Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Implementing Hygiene Routines at School

For many students with special needs, working on functional skills can be just as important, if not more important, than academic skills.  When I spoke with parents of my students, I often found that they were struggling with getting their child to complete hygiene routines independently at home. Many of my students' parents admitted that they completed most of these tasks for their child because either their child didn't know how to complete the routine, didn't want to complete it, or it was faster for the parents to just do it for their child. That is what inspired me to to add hygiene to our daily schedule back in my first year of teaching. I wanted to ease the workload of the parents at home and also wanted to encourage promoting independence for all of my student to the maximum extent possible.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

So This Happened...

On September 16th, we welcomed Colby into our family.  He is sweet and snuggly and way more work than I was anticipating...hence the reason I haven't posted in a couple months.  Being able to be home with this cutie for 12 weeks of maternity leave has been a real blessing and full of new experiences.  I have joined a new mom's group and gotten to know 8 other amazing new moms, enjoyed the most beautiful fall I can ever remember by going on daily walks outside with Colby, and drank more coffee than I did while going to grad school while working full time. 

Here are some of my favorite photos (I can't believe I narrowed it down to only three, because I probably take at least 15 pictures of him each day)

Colby and his namesake...good thing we didn't go with Jack as the middle name or he definitely would have been made fun of during his school age years!

Colby snuggling with his big fur-sister...I was a bit worried about how my dog would react to the new arrival, but these two are best buds already...and Colby hasn't even started throwing her treats from his high chair yet!

Colby in his Halloween costume...handmade by a friend, a knit burrito costume...due to our love of Mexican food, we called Colby a "baby burrito" throughout my pregnancy, so this costume was very fitting.

That's it for today...my little guy is up and ready to eat!  Hopefully I will get to some special ed content in my next post!

Thursday, September 22, 2016

New Product: Writing Fluency Timings

Do you have students who struggle to write or generate ideas when given a topic?  Students who are slow writers or dislike writing?   Looking for a warm up activity to last you the entire school year? Then this is the perfect product for you!


This writing fluency activity allows students to work on writing in a fun and competitive way.  I like to use it as a warm up activity at the beginning of my literacy groups.  Once your students get the hang of the routine, this activity takes 5-10 minutes and is a great, structured way to keep kids busy with independent work while you set up/gather your materials for that day's lesson.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

New Product: Fall Unit

Back to school means times for new products!  This week I am going to share my 2 newest products with you!  The first unit is perfect for back to school as it is a unit all about Fall!  It has a similar format to my "Summer Unit" and covers 15 vocabulary words related to fall (look for a winter and spring unit in the same format coming soon!)

Included are:
-Vocabulary Overview Page
-Vocabulary Assessments for words or pictures (receptive or expressive identification) to be used as pre/post tests.
-Flash cards (words)
-Flash cards (pictures)
-23 Worksheets
-1 Adapted Book
-I Have, Who Has? Card Game

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Mini Series: Small Group Instruction Data Collection and Role of Support Staff

In my self contained (Federal Setting 3) classroom, I like to include a variety of learning opportunities for students throughout the day.  Students work independently, 1:1 or 1:2 with an adult, in small groups with 3-8 students, or together as a whole class (13 students).  When I first started teaching, I didn't dare to have any small groups regularly scheduled into my day because my students didn't seem I wasn't ready.  My students didn't have the skills to sit together without fighting or jumping up and running away from the table...and in the beginning, I didn't realize this was something I could teach them.  Small groups can be difficult to implement in a special education classroom without clear planning and prioritizing of your goals...you have students of varying abilities, students who don't get along socially, not to mention students who don't have pre-requisite functional skills for participating in a group.

Throughout this mini series, I wanted to focus on how to set up/plan for small group instruction. As you start to create your vision of what you want your small groups to look like and what your goals for your students are, I think it is important to make sure you relay this information to your paraprofessionals so they can help you in carrying out your vision whether they are supporting a small group you are leading or running one that you have set up for them.

