Purple Center Tasks!

I have 19 tasks at my purple center. Over summer I plan to create more for next year but for now this works! My group A does this center completely independently, group B needs little prompting and monitoring, and group c needs more prompting. Here are my tasks 1-10.

1: Alphabet Books. I created these books and they are on my TPT. My students pick 3 to complete.

2: Emerging File Folders. Here I have a variety of file folder games that go over early learning skills such as the alphabet, numbers, colors, and matching. The majority of these games came from File Folder Fun and File Folder Farm.

3: Intermediate File Folders. Here are some harder file folder games. Included are adding, subtracting, money, sight words, and categorizing. These also came from File folder fun and file folder farm.

4: Bear Color Sort: I got the bears from an educational store and the bowls came from IKEA. The bowls just happened to be the exact colors I needed!




















5: Bead Color Sort: I got an ice cube tray and beads from Walmart. I hot glued a bead to the bottom of each cube slot.

6: Office Supple Sort: I found the tray at the dollar store and I just used items that I already had in the classroom. I taped a picture with the word of each item to the tray.

7: Initial Sound Sort: These I got from NY2 and symbolstix. I am still working on creating some more cards.

8: Holiday/Monthly Activity: Here I will put an activity usually that I found on TPT that goes along with the season/month/ or holiday. Currently I have a fall themed even/odd sort activity that I found for free on TPT.

9: Match and Sort. I got this activity from a donors choose project. Students sort a variety of objects into cups or on a mat.

10: Adapted Books. The majority of these books came from the Autism Helper on TPT. I love these books and so do my kiddos!

Advice for New Teachers!

I am a fairly new teacher myself, this is my second year of teaching. If you are a first year teacher it can be extremely stressful to get into the groove of things in your classroom and your shool. There is always a lot of paper work to do especially in the beginning of the year. It is also hard to figure out what you like and how you want to run your classroom.

My first year I probably rearranged my classroom like 10 times. It takes time to figure out what you like and what works for you and your kiddos. Each year you will think of things to add, remove, and change. Teaching is a lifelong learning profession, so get ready!

Here is a tip! If you are having a hard day; and with our kiddos it can get pretty hard, try to remember at least one thing that went well. It is important to not dwell on the negatives of the day. Instead, try to figure out why something did not go the way you expected and fix it. Thinking about the good in each day will make sure you don't get too stressed and overwhelmed. Hang up some positive notes in your room to brighten your day a little.

Remember, our job is very hard. Take some deep breaths and remember how much you are doing for your kiddos and how much they have and will learn. The little things do count, always.

It's Finally Fall!

I don't know about you but fall is my absolute favorite season! Although I live in Florida and the leaves don't change colors and the weather changes are minimal, fall is still the best! I love to decorate for the fall season in my home and of course my classroom. I wanted to share our new door decor and our Halloween bulletin board!

Orange Center Tasks!

Here are the tasks that I have set up in the orange center. I am thinking about switching some of them up pretty soon so that my kiddos don't get bored of the activities. The activities have numbers and a color. Green: beginning level, Blue: Intermediate level, Yellow: Advanced level. I decided the levels myself based on the ability levels of my students. My group A can do any of the activities independently while my other two groups may need some help with the higher level activities. I want my kiddos to be independent with the activities since my assistant is busy working one-on-one with a student.

The tasks in this center are based on fine motor skills.

1: Cutting Tasks

All of the materials are in the bin for easy access for my students. The tasks came from Kids Learning Station and from DLT Kids.

 

2: Dot Stampers

The stampers are from the dollar store and I got some of the stamping sheets for free from TPT and the alphabet sheets from this blog.

3: Dot Stickers

I got the same alphabet sheets from task 2 and laminated the sheets. The students place the dot stickers on the laminated sheet and then take them off when they are finished.

4: Clothes Pin Tasks

The alphabet task came from the FCRR website and the color task was a free sample from file folder heaven.

5: Stamps

I got these stamps in upper case and lower case from a donors choose project. The sight word stamping sheets are from TPT.

6: Lacing

These were bought from an education store and some also came from a donors choose project.

7: Puzzles

I have wooden peg puzzles for my group C and 50 piece puzzles from the dollar store for groups A and B.

8: Towel Folding

I got the idea for towel folding from my internship in a high school classroom. It is a functional skill that our kiddos can use in their everyday life and it also works on motor skills!

9: Pegs

This product also came from donors choose. There are many different peg activities out there.

 

 

So that's it! My orange center tasks. Once I change some around I will update you! Remember, this is also the center where my assistant works one-on-one with students on flash cards, so there arnt many tasks to complete here. Each student only completes one of these tasks a day.

