Visual Mini-Schedules

I am sure if you have been around a special education teacher, parent or in a special education classroom you have heard or seen visual schedules. Visuals are a powerful tool and help with behavior management, academic performance, establishing routines and independence.

Think about how many visuals we have in our lives; calendars, sticky-notes, emails etc. There are hundreds of visuals we see throughout our day to help us process information. It is no different when in a classroom....especially when students with special needs are present.

In my classroom we use a wide range of visuals including class visual schedules, individual daily schedules, center rotations, supply box labels etc. Here is a picture of one of our daily wall schedules.

The visual I want to dive into today are mini-schedules. I use these all of the time throughout my day. A mini-schedule breaks down a broad topic into smaller more defined tasks. Some students need to know exactly what you mean when you say (or their schedule says) reading.

What does that mean, look like etc. Here is a picture of a reading mini-schedule I use with one of my students.

I will admit I do not use these for all of my students. Some of my kiddos are perfectly fine with their schedule saying reading and then me telling them what we are doing throughout the lesson. However, some of my kids need more structure. Having a mini-schedule in front of them allows them to see exactly what is expected from them, approximately how long it will take and whether or not a break/reinforcer is in their future.

So how do they work? I think about my student first and how much they need the task broken down. Some of my kids are okay with their mini schedule small with only 2-4 tasks being pictured. While other students need more of an outline (like the picture above).

After you set the mini-schedule for the lesson you have prepared be sure to state what you are doing. That way the kids can reference their schedule. You may have to give additional prompts by pointing or saying we are now working on the first step of your schedule etc.

Once you have completed that task have your student take off the first task.

I have my students store the completed tasks on the back. It is a quick way to "make it disappear" and you are less likely to lose the pieces.

The students flip their schedule back over and you repeat. Do this until your lesson is over.

Make sure to extend these great tools into other parts of your school. Look how this mini-schedule is set up for art.

When the students are finished they put their pieces in the envelope.

Since this schedule will most likely be outside of your classroom you could store all of the extra pieces on the back of the construction paper.

In closing, mini-schedules have really helped teach independence and functional life skills in my classroom. Instead of answering the question "what's next" over and over I just refer them to their mini-schedule. 

The kids also take ownership of their schedules and they are proud of them. I love over hearing my students say "check your schedule" or "my schedule will tell me". 

You can check out my mini-schedule pack here! There are schedules for reading, writing, math, P.E, music, art and a "general" schedule. 

Do you think mini-schedules would be helpful for students in your classroom?

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Para Professional Relationships

Being a special education teacher can at times bring up a lot of challenges. In college you learn all about curriculum, how to handle behaviors, write IEP's and work with parents. Even though those are all necessities in the classroom, I personally feel one of the most important things a teacher should know is how to work with and develop positive relationships with para professionals.

Let's face it, without para professionals, our jobs would be 100 times harder. There are so many things we are responsible for during the day and there is NO WAY I could get it done without them.

I am so fortunate to have amazing paras in my classroom but I know that not everyone is so lucky. So I have come up with some Do's and Don'ts when building, re-building or maintaining para relationships.

DO's

Treat them as equals: yes they work in our classrooms but we are in no way their superior.

Have an open line of communication: make sure to communicate the good and the bad. Don't be afraid to have a difficult conversation. Keep the focus of the conversation about the student. Don't make things personal.
     Example: if you don't like the way a para talks to a student when they are not following directions      you shouldn't say "I don't like it when you talk like that to "Johnny"" you should say, "The next  
     time "Johnny" doesn't listen you could try this....".
Maybe the para doesn't know how else to communicate with the student, so offering a suggestion is a nice gesture and the statement isn't attacking them personally.

Be Available: Make sure your paras have a way to get in contact with you. I know we are all busy, I coach and have practice right after school, but my paras know they are welcome to text, call or email me at anytime.

Be Approachable: Make sure you let your paras know they are welcome to come to you at anytime. Also make sure that you remain calm and be aware of your body language. You may be staring across the room wondering why you put that poster up but, the para across the room could think you are giving them the evil eye.

Allow for Their Input: Paras are the ones who work with the students most of the day. If you have a lesson that didn't go well or an intervention that could use some tweaking by all means GET THEIR INPUT!!! There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting feedback. I LOVE getting feedback and getting their suggestions about things. This also helps build a good foundation for teamwork!

Make Them Feel Valued/Appreciated: Make sure to give them meaningful tasks to do with the kids. If you give them the proper training, they can run interventions, take data, and teach lessons.

Also be sure to let them know how much you appreciate them, and do this often! I like to do this in person but also be sure to send an email every now and again and copy your admins (or their evaluators if they are different) on it.