1.  Establishing Big Picture Goals and Grouping Students 
2.  Establishing Rules/Routines/Norms for the Group 
3.  Student Engagement/Teaching Techniques 
4.  Curriculum and Planning
5.  Data Collection and Role of Support Staff

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Mini Series: Small Group Instruction Curriculum and Planning

In my self contained (Federal Setting 3) classroom, I like to include a variety of learning opportunities for students throughout the day.  Students work independently, 1:1 or 1:2 with an adult, in small groups with 3-8 students, or together as a whole class (13 students).  When I first started teaching, I didn't dare to have any small groups regularly scheduled into my day because my students didn't seem I wasn't ready.  My students didn't have the skills to sit together without fighting or jumping up and running away from the table...and in the beginning, I didn't realize this was something I could teach them.  Small groups can be difficult to implement in a special education classroom without clear planning and prioritizing of your goals...you have students of varying abilities, students who don't get along socially, not to mention students who don't have pre-requisite functional skills for participating in a group.

Throughout this mini series, I wanted to focus on how to set up/plan for small group instruction. As you start to create your vision of what you want your small groups to look like and what your goals for your students are, I think it is important to make sure you relay this information to your paraprofessionals so they can help you in carrying out your vision whether they are supporting a small group you are leading or running one that you have set up for them.

1.  Establishing Big Picture Goals and Grouping Students 
2.  Establishing Rules/Routines/Norms for the Group 
3.  Student Engagement/Teaching Techniques 
4.  Curriculum and Planning
5.  Data Collection and Role of Support Staff

Monday, September 5, 2016

Mini Series: Small Group Instruction and Student Engagement/Teaching Techniques

In my self contained (Federal Setting 3) classroom, I like to include a variety of learning opportunities for students throughout the day.  Students work independently, 1:1 or 1:2 with an adult, in small groups with 3-8 students, or together as a whole class (13 students).  When I first started teaching, I didn't dare to have any small groups regularly scheduled into my day because my students didn't seem I wasn't ready.  My students didn't have the skills to sit together without fighting or jumping up and running away from the table...and in the beginning, I didn't realize this was something I could teach them.  Small groups can be difficult to implement in a special education classroom without clear planning and prioritizing of your goals...you have students of varying abilities, students who don't get along socially, not to mention students who don't have pre-requisite functional skills for participating in a group.

Throughout this mini series, I wanted to focus on how to set up/plan for small group instruction. As you start to create your vision of what you want your small groups to look like and what your goals for your students are, I think it is important to make sure you relay this information to your paraprofessionals so they can help you in carrying out your vision whether they are supporting a small group you are leading or running one that you have set up for them.

1.  Establishing Big Picture Goals and Grouping Students 
2.  Establishing Rules/Routines/Norms for the Group 
3.  Student Engagement/Teaching Techniques 
4.  Curriculum and Planning
5.  Data Collection and Role of Support Staff

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Mini Series: Small Group Instruction Rules and Routines

In my self contained (Federal Setting 3) classroom, I like to include a variety of learning opportunities for students throughout the day.  Students work independently, 1:1 or 1:2 with an adult, in small groups with 3-8 students, or together as a whole class (13 students).  When I first started teaching, I didn't dare to have any small groups regularly scheduled into my day because my students didn't seem I wasn't ready.  My students didn't have the skills to sit together without fighting or jumping up and running away from the table...and in the beginning, I didn't realize this was something I could teach them.  Small groups can be difficult to implement in a special education classroom without clear planning and prioritizing of your goals...you have students of varying abilities, students who don't get along socially, not to mention students who don't have pre-requisite functional skills for participating in a group.

Throughout this mini series, I wanted to focus on how to set up/plan for small group instruction. As you start to create your vision of what you want your small groups to look like and what your goals for your students are, I think it is important to make sure you relay this information to your paraprofessionals so they can help you in carrying out your vision whether they are supporting a small group you are leading or running one that you have set up for them.

1.  Establishing Big Picture Goals and Grouping Students
2.  Establishing Rules/Routines/Norms for the Group 
3.  Student Engagement/Teaching Techniques
4.  Curriculum and Planning
5.  Data Collection and Role of Support Staff

Monday, August 29, 2016

Mini Series: Small Group Instruction Big Picture Goals/Grouping Students

In my self contained (Federal Setting 3) classroom, I like to include a variety of learning opportunities for students throughout the day.  Students work independently, 1:1 or 1:2 with an adult, in small groups with 3-8 students, or together as a whole class (13 students).  When I first started teaching, I didn't dare to have any small groups regularly scheduled into my day because my students didn't seem I wasn't ready.  My students didn't have the skills to sit together without fighting or jumping up and running away from the table...and in the beginning, I didn't realize this was something I could teach them.  Small groups can be difficult to implement in a special education classroom without clear planning and prioritizing of your goals...you have students of varying abilities, students who don't get along socially, not to mention students who don't have pre-requisite functional skills for participating in a group.


