Happy Heart Month Considerate Classroom Friends! Throughout the month of February, I am excited to give you 28 days of sweet treats (tips, ideas, and freebies) with the help of 27 amazing special education bloggers.
Starting tomorrow there will be a clickable image with 28 envelopes at the top of my blog. Each day one more special education blogger will have something wonderfully sweet to share. You can simply click the envelope for that day to get your sweet treat. Be sure to check back often as some of the blogs will be offering sales and freebies on their special day ONLY! NOTE: Considerate Classroom's special day is February 9th. I will be following the sweetness too and plan to send a reminder here and there throughout the month via Facebook.
A special thank you to Traci Bender over at The Bender Bunch for organizing this sweet Valentine blog hop! Happy Valentines! With Love,
Lindy
Looking for a way to teach your students appropriate pronoun usage? Check
out this leveled his/her activity:
All
you need to do is collect boy and girl clothing and accessories such as watches,
hats, necklaces, barrettes, bracelets, gloves, mittens and shoes. (Tip: Collect baby clothing items so they fit nicely in your workbox.)
Then make a tub labeled his, him, he with a picture
of a boy on it and a tub labeled hers, her, she with a picture of a girl on it. If you would like you can download this version from my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Then have your students take turns picking
the accessories out of a fabric bag or tote.I use one of my “take one” fabric bags. "Take one" fabric bag you might ask... It is simply a fabric bag that I labeled "take one" with a permanent marker.
I have several of them, and we use them for a variety of activities. It gives my staff and I the reminder to use the same prompt "take one" as the students put their hand inside. Many kids who are impulsive will take a handful out of the bag so it is a learning process if needed I only put one thing in the bag at a time for errorless learning. NOTE: By using a solid colored fabric bag versus a plastic ziploc bag the students have to pick out an item randomly as they can't see inside the bag and the bag is quiet when students pick an item out.
After the students pick out an item, I have the
students tell me if it is for him or her and put it in the corresponding his or
her tub.To make the activity fun
and to facilitate more language I added this simple aided language board.
The language board provides the students with a way to say “that is his” or “that is hers” and they can also make comments
such as “I like that” or “I don’t like that” we are working on core vocabulary (this, that, his, her, me, you, mine) while at the same time facilitating language. By having the pictures available for students to point to, they have another means to make sense of language and/or communicate. Click on the video below to see this strategy in action (NOTE: The video is with my own children, who both have language, but hopefully it will still give you an idea of how the language board works.) You can also access the language board on teachers pay teachers.
Another great thing about the his/her game is that I
put it in tubs that match the tubs I use for my workbox storage:
And one more great thing about the task is that it can be
used in a variety of ways as a fun small group activity, a direct instruction activity with a teacher, para, or speech pathologist or as an independent work activity.
NOTE: Above is an example of a very concrete activity. The students are actually feeling, seeing and try on boy and girl accessories. If your students are ready for a more abstract version of this activity you can access this his/her card sorting activity on teachers pay teachers.
Print, cut out, and laminate the cards. Then simply have your students sort them into a container with two parts. (My favorite is a Lean Cuisine dinner tray.)
I considerate this to be level two of his or her sorting, next I give you level three, two worksheet versions of the same concept.
NOTE: You can use these worksheets with a dry erase marker and page protector as a direct instruction or independent work activity so students can practice the concept several time without making multiple copies.
Or you could even slide it into the cover of a binder as a slant board.
Well, that is it for now! Until next time, happy concept building! She and He will learn a lot:)
Happy New Year, Everyone! As I support and help others, I find myself referring to these posts time and time again, so I figured what better way to start a new year, then to share them in one collaborative post to support effective learning and teaching in 2015! First up, A VIRTUAL TOUR OF MY CLASSROOM:
Physical structure is the foundation of an effective classroom. A functional learning environment lends itself to smooth transitions, independence and efficient traffic patterns in turn creating optimal learning and teaching time for students and teachers. But physical structure does not stand alone, in the world of Early Childhood Education and Special Education we have a lot of stuff. Stuff that needs to be organized in a systematic manner that provides easy access to teachers and staff but limited access to students, so with that I give you organizational tips from one of my favorite posts: THE NIGHTMARE THAT IS CLASSROOM ORGANIZATION
Classroom rules help staff be specific and consistent about teaching appropriate classroom behaviors. But along with them we must develop classroom expectations. I like to think of classroom expectations as a way for us to systematically teach our students how the classroom rules apply to a variety of centers, activities, routines and situations. Click CLASSROOM EXPECTATIONS for more details.