DON'Ts

Expectations: Don't expect them to do something right if you haven't properly trained them. Also be sure to outline things in a variety of formats. I like to first tell them, then show them and then if that isn't enough write it out. Just because they don't get something the first or second time doesn't mean they won't be great at it. Make sure that you have done everything you can do to train them properly before thinking they cannot do what you are expecting. 

You should also not expect them to do something you wouldn't do. Example: If a student has a mess in the bathroom DO NOT make your para professionals clean it up because you don't want to. If it is your time to work with the student, it is your time to clean up the mess. On the flip side, if you are willing, make sure to jump in sometimes. That way they can see that you will do the dirty work too!

Have Them Do Secretarial Work: Para professionals are hired to work with students, not to be your personal assistant. They should never be asked to make copies or file your papers...in place of working with students. 

Claim Items: Yes the paras are in "your" classroom but don't make them feel unwelcome. Make sure they know that your stuff is available for use. I make sure when talking with the paras that I refer to the class as OUR classroom! What is mine is yours!

Not have something on the schedule: This is more for an administration side but, if the para pros are scheduled to be in your class make sure their is a task for them to do at ALL times. Even if it is a student break time, they could be cleaning up a work area, putting student papers in mailboxes etc. You never know when an admin will walk by. If they see a para not doing something productive enough times, I am pretty sure that para will not longer be scheduled in your classroom. 

In the end, just be sure to be kind and treat them as you would want to be treated. If you have any difficult situations you are dealing with please feel free to email me. I have a lot more suggestions on how to build positive para relationships that I would love to share.

What things do you do in your classroom to help build/maintain positive relationships with the para professionals?

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Choice Cabinet Organization (Promoting Independence)

Do you ever have that moment at the beginning of the year before students arrive when you look around your classroom and smile? Everything is put in its place, pencils are sharpened and your cabinets are organized!! I have those moments too, it makes me feel like a kid on Christmas.

But before we know it our students have entered the room and have made it their home. The pencils are now dull, nothing is put in its place and those cabinets just make you want to pull your hair out. Well friends not anymore. I have found a way to keep my choice cabinets neat and organized while still allowing the students to be independent.

I start off by organizing my cabinet how I want it. I put the math games together, I have a section for reading games, puzzles, fun stuff etc. I then start to label the shelves with different color stickers. I use yard sale stickers but anything you have multiple of will work. I then put the same color sticker on all of the games/toys in that section.

(puzzles are green)

(reading games are red)

(math games are orange)

Now when the kids take their choices out they can independently put them back in the correct spot. I love setting up my cabinets like this because it teaches my students about organization. I teach life skills so this is a perfect opportunity for my students to practice :). 

Now if you're like me you may have more sections of "stuff" than you do stickers. So I just switched the shape of the sticker. 

(green circle is Play-Doh)

Ahh! Doesn't this just make you want to smile :). Being organized not only helps my OCD but it makes for a nice calming environment.

(nice and organized...makes the teacher happy:))

How do you organize your choice cabinets? Does it promote independence? 

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Morning Meeting Activities (functional skills)

I love morning meeting because it gives me the chance to work with all of my students in a whole group. Since most of our day is filled with rigorous interventions, fluency timings, discrete trials and countless hours of data tracking I like to make our morning group a fun and predictable time! Even though I like to make it fun, morning meeting/group is a GREAT time to throw in some functional academics.

Here is a picture of our schedule. I color coordinate everything in my classroom. Everything to do with morning group is purple!

After the kids have gone to their lockers and turned in homework they start their personal information binders (you can read more about them here).  The kids are allowed into the building 15 minutes before our bell rings so I use the binders as our "morning work".

As soon as the bell rings we start our morning group. This year I am super excited to announce that I have a SMARTboard in my classroom. If you don't have a SMARTboard no worries. You can easily do the activities using our favorite tools (laminate and velcro!!).

We start off  by checking in.

I have all of my students pictures in the red and one by one I will have them come up and move their picture from red to green. Once everyone is finished we tally up how many students are in each column. Once we are able to master this, I will start to have the kids add the numbers together. And just like that we have already done a picture identification and counting activity. 

After check in we work on one of my favorite things, greetings.

Communication is a HUGE part of my classroom so it is so important to incorporate as many opportunities to socialize as possible. At the beginning of the year I greet every student using the same phrasing "Good Morning Name", I then ask them to say good morning or hello Mrs. Boysal to me. Then I ask "how are you?" and make sure they respond appropriately and then ask me how I am doing. As the year progresses I will add more phrases to the board and have students start to greet each other. I did this last year and it was so much fun to see how much growth my kiddos had with communication and interactions with each other. 

After greetings comes everyone's go to morning activity, calendar!

Calendar is a functional skill that must be done everyday. We don't do anything fancy for calendar but I do have a fun way of picking kids to put up the new date. Everyday I select an apple and a students picture will appear. That student gets to come up and add the date. To make this fun and suspenseful for the students I am going to recover the picture and rotate them every day. This is a great way for kids to practice turn taking. Sometimes kids have to wait more than a week to come up and participate.