Throughout this mini series, I wanted to focus on how to set up/plan for small group instruction. As you start to create your vision of what you want your small groups to look like and what your goals for your students are, I think it is important to make sure you relay this information to your paraprofessionals so they can help you in carrying out your vision whether they are supporting a small group you are leading or running one that you have set up for them.

1.  Establishing Big Picture Goals and Grouping Students 
2.  Establishing Rules/Routines/Norms for the Group 
3.  Student Engagement/Teaching Techniques
4.  Curriculum and Planning
5.  Data Collection and Role of Support Staff

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

All About Me...En EspaƱol!

One of my fabulous readers/customers made a request for my best selling All About Me product to be translated into Spanish for her Spanish Immersion Kindergarten classroom...and she wasn't the only one made this request.  But the coolest part, was that she made a bonus offer to translate for me!  So, here we are...my All About Me product available in Spanish...appropriately now titled Todo Sobre MĆ­!  One of my favorite parts (I'm a geek) of creating this was learning how to make all the accents and unique Spanish characters on my Mac (Ć­, Ʊ, ¿....isn't that cool?!)

This product contains all the same interactive worksheets as my original product...the directions for the product are still in English, but all student material is in Spanish.  Pieces can be laminated and velcroed to the bottom of each page so students can move them up when answering the prompts...this makes them re-usable so students can repeat this activity daily!  I like to bind the pages together to form a book. 





 Three versions of this worksheet are also available with varying visual prompts for learners of differing ability levels.

I think this would make a great activity in any Spanish classroom (immersion or prep provider), as well as great for second language learners or as a homework activity to send home with your bilingual students!  Hope you enjoy...and please email me if there are any other products you would like to see translated for your students!



Wednesday, August 17, 2016

How to Keep/Get Parents Involved

Depending on your classroom makeup, you most likely have parents who are interested in different level of parent involvement.  I am a firm believer that students are most successful when their parents and teacher are on the same page...and this is the first thing I told parents in our beginning of the year letter.

And since this is so important to me, I wanted to share with you a couple of the ways I encourage parent involvement in my classroom. Click on links throughout the post for other posts that go more into depth on these topics.

Monday, August 15, 2016

What Should You Wear: Adapted Book Spotlight

I have been loving on Adapted books this summer.  Check out this post for some awesome resources for creating and finding pre-made adapted books.  I especially love this adapted book "What Should You Wear" because is targets so many different skills during one activity.  It works on reading (the book uses simple language and repetitive phrases), comprehension (there are pictures to aid in comprehending each page), it is hands-on (there are questions on each page for students to answer), and it targets important self help/independence skills (identifying clothes to wear in a variety of weather conditions/situations).

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

8 Ways to Use Binders in Your Classroom

As many of you are aware, I am obsessed with using binders in my classroom.  Today, I thought it would be fun to do a round up of all the different uses for binders.  As many of you are getting ready to go back to school, you may be looking for some new organization systems or work stations to set up in your classroom.  And this time of year is the best to purchase binders for discounted prices.


I used binders for a variety of different work tasks, student schedules, as well as storage and organization.  I included some pictures throughout the post, but please feel free to click on links throughout the post to get additional information/pictures of what is included in each of these binders.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

My Day At School

Do your students' parents want to know what they did at school today?  Do you want to help facilitate more conversations between your students and their families at home?  For many of our students with autism, communicating about their day is difficult.  And if parents don't know what happened at school each day, they don't really know what to ask their child besides "'How was your day today?"  "What did you do today?"  These type of open ended questions are so hard for many students with autism to answer.  If you send home a daily sheet so parents know what activities their child completed, they can ask them questions like "Did you have speech today?" "What did you make in cooking?"  These questions are more narrow in focus and can make it easier for students to answer.

I know, I know, having to write a summary each day for every student can be time consuming and hard to keep up with.  I often liked to communicate special activities with parents through sending home monthly newsletters, monthly calendars of special events, and sending text messages with pictures/info about my students' days.  The other way I communicated with parents, was through sending home these daily "My day at school" sheets.  To save time and energy on the adults' parts, I had my students fill these out for themselves!  What a great way to work on answering questions, increasing the ability to reflect on past events, as well as increasing independence.

As your school year is starting up, why not incorporate some time into the end of every day (15 minutes should do the trick) where you work on teaching your students how to fill this sheet out for themselves.