Which leads me to the next stop on our tour of effective classroom strategies, a systematic classroom schedule. As stated by Kathleen Lane, "The best behavior plan is a good lesson plan." The more planned our routines and schedule are, the more learning we can embedded throughout the day, in turn limiting wait time and increasing quality teach time. It is definitely a involved process so below you will find links to a series of six posts related to classroom schedules and routines. . .
And finally before I sign off I must, hop on my soapbox, no significant learning can happen without the ability to communicate. All students must have a means to communicate what they know, as well as their opinion and what they want and need. In the world of special education and early childhood education this can be a challenging feat as children come to us with the inability to communicate verbally. It is our responsibility to find them a way to express themselves in whatever means possible. Visual communication boards are often just the ticket for this, so without further ado I give you, IMPROVING COMMUNICATION THROUGH AIDED LANGUAGE BOARDS and one final favorite, to remind you of all the possibilities: PERSONALIZING COMMUNICATION FOR INDIVIDUAL SUCCESS.
Best wishes in 2015, as always let me know if you have questions or if I can help in anyway. The world of Early Childhood Special Education can be a lonely one but together we can make a big difference for our littlest learners!
I finally bit the bullet. I am on Teachers Pay Teachers. Thanks to the encouragement of Cathy Stevens and a few friends. I am totally in awe of what is out there. Cathy, as well as so many others, have so many great products.
So here goes my first Teachers Pay Teachers Product: Toot your horn to review and learn new concepts!
All you need is some party blowers, velcro coins, an empty oatmeal or peanut canister, two pieces of construction paper, scissors, ziploc baggies and this printable.
Print a set of cards for each student. In my classroom, I print concepts that each student is currently working on. For instance for a student who is at the beginning stages of learning numbers with a number recognition IEP goal, I might print numbers 1 through 5 and then print a few color cards for them as a review so they can be successful with some cards automatically.
Next I put a velcro dot on the back of each card and put it in a baggy with a party horn that has the opposite type of velcro dot.
Normally I put rough velcro on the card and soft on the surface to prevent kids from rubbing up on the surface of a cabinet, shelf, etc and getting scratched. But in this case, I change it up to maximize my velcro usage. For example, for one student's review card set I will do rough velcro on the cards and soft on the horn and then for the next student's set I will do the opposite so I don't run out of one type of velcro before the other.
Next I put together a canister for sorting correct and incorrect answers. Mine is an oatmeal canister but any large canister will do.
One side says, "Yay! You did it."
The other says, "Maybe next time."
The inside of the container has a piece of folded card stock to separate correct answers from incorrect answers for data collection and for a try again method.
Below is a video of how to play and the method of trying again in a nonjudgemental way to support errorless learning. The idea is to play in a fun way and help students not feel badly about their incorrect answers but rather re-answer with the correct response before finishing the activity.
Okay, so I know what you might be thinking... I am suppose to make a set of cards for each student?!? How do I have the time or materials I need for that? Well, I will give you a little motivation. By having a set for each student you can send them home as a homework activity. Speaking from a mom's perspective, it is nice to have 'fun' homework. The kids and the parents will appreciate it. Send it home in a baggy with this note so parents know how to play the game.
Another option is to store the set for students to do during one on one direct instruction with a para or teacher. Note: You can really review any concepts in this manner: math facts, sight words, spelling words, thematic vocabulary, the list is endless. It could be great in a speech or ot session as well! You can use it to review concepts and work on strengthening oral motor control.
So there you have it a New Year's Freebie and my first Teachers Pay Teachers product. Be on the look out for others. Hang on tight folks, it could be a bumpy ride. Remember I have the tech skills of a preschooler. (Okay, so maybe that is giving me too much credit! I think my three year-old son has actually surpassed my technology skills.)
