Daily Schedule

The daily schedule is basically the beating heart of our classroom, and probably most special education classrooms! The schedule helps me as the teacher plan out our day, helps my students to build a routine, and helps my paras know what to do, where to do it, and which students to work with throughout the entire day. Although creating a schedule for a diverse group of students and including specials, inclusion times and therapies can be overwhelming and time consuming, it is a vital step in creating a structured classroom environment for our kids. I always have a staff schedule and student schedule posted right when you walk in the classroom. This way, anybody walking into the classroom (administrators, subs, therapists) knows where each student is and where each staff member is at all times.

I also have a master visual schedule posted on the whiteboard in a central location in the classroom. Each side of the pictures on the schedule have Velcro so that when we are finished with one activity it can be turned over. We use this as a transition tool along with our "Time to Change" song.

This year, all of my students are starting off with a portable visual schedule on their desks. The individual schedule stays on the student's desk and they go to their desks to check their schedule each time we transition. In the beginning this can be a little hectic because students are still trying to get used to it, but throughout the year every single student makes some kind of progress with transitioning with their daily schedule. We celebrate everything, even the small stuff! Eventually our goal is to carry the schedule to each center independently or to move to a schedule with no pictures. All of my students are still working on pre-reading and writing skills so the color coded-picture based visual schedule works the best for right now.

Each center/ area in the classroom is color coded and the large classroom schedule as well as the student individual schedules are colored to correspond with the center. Each area in the classroom also has a check-in area for students to place their visual schedule piece. When they are finished at the center, they will put their picture in the finished bin. (index card holders with the top cut off)

School has been going on for about 2 weeks now and I can already see progress with my students ability to check their schedules and transition throughout the classroom independently! Click here for a pack of schedule visuals. (not color coded)

Back to School Activities

Whew! Day one and two are over and done. I think both days were fairly successful, no major meltdowns and my student's are already getting the hang of their schedule and center rotations. This week is all about back to school, following the rules, and good and not so good behavior.

The past two days in our whole group reading we have been working on the book "David Goes to School" by David Shannon. I used this book last year and the kids really liked it. I like that it uses simple language and that the pictures are very engaging. On Monday we read the story and then did a whole group behavior sort and then the student's did a behavior sort on their own (with some prompting of course). Here is the link to the sorting activity (created by Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten). Today we read the story again(repetition is key!) and then made a David craft, the link is here.













For whole group social studies we have been working on my rules-laws unit. Monday we read the adapted story "We Have Rules! In School" and then we completed the matching vocabulary worksheets. Today we read the book again and instead of using the file folders in the unit, I printed out and made copies of the pictures and words and had my students cut and paste them onto a sheet of construction paper. We also played the Bingo game at the end of the day. I plan on repeating these activities on Thursday and Friday with the "We Have Rules! At Home." book. Here is the link to the unit.

Classroom Reveal 2017-2018

The first day of school is on Monday and I think I am ready! I have my lessons and activities ready for the first week and my classroom is set up and ready to welcome my 5 students. Here is my classroom reveal for the 2017-2018 school year! I decided to do a burlap and apple theme, although I did keep some items from when I had a nautical theme. I just couldn't let them go! I will be going through specifics of my classroom and schedule in later posts, but for now, here is some of my room.

  

 Hallway bulletin board. My wonderful mom helped me with the burlap around the board. Without her it would have looked like a train wreck! The pineapples came from here and have my name, my para's name, and my student's names on them. The little calkboard clothespin came from the dollar section at Michaels. Each one has one of my student's name on it and I plan on using them to hang up their work.




My door from the hallway. The welcome sign and most of the burlap décor came from Clutter-Free Classroom. I love how it all turned out and I especially like that room seems cozy and comfortable. The chalkboard sign was a great find from Michaels and it was on sale!















The door inside the classroom. The cling apples are from the dollar spot in Target. There were so many apple themed items this year and it was perfect for my room. The door also has our check in areas for lunch, specials, and recess. The little box has a finished sign attached to it and my students place their visual schedule piece in there after returning from lunch, specials, or recess.

 

 

This shelf is right when you walk into the classroom. Students place their belongings here in the morning and put their folders and planners in the mailboxes. The clipboard next to the mailboxes has a sign in where students write their names when they enter the classroom.

 

 

 

 

View of the classroom from the door.