Tuesday, August 2, 2016

TPT Sale and a NEW PRODUCT

Time for the BEST YEAR EVER Sale on TPT!  I, personally, feel like it is a little early to think about Back To School (I'm enjoying summer too much!), but we might as well take this opportunity to stock up for the upcoming school year!  A little confession time...I may have stayed up until midnight last night, just so I could buy some materials as soon as the sale started...

Just enter BestYear at checkout and you will receive 28% off all of the products in my TPT Store!

And what better way to celebrate a sale, but with posting a new product!  I have been working on these Beginning Reader Center Activities for a long time and I am so excited to finally have it posted on TPT yesterday!  It is over 400 pages and can last you the ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR!  Most importantly, it is on sale for 50% off today only!


This product is great for students who have recently mastered letter identification. If they are still working on letters, think about checking out my letter identification worksheets and letter assessments and activities.

Once letters are mastered, our students are ready to begin reading and spelling!  For many students in special ed, typical sight words (I, but, the) are not the place to start. Instead, I like to start with functional words that have more meaning and make reading more motivating and fun for my students. 


This product can be used to work on reading, spelling, or both!. This product can be used with the pre-made word lists, your own word lists, or a combination of both! 

The activities and assessments included are good for beginning writers, although accommodations can easily be made to most activities for non-writers. Students do not need to be verbal to utilize this product.



This product includes:
*30 Weekly word lists for student use as well as a blank list for your own word lists.

*30 Weekly word lists for Parent involvement and blank parent lists.
*4 Parent letters with different ideas for implementation at home (plus a blank version for you to add your own suggestions)

*9 Center Activity Mats and accompanying materials
-Write your words 3x

-Build your words with letter tiles (tiles included)

-Stamp your words

-Word Bingo (using current and mastered words)

-Write your words in rainbow colors

-Type your words

-Match words to pictures blank activity mat (and all words/pictures provided).  This can be used as a cut/paste activity for students to complete or you can laminate/pre-assemble each set.


-Make your words out of play-doh (blank mat as well as pre-made play-doh mats for all 150 words)

-150 Worksheets (one for each word covering color in the word and picture, trace the word, write the word, fill in the missing letters, identify and circle the word)

*Weekly reading/spelling assessment for students
*3 Types of data sheets for progress monitoring throughout the school year
*Flash cards for easy assessment

*Picture labels for all materials
*Schedule templates and visuals for reading center schedule
*Implementation Ideas and Tips including photos of how this product is utilized in my classroom


This is a great product for a station run by paraprofessionals or for students to complete independently.  Let me know your thoughts...if you would like anything added, if you would prefer me to sell any of these activities as separates, etc.   Happy Shopping!

Friday, July 29, 2016

Mini-Series: Strategies to PREVENT Elopement #3

No....this mini series isn't about getting married....in the special ed world, we know that elopement is just a fancy word for running away.  This is one of the most challenging behaviors to deal with in a school setting as it is disruptive and can be very dangerous.  As a consultant in a school district, this is one of the most common issues I get called in to help with.  As some of you may already know from reading my blog, I do not like to be put in a position where I have to be re-active on the fly to challenging behavior.  I would rather PREVENT the behavior from occurring in the first place...and then if the behavior still occurs (which it most likely will), I want a specific plan laid out so everyone in my classroom knows what to do.  This mini series of posts will cover identifying function/replacement behavior for elopement, simple to implement prevention strategies, and creating a safety plan.

Even with all of your hard work in identifying the function of the behavior, teaching a replacement behavior, and putting tons of preventative strategies into place,  elopement will most likely still continue to occur for a little while (sorry...old habits are hard to break!).  And when it does happen, everyone in your classroom will feel better if there is a plan in place.  There are 2 parts of an elopement plan that need to be thought about...one is for less dangerous forms of elopement and would include all of the elements of a behavior intervention plan.  And the other is an actual safety plan where you will lay out what to do in emergency situations.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Mini-Series: Strategies to PREVENT Elopement #2

No....this mini series isn't about getting married....in the special ed world, we know that elopement is just a fancy word for running away.  This is one of the most challenging behaviors to deal with in a school setting as it is disruptive and can be very dangerous.  As a consultant in a school district, this is one of the most common issues I get called in to help with.  As some of you may already know from reading my blog, I do not like to be put in a position where I have to be re-active on the fly to challenging behavior.  I would rather PREVENT the behavior from occurring in the first place...and then if the behavior still occurs (which it most likely will), I want a specific plan laid out so everyone in my classroom knows what to do.  This mini series of posts will cover identifying function/replacement behavior for elopement, simple to implement prevention strategies, and creating a safety plan.

