Math Game: Counting by 2s

I love this FREE game from Sara Rhodes on TPT!  So many games require so much set up and work…but this one required no velcro and just a little cutting!  My mid-level math group has been working on some counting skills such as counting on, counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, etc.   My kids totally got counting by 5s and 10s, but they were really struggling with the concept of counting by 2s. We also had been working on a dinosaur unit in science, so this game was a perfect fit.

Differentiated Stamping Activity

When I found this resource on TPT for Free last month, I had no idea how many skills it could address for my students!  I have students working on matching letters, naming letters, and spelling/reading basic words.  So, this same activity could be used for 9 of my students to address these varying goals!

Also, this activity was hands-on and more interactive than a regular worksheet, so my kids enjoyed the change in pace.  Even for those kids who don't like to get messy, this activity was safe.  They just had to touch the stamp…not get their hands/fingers dirty in paint or something like that.

TheraSimplicity Resource

TheraSimplicity is a great resource I found a few years ago.  They offer a free 14 day trial where you can print up to 10 things.  This site offers a huge variety of resources…and the best part is they are all very visual in nature!  They offer everything from worksheets to games, informational resources, AAC templates, and more.

I love that you can create your own worksheets and games.  Here is an example from their "Bingo" game section.  You can choose what your bingo board looks like, what topic you want the game to cover (i.e. body parts, animals, clothes, transportation, food, people, school, etc.), and then add whichever pictures you want from that topic.  When I looked at body parts, it gave me over 40 pictures to choose from!  Other games you can create include simple board games and tic-tac-toe.

Teacher Time Planning: January

On Monday, I shared my guided reading plans for January.  My guided reading group is with 4 of my higher functioning students.  The rest of my students have "Morning Group" where we work on basic calendar, weather, social time skills as a group, and Teacher Time, where I work with kids in groups of 2 on IEP goals.  Similar to my  guided reading group, I make a monthly plan for Teacher Time.  

More and More Schedules

My name is Hailey, and I am a schedule addict!  How many of you have students with individualized schedules for your students?  How many of you know the pain of setting up a Velcro schedule every day for every student?!  As much as I LOVE Velcro schedules and they work wonders for so many of our students, I LOVE LOVE it when I can get my kids to transition to a more functional picture or word schedule!

A few weeks ago, 3 of my students went from a picture schedule like this…

January Plans for Guided Reading

In January for guided reading, we are trying a more structured format…mostly because it was the easiest way to plan before winter break.  Here is the plan…and I have links to resources throughout.  Most of these resources I purchased from TPT over the Cyber Monday Sale…which also made planning for this month super easy!  

Throw Back Thursday: Life Skills Room

Since I am gone on my honeymoon (!!!), I am posting some oldies but goodies.  This post was a little bitter/sweet to look at since we lost our life skills room this year!  Our school got a large influx of students and we needed to use all of the space in the school, so we lost our extra special life skills room.  We have taken some of the tasks and incorporated them into the classroom, but is hard to find space for activities like setting the table, or hanging clothes on hangers.  Oh well…that's life…but it is kind of fun to reminisce about this fun classroom we once had! 

A couple years ago, our principal gave my coworker and I an empty classroom for us to use as a life skills classroom.  We both wanted to incorporate these tasks into our classrooms, but many of them just took up too much space!  So, once we got the empty classroom, we combined some materials we already had with a trip to the dollar store.  I think we spent about $75 on that first trip to the dollar store, but that was enough to get the room up and running.  We also collected donations from friends (mostly clothes for our laundry area).

We split the room into four areas:  KITCHEN,  LAUNDRY,  OFFICE, and BATHROOM.  Then we created tasks that had something to do with these general topics (we currently have about 25 tasks).