Classroom Tour- Part #1

I finally feel like I am back in the swing of things after the start of the school year- so i thought I would take readers on a tour of my classroom during the next few posts.  Although money and resources are tight no matter where you teach, I am lucky to be in such a great district with a room that was specifically designed to meet the needs of kiddos with ASD.  I haven't always taught in such a luxurious space, so as I take you on the tour, I'll try to suggest some alternative ideas to set up and materials.  

Enjoy! I had to stand on my desk to get this one :)

Check in Station

Organizing your arrival chaos. Make a check in station near the door for one-stop-dropping!

This is the first stop in our arrival routine each day.  Students place their daily binders (D.O.T. Book- Daily organizational tool) in the white basket, technology (AAC devices, IPADs, IPODs, etc) in the Blue Technology basket, behavior clipboards are stored in the green basket, notes from home/homework go in the blue "turn-in" tray, and lunches go in the lunch basket under the counter.  The table is wide enough for my kiddos to plop their backpacks on, if needed.  Baskets, including the laundry basket for the lunch boxes, were purchased at the dollar store. Also, there is a step-by step arrival routine poster that is hung on the wall behind the table. If you are interested, you can purchase the arrival routine poster here: 

Book Nook

EVERY kid IS a reader! 

Let me say that again, EVERY kid IS a reader! Yes, I now you have some that may eat the books, throw them at you, scream when you even suggest looking at a page, but EVERY class should have access to self-selected reading.  Even if your kids can only tolerate 7 minutes of DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time per day, DO IT!!  Every ounce of literacy research out there for teaching kiddos with significant disabilities to read tells us to give them print to investigate.  ANY kind of print.  Here are some alternative ideas to books: 1) environmental print (familiar labels of food, familiar store logos, familiar brands- cut them out of the newspaper or grocery circulars) 2) comic pages from the newspapers 3) magazines (my neighbor teacher put out and "all call" to her general ed. social studies class for donations of their old "Teen Vogue"etc, and I got tons without spending a dime.  4) Newspapers 5) Instruction books that come with appliances (for your techy kids) 5) board books (ask parents of toddlers that you know to donate).  I know the books in my nook have the potential to be destroyed, so I have never spent more than $.25 on one.  Get some baskets/milk crates and a comfy spot to sit (I picked this one up at an estate sale for $5), and you are all set!

Teacher Table

Once I am here, I don't like to move to get materials, so I have to make sure it is VERY organized and has ANY supply I could possibly need.  I have a small rolling five drawer organizer that I got at a garage sale for all my office supplies, a rolling ten drawer organizer (Costco) for the supplies that we use in our reading curriculum (LOTS and LOTS of Cards), and the book shelf has a bin for each group. I also have a file folder organizer that has a folder for each day of the week to store any copies I may need.  Student binders (for reading) are stored on the floor in a milk crate.  I highly recommend having a basket of fidgets to put out on the table- just in case you have to run over to a crisis, it's nice to have something to keep a kiddo occupied at the table while you step away.  I friend of mine's husband made the small standing white board on the table- it's basically a piece of wood about 1/2 inch thick, with an angled groove cut into it to hold the white board.  

Para/Aide Station

I have the best aides on the planet!  They are grateful for a place they can call their own. The desk takes up extra space in my room, but it is worth it to make them happy.  Hug your para today- they have tough jobs and, the good ones, make our lives and our kiddo's lives so much easier.  Their desk houses their sub plans, medicaid paperwork, student mailboxes, my visuals/social stories organized by student, communication clipboard, data charts, place for them to store their work, etc.   

Student Desks

Raise your expectations

For a long time, like many other ASD classrooms, my students had a group table for any type of group instruction (which there hardly every was) at a large table.  A few years ago, I thought, huh?  If our ultimate goal is for our students to spend some time in a general ed class and behave appropriately, when am I teaching them that skill??  So.....I asked for desks a few years ago and now we do a whole lot more group instruction.  It isn't always pretty, but I feel better about the level of expectations I am setting for my students.   

 

School Year Start Up

I've been in my classroom doing a little room set up this past week.  As I was printing some "Beginning of the year" forms to send home to my kiddos, I realized I hadn't updated my parent inventory in some time.  As I was tweaking and editing it a bit, I realized how much vital info it contains.  It houses everything from medical info, contact info, to parents' yearly hopes and dreams for their child.  It has taken 12 years (ahh, I can't believe I am starting year 12!!)  of development, but what I have left is a concise (one page, two sided) document that I send home in the mail to my students' families before school begins, and just ask that it be returned to school on the the first day.  I reference these inventories constantly so they are the front page of each student's info binder on my desk.  If you, or someone you know, is looking for a parent beginning-of-the-year questionnaire or inventory- check mine out at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Parent-Questionnaire-Student-Info-Sheet-837707.

Behavior Monitoring

One of the main parts of my job is to shape behavior.  Sometimes when I'm sitting in the eye of the storm (ex. simultaneous screaming children) it is difficult to make good decision with regard to interventions and progress.  Therefor, I write-down everything!!!!  I use sticky notes, construction paper, whiteboards, spreadsheets (SO many spreadsheets), my hand, my arm,  I have even been known to use a piece of masking tape stuck to my pants (true story).  If  it's not written down, it doesn't exist.  I'm a little Type A (ok, a lot Type A) about behavior monitoring and I drive my co-workers a little crazy.  I don't want to guess at numbers- I want solid hard DATA.  Sometimes the data tells me things aren't as bad as they seem, other times it is a HUGE wake-up call.

