visuals

Another fast food place we like to take the kids to is Subway.  Here, kids get the chance to order a lot of different things and make a lot of choices from meat, to veggies, cheese, toppings, chips, and a drink.  Since there are so many choices, we created a little portable book to bring with us.  For each page, kids make their choice, put the pictures on the sentence strip and read/hand the sentence strip to the cashier (we sometimes help more with this since handing the sentence strip for every choice can be a bit much).

Community Trips to McDonalds

Now that we are getting into the swing of things around the school, I am starting to think about community based instruction (and my kids keep asking about it every day as well!).   We choose one destination each month to take the kids to.  Today, I wanted to show you the ordering board we use for our non-verbal students at McDonalds to order a Happy Meal..  Some of our other regular field trip destinations throughout the year include:  



Grocery Store
Subway
Sit down restaurant
Dunkin Donuts
Trip Downtown

Classroom Tour: Quiet Reading

This is our independent reading station which we call "Quiet Reading."  I use this as a station for almost all of my students (readers and non-readers).  As you can see on the bookshelf, each bin is labeled with a letter (reading levels).   For students who are reading at a guided reading level, their levels are posted on the right hand side of the book shelf.  The kids are responsible for picking a book at their level and reading it quietly to themselves.  There is a table right across from the shelf where students sit to read their books.

Work Task Tuesday- Sorting Tasks

Sorting tasks can be some of the easiest to put together in a short amount of time.  All you have to do is have items to sort, labels, and the container.  You can pretty much use anything laying around your room to sort. For sorting items, I have used everything from beads, to pipe cleaners, markers, dice,  pens/pencils, paperclips, math manipulatives, blocks, pattern blocks, and more.  You can find containers to sort in all over the place... at the dollar store, target's dollar spot, or around your school (I found the ones pictured here in old science kits my school no longer uses).  I have also purchased ice cube trays and disposable muffin tins at the dollar store for sorting containers!    

I found these little animals at the dollar tree.  They are great for this sorting task.

I have also used simple things like pom-poms for sorting.  The labels for this task specify a number and color to be sorted by.

Classroom Tour: Language Station

At this station, my students work on their fluency skills related to a variety of topics with an assistant.  I take skills each student has "mastered" and turn them into flashcards.  At this station, students work on getting faster at these skills. As I have said before, it is speed and accuracy which makes a skill functional.  If it takes a child 2 minutes to tell you the value of a quarter, the skill is not functional.  The most common sets of flashcards my students have are related to money (identifying coins, identifying value, value of coin combinations), telling time (to the hour, half hour, quarter hour, 5 minutes, 1 minute), sight words, labeling pictures (animals, foods, people, transportation, clothes, school items, etc), and labeling numbers/letters.

Classroom Tour: Teacher Time

Today, I will show you my "Teacher Time" station.  Here, my students work one-on-one with me on material related to their IEP goals.  We especially focus on IEP goals which are not covered at other stations.  We work on everything from reading to math, communication, behavior, time, money, measurement, social skills, and more.   In an ideal world, I would only ever work with one student at a time.  However, as my classroom class size continues to grow, I have to be creative in splitting my time between two students at this station.   I have my bulletin board set up to post examples of each student's work.