As we discussed in my last post, identifying the function of the behavior and teaching a replacement behavior are key ways to reduce elopement, but today we will talk about some simple strategies you can implement to prevent the behavior from occurring in the first place.

Monday, July 25, 2016

Mini-Series: Strategies to PREVENT Elopement #1

No....this mini series isn't about getting married....in the special ed world, we know that elopement is just a fancy word for running away.  This is one of the most challenging behaviors to deal with in a school setting as it is disruptive and can be very dangerous.  As a consultant in a school district, this is one of the most common issues I get called in to help with.  As some of you may already know from reading my blog, I do not like to be put in a position where I have to be re-active on the fly to challenging behavior.  I would rather PREVENT the behavior from occurring in the first place...and then if the behavior still occurs (which it most likely will), I want a specific plan laid out so everyone in my classroom knows what to do.  This mini series of posts will cover identifying function/replacement behavior for elopement, simple to implement prevention strategies, and creating a safety plan.

As with any other challenging behavior, the first thing we need to think about before we can prevent the behavior from occurring is, What is the function?  In order to figure this out, we can look at antecedents and consequence (what is happening before and after the behavior occurs).  You can use an ABC chart such as the one below to take this type of data.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Animal Habitat Book

In one of my last posts, I wrote all about my love for Adapted Books and how they helped transform literacy in my classroom by motivating and engaging my students.  Today, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite adapted books about Animal Habitats.  The books covers habitats such as a farm, ocean, rain forest, bee hive, nest, desert and house.

Monday, July 18, 2016

10 Task boxes for Under $15: Target Dollar Spot Finds

Ok you guys...so besides the dollar tree, binders, laminating, data, and preventing problem behaviors....my other love is THE TARGET DOLLAR SPOT!  I had found some awesome materials that would be great to make task boxes or use for direct instruction back in January and now they are back...and they added even more!

Although I was overwhelmed with seeing the back to school section in the seasonal area of my local target,  I was thrilled with my dollar spot finds.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Adapted Book Resources

Gearing up to teach literacy skills to students across varying ability levels can be extremely difficult. Why not use a type of text that can be beneficial for students who have wide variety of literacy skills?....enter Adapted Books.  There are lots of ways you can "adapt a book."  You can do things to make the book physically easier to manipulate (like adding page fluffers), easier to read (modifying the text on each page, adding Braille, etc), or you can make them an interactive experience! This last point is typically what I mean when I say "adapted book."  I have found adaptive books extremely helpful in keeping my students engaged and motivated to complete literacy activities!  Depending on their level, students can work on concepts such as matching, identifying vocabulary, comprehension, as well as sight words and fluency. The goal of today's post is to give you some quick and easy ideas/resources for creating your own adapted books as well as where to find some great pre-made resources.

Adapt Pre-Made Books:
My first year of teaching, I found using adapted books a life saver!  I started with books that were already in my classroom  (i.e. "Brown Bear" by Eric Carle) and just found pictures (thank you google image and Boardmaker) of items on each page.  I would pass out the pictures to a small group of students and when we got to "their page," they would velcro their picture into the book.  Having pictures in their hands as we read kept their little hands occupied.  In order to know when it was their turn to stick their picture in the book, students had to pay attention to each page which helped keep them engaged throughout the entire story.  For more advanced readers, these books were also at our "quiet reading" station.  Students could read the words with story as well as velcro in the pictures as they read.  At one point, I also had a listening station with adapted books where students would listen to the books being read to them and velcro in the pictures as they went.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Teaching Cooking in the Classroom

Cooking was the key to my students' hearts from the very start.  Back in my first year of teaching, we used to cook every single week...sometimes multiple times a week.  Sure, I spent a lot of my own money buying materials, but when I had a group of students who could not sit together for longer than 1 minute for any typical "academic" task, I had to explore creative options to teach them in a way that was motivating!  Today's post is meant to describe not only some of the skills you can target during a cooking lesson, but also to give you a variety of ideas/resources for implementing cooking in your classroom.

Skills to Target During Cooking Lessons

We used cooking activities to practice COMMUNICATION.  I created communication boards so my students could request the necessary ingredients and supplies to complete the recipes.