Weekly Letter

Last year I had to constantly write in every students binder when something was due or an important reminder for parents. So this year I created a weekly letter for parents. It also includes our vocabulary words for the month and science and social studies topics. I love this weekly letter and it is super quick and easy to update it for each week!

Language Arts Routine

Language Arts:
We start every language arts lesson by going over our monthly vocabulary words. We are currently on our last week with our back to school unit and we will be starting our community workers unit next week. I try to do each unit for about 3 weeks. I also send home a list of the words and if requested by a parent I will send home picture or word cards for the students to practice with at home. My units include file folder games, writing practice worksheets, a bingo game, matching worksheets, an adapted story, and read it write it stamp it paste it worksheets. All of the activities in each unit include multiple levels. Click here for my back to school unit!

 

 



I also use reading A-Z with my students. I like it because it includes worksheets and activities to go along with each story. There are also different levels of stories. I use level aa for my group C. These stories are short and the worksheets are usually dedicated to a single letter or story concept. I read these stories aloud to this group. My group B uses the level A stories. These use repetitive words but also introduces new words and concepts. So far we have learned about baby animals and about the letter s. My students in this group read the story along with me. Group A uses level C. This level also includes a comprehension worksheet and will discuss different reading strategies. My 2 students in this group take turns reading the pages.
I will also do seasonal related language arts activities that I find on TPT.

Yellow Center

Here is our yellow center. It is our sensory center that I strategically place on my kiddos schedules when they need a break. My assistant who does the ABLLS pullout runs this center when she is in the room.

 

This center includes my sand table and toys that  I love! I got this from a donors choose project that I created last year. Since it can get a little messy, my assistant will ususally pull it outside right outside of our door. This center also includes the 3 drawer bin that is stocked with bubbles, sensory bottles, shaving cream, and lotion. I like this center because it provides a little bit of a fun break time that is much needed in my kiddos schedule.

Purple Center

Here is our purple center. This is our task center. In each students schedule they have 1 to 3 numbers that tell them which task to do. My group A is completely independent at this center which allows for some time for my assistant to catch up on any work or to help me out with a group of students.

 

Here are our task boxes. Each has a number and a color. The green is for easier tasks, the blue for intermediate, and the yellow is for more advanced tasks. I will go into each task later on.

 

 

For my students who are not independent at this center, my assistant will help them to find their task and monitor them while they are completing the task.

Friday Reflections

These past two weeks in science we have been learning about outer space. I posted on my last Friday Reflections about the unit that I created and is for sale on TPT. So today we did some fun activities relating to outer space!

Here is our outer space edible. It is a rocket made with saltine crackers, yellow cheese and twizzlers.

 

This is our craft that we made! I found the idea on pinterest! It is made with two paper plates and tin foil wrapped around the outside of one plate. We had to add some glitter to represent the stars of course! This project took a bit of prep time before the kids arrived but it was defininetly worth it!

 

 

We also made OOBLEK today. 2 parts corn starch to 1 part water and we added some green food coloring. Since this activity is a bit messy we did it outside but my kids loved it!

What Worked: I had been having some trouble last week and early this week with one of my kiddos not listening and following directions. We noticed that a Wall-E toy we had in the classroom seemed to be really reinforcing for him so we decided to make a plan using the Wall-E of course. We made a Wall-E puzzle for my kiddo and once he gets all of the puzzle pieces, he is able to play with Wall-E for 15 minutes. How does he earn his pieces? Every 15 min that he follows directions and listens to his teachers he can earn one piece of the puzzle. If there is an instance where he does not listen, his timer will start all over again. It was worked wonders! I am so happy about how this has been working and his mom even asked me to make one for him to send home. THANK YOU WALL-E!

 

Orange Center

Here is our Orange Center.



 

My assistant who does not do the ABLLS pullout runs my orange and purple center. And he does a great job! This center has a lot going on and is all about multi-tasking for my assistant. Now that my students are becoming more independent with their schedules and at the centers, orange center is becoming a little less hectic.

Here are the flash card bins for each student.

 



Each bin has 1-3 sets of flash cards for each student. Group A and B work on dolch sight words at their level as well as math problems, numbers, coins, clocks and anything else they need more work on. Group C works on picture cards, numbers, and letters. Since these students are non-verbal they work on receptively identifying the cards out of a field of 2 or 3. So my assistant will work on these cards with one student at a time and take data on the amount of correct and prompted responses.

While one student is working on their flash cards, the other two look in their schedules at the orange section and see what number they have to do. This is where my kiddos are getting more independent. Group A and B are able to do this step almost completely independently (just a few verbal prompts needed).

 

This is where the numbered activities are stored for this center. I tried to do mostly fine motor actvities at this center because our kiddos can always use help with those skills.

 

 

Later on I will go into detail about what each number entails.