 

This is the first bulletin board closest to the classroom door. I post our student and adult daily schedules here. I also put up our newsletter that our autism coach sends home monthly. Lesson plans are posted so that administration knows what we are working on when they come in. I also type up a brief summary of student behaviors and behavior plans and clip it on a clipboard. The blue bin holds materials that the students have to take to specials. The two red bins are labeled by group and hold all of the behavior visuals each group needs .









My direct instruction table. Each of my centers is color coded and there is a hanging color sign above each area in the classroom with a written description of each area. The tables have a color coded label and each area has a check in center that aligns with the color. The classroom schedule as well as the student's individual schedules are also color coded. This way my student's know exactly where to go throughout the day as well as paras, substitutes, and administration.

Behind my direct instruction table. The three drawer bins are labeled by group (I have 3 groups in my class). The bin on the far right holds my sight word readers from Reading A-Z. The fabric bins hold math manipulatives, and math and language arts intervention binders and extra activities I use for small group. My data binder is housed in the black fabric caddy that I got from Amazon. It holds so much!

Two of my students use a point system from The Autism Helper. They can earn the treasure box at the end of the day when they receive 10 points. My other three students use a five star token system to get reinforcement more frequently throughout the day. Our daily schedule is posted and is color coded for each center and has Velcro on both sides. When we finish something, we will turn the picture over.

This is the rest of the white board. Student desks face the board. I use this board for our whole group reading and whole group science and social studies. We use Unique Learning systems as a curriculum and I love the reading activities. Typically I will put up a poster or visual for the topic we are working on in science or social studies. To the right of the board is out Morning Meeting schedule and our attendance check in system. Find it here! The two blue crates hold all of our Unique work, science and social studies work, and our morning meeting journals.

Morning Meeting area. This bulletin board is used for our morning meeting. The schedule and attendance check in are also a part of our morning meeting.















View of the entire white board.










My desk area. Not much explaining to do here :) A lot of the apple things came from Target!

 Here is my work station! I set this up last year and it has been great. I can easily grab materials to put together my activities. The black crate holds my laminator, binding machine, and Velcro. the small red bin has tape, a stapler, and scissors. The blue bin is sort of a catch all. I will put things that need to be filed in their or things I have made but am not using quite yet, but will use very soon.

 


I have a number of binders that hold most of my master copies of worksheets and activities. This set of binders are used more often and so I wanted them to be in an easily accessible area. They include our alphabet and number notebook masters, spelling and functional spelling, reading notebook, and monthly homework. The folder on top holds the homework copies I have made for the next week.

 

This is our library and story time area. The bulletin board has our word wall. I also have our games stored here. Next to the library area is out choice time area where students have some time to interact with each other and play. The computers will be stores on the red rack on the circle table.

Choice time toy storage.

Next to choice time, our break area. This is between two filing cabinets. I taped a large sheet of black bulletin board paper across the top to create more of a cozy feel. One of my student's little sister came to the meet and greet and tucked in some stuffed animals. So cute!

This is our green center. We use this for arts and crafts, board games, and cooking activities. The back shelf also holds extra pencils, crayons, scissors, and glue.

Middle of the room, Independent Center. This is a part of our center rotation. During the first rotation students work out of task boxes and during the second rotation students have independent binders.

Para run center. This is also used during our center rotation and my para runs this center. I will go into more detail on the centers at a later post :)







So that's it! I really love how the room turned out and I am so excited to see my students Monday morning.

Meet the Teacher!

 

Tomorrow morning is our meet and greet! The meet and greet is very informal and parents can come to drop off their child's school supplies, fill out some paper work, and get to know the teacher a little. Often times my students don't attend the meet and greet because it can be too overwhelming for them and sometimes they just don't want to come to school when they don't have to. This year I decided to give out a little treat, create a booklet for parents with important information, and of course put out my student information sheet for parents to fill out.

The popcorn label can be found on my store here. The popcorn label is taped to a bag of unpopped popcorn.











The student information sheet includes; parent contact info, studnet allergies, likes, dislikes, preferred reinforcers, potty training, academic information and transportation information. The student information sheet here.










The information booklet is from Mrs D's Corner and can be found here. It is editable and it really is a great resource for parents to have with whatever classroom informtaion  you feel is important. I am hopeful that most of my parents attend tomorrow!