Once I look at the data, things are always more clear.  I analyze, analyze, and analyze again.  Sometimes there isn't a pattern, but usually there is.  I can see if there is a particular time, day, person, texture, noise, routine, etc...that trigger a particular behavior.  The data tells me what direction I need to head with my intervention and it gives me confidence to make informed decisions.  In addition, it has been my experience that parents really appreciate the hard data. If you are looking for new ways of tracking data- I recently posted a pack of seven different charts/logs/spreadsheets that may be useful.  Here is the link if you are interested in purchasing any items.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Behavior-Monitoring-Charts-Logs-for-any-Classroom-815670

Good luck & Happy Analyzing!

Keeping Information Organized

Today, it happened...the first "Back to School" siting.  I was minding my own business, trying to find a gallon of milk at Target, when a an over sized pencil touting the infamous words was spotted, looming from the Target ceiling.   The mere glance of it sent butterflies through my stomach and sent me into a brief, but cold, sweat.  The butterflies then began making making mental checklists of all the prep-work I needed to begin (the work I try to avoid, as a rule, during the entire month of July).  I hated the giant pencil and the butterflies that ensued, but  it did give me an idea for today's post- "How to Stay Organized."   

Like many special education teachers, I have lots of support staff in and out of room daily.  Everyone from therapists to paraprofessionals (whom I always brag that I have the best of) are in and out of my classroom constantly, so organization is a MUST.  It is not only my job to organize myself, but I need to make sure there are things in place that streamline organization and communication for the entire ASD team.  Vital day-to-day information  ( like locker and bus numbers) and caseload info (like IEP dates and state testing info) have to be at my fingertips daily.  If your room is anything like mine, I don't have time to dig through drawers eightly-five times a day to find a phone number or IEP date. Instead, I tend to make implement other methods that are more user-friendly and easy to access.  If you are new to the world of special education (or looking for some new ideas), specifically self-contained categorical classrooms, here are some organization tips that you can start working on after July is over :) : 

1) Designate a binder for each student's important paperwork- This may seem like a no-brainer, but for years I had a file in a drawer for students' important documents.  The problem with that is, drawers don't transport to meetings very easily and drawers can't go home with me. Invest in some tabs for the binder (ex. behavior, IEP, Curriculum Info, etc) to keep everything more organized.  The binder can travel with them when they leave your classroom to move on to high school.   

2) Keep a spreadsheet posted (laminated) in multiple locations with vital info for staff- Our students can't always communicate their wants/needs to us, let alone their latest allergy or bus #.   I have a spreadsheet available for download on my teacher pay teachers store that contains a column for students everyday info such as allergies, pack/buy lunch, bus number, locker number, locker combination, etc.  I have found that keeping this near the door, in addition to other locations in the room, has been a huge help to staff (especially substitute teachers). http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Staying-Organized-in-an-ASD-or-Special-Ed-classroom-784781

3) Create a few sets of "Student Info Cards" to pass out to staff- Most special ed teachers communicate important info from students IEPs using a document like an "IEP at a Glance."  While these documents are very important, my experience has been that staff don't' have the time to look at them as thouroghly as we would like.  So....a  few years ago I started making a set of laminated cards (one per student) with VERY important info for each one of my students.  The cards are a little larger than an index card and have a picture of the student at the top of the card, followed by other info (sensory needs, allergies, medications, behavior, communications needs, toileting concerns, etc).  If I was passing out an entire class-set of cards to a staff member, I hole-punched them and put them on a binder ring. For whatever reason, I found that staff were more likely to read these cards than the IEP at a Glance document.  Again, it is part of the "Staying Organized" package for sale on my Teachers Pay Teacher store. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Staying-Organized-in-an-ASD-or-Special-Ed-classroom-784781

4) Keep all your caseload info on one spreadsheet- Ugh!  Special Ed can sometimes seem like one enormous pile of paperwork.  In order to make dates/info/levels less overwhelming, keep all this info in one easy-to-access spreadsheet.  It seems like someone will unexpectedly come in my classroom asking for Johnny's IEP date, just as one kid is having a DEFCON 1 melt down (that's what I call the big ones), the science experiment has just exploded,  and someone else has just wet their pants...so making it available at your fingertips is a MUST. Warming- this document may contain private information, so it may be wise to not post, but rather keep in your desk drawer, or somewhere else less conspicuous. See my Staying Organized package for an editable template to keep all the vital caseload info streamlined. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Staying-Organized-in-an-ASD-or-Special-Ed-classroom-784781

These are just a few ideas to get you started thinking about Back-to-School and Organization, I'm sure there will be more ideas to come- hopefully it didn't give you too many butterflies!  Now, go enjoy the rest of your July.  

Autism Info Cards

If you are like me, you often get asked "What exactly is autism?" That is a nearly impossible question to answer, as each child affected by autism is so unique. Those inquiring are seeking info and I want to give them an eloquent answer, but often I seem to fall short when put on the spot, as i am knee deep in the trenches of my classroom. So...a few years ago, I came up with these Autism Info cards that I keep on hand, laminated, at all times. They really help in a pinch. I have found them useful to pass along to subsitute teachers, bus drivers, new staff, peer mentors, volunteers, new teachers, etc. You can download them for FREE from my store on Teachers Pay Teacher. In addition to the school setting, I was thinking they would be a great resource for parents to have on hand for new respite workers, family, babysitters, etc. Here is the link to the free download http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Autism-Info-Cards-746330.