Another portion of our calendar routine is learning about the weather. 

I am going to have the students look up the temperature ever day. I made the little thermometer a link right to weather.com (I was feeling so tech savvy when making this :)). We will also work on number writing by filing in the temperature and identifying and understanding seasons.

Our next part of morning group is practice.

I am fortunate to have ULS and love the spelling that they provide. We work on reading our words, using them in sentences, spelling them in funny voices and writing them. 

So as I said before communication is so very important. I close out our session almost the same way I start. I get the kids talking!!! During our Let's Chat session I use a number of prompts and questions to get the kids thinking and talking. (Both of these are from Sasha at The Autism Helper)

In the end, it is important to remember that when planning a morning group, or any lesson for that matter, ask yourself "what's the purpose of this?" If you can't answer that, then try rethinking what your central goal is. You want everything you do to serve a purpose. 

What activities do you do during your morning group? Do you keep it fun or do you incorporate functional skills like me?

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E-Book and Giveaway

What!! How cool is this? Myself along with 24 other AMAZING special education bloggers have put together an e-book filled with tips and FREEBIES to help you get back into the swing of the school year. We decided to do a book so all of your tips and freebies would be in one document. Download the book once and read through, be sure to click on the freebie pictures to get your downloads. My page is the very last one but don't miss all of the other awesome tips!!

Click here to grab your copy.

Along with the e-book we are ALL doing a giveaway! I have given you 8 different ways to enter my giveaway. None of them are mandatory BUT the more you do the more chances you have to WIN!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Be sure to click the links at the bottom of the page to hop through everyones blog to enter their giveaways. If you do them all you would have 25 chances to WIN!!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Work Task Labels

Students with autism heavily depend on structured work systems and 3 bin work tasks are one way to achieve this. I have created some Work Task Labels to help you kick start your structured classroom work system. All students can benefit from this system so don't think it is only for students with autism.

Here's how it works!

SET UP:

 1) Decide how many "systems" you want in your room. I have 4, 3 students who have their own and then I have 1 system that 4 students share. The "systems" themselves take up a lot of space so really think about how you will have your classroom set up. Also think about your schedule, if you can have students share stations that saves space. **When sharing stations be sure the kids are working on the same skills, there is someone to reset the station when each student is done, the students schedules do not overlap.

2)  Set up the furniture. The 3 bin tower should be on the left of the desk. I include a basket on top for

file folder tasks. This isn't needed, I just like to include monthly theme folders to add a bit of variety to the work system.

3)  Print out all of the labels, laminate, cut and get your velcro ready!

4)  Choose the color you want your first system to have. Attach the big square labels to each drawer of the bin tower. The order of the labels does not matter, however make sure your consistent with
these throughout your room. I like to put them in order from "easiest to hardest". I think about it in terms of how I want my work set up. Circles are easy to make so I put an easy task in the top drawer, Squares are a little harder so I put harder work and stars are the hardest to make so I put the hardest activity last. This helps the students build up and increase their work stamina.

5)  Attach the work task schedule card somewhere near the bins. I keep mine on the corner of the desk but you could put it on the wall in front of the desk if possible. Add hard velcro to the square   boxes. Put soft velcro on the backs of the small icons.

INTRODUCING SYSTEM TO STUDENTS:

1) Tell student it is time to work. You can do this however you have it set up in your classroom. My students have individual schedules so when they see "the 3 bin visual" they go to their 3 bin station.

2) The student then checks their work task schedule and pulls off the first visual.

3) Next they match it to the appropriate basket or drawer.

4) Then they pull out the folder or whatever task you have for them to work on.

5) They complete the work.

6) Last they put the work in the finished work basket. I like to make my basket large enough to fit a variety of tasks.

7) Then they repeat this process until their work task card is complete.

What is important about having a work task system is having your station set up to allow students to work from left to right. They start by selecting from the bin (left) working on the task (middle) and putting it in finished work (right).

You can put any tasks that you feel will benefit your students. Here are some work tasks I have on my "Work Tasks" Pinterest board. There are also many great products available on TPT, search work tasks, T.E.A.C.C.H, 3 bin tasks to get started.

You can also grab the work task labels seen in this post here! 

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#SPEDDollarDeals Today ONLY!!

Today ONLY a group of special education bloggers and myself are having a dollar sale. Type the special code #SPEDDollarDeals into the search bar on TPT and BAM! You will see all of the products available....best thing they are all only $1!!

The product I have entered is my All About Fall adapted book. This book (along with all of my other adapted books) allows students to read and learn fun facts about fall while answering "wh" questions to test their comprehension.

Make sure to head on over and see what you can snag!  #SPEDDollarDeals

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