As the back to school commercials appear, I begin getting in the mindset to prepare for the new school year. Coincidentally, September is my favourite month - not because its my birthday month (well, maybe partially), but because I genuinely love and have always loved preparing for back to school. This year, I have been focusing on how I am planning to structure our day and what materials I can prepare prior to September 4th to support their smooth implementation. I am going to order a few of my MUST HAVE Special Ed items that I use daily in my Community Class. Feel free to connect with me if you have any questions or if you want to know where I got these resources from! Disclaimer: These resources have been tailored to meet the individual needs of the students I have taught in the past, and will teach in the Fall - differentiation is the key to success! 

MORNING ROUTINE ESSENTIALS:

Mornings in my CC always start off with a community circle, some interactive SMART Board routines (Including, but not limited to: calendar, weather, question of the day, songs, stories). Following, each student gets a copy of their own Calendar Book (see below). Our Calendar Books are great to reinforce the learning that occurred during our community circle. Students complete these with various levels of prompting, completely tailored to their individual learning goals. Some may complete these independently and require an additional challenge (e.g., fine motor practise of writing the date).

In addition, this year I've decided to implement another Morning Book, which is more individualized and student focused. These books (as seen below) will allow students to have daily practise of ordering letters in their first and last names, phone number, address, birthday and more. I feel strongly about functional literacy and mathematics and this resource was just what I was looking for! We are able to again prompt students based on their level of understanding and build independence for all of these practical and important life skills. What works best in my classroom is having all of my students sit around me at the teacher table so I can lead, prompt and model.

I quickly learned that without knowing my students interests, I had no real footing to shape behaviour or motivate students to complete work tasks. In August, I get to know my new students by inviting them in to check out my classroom (see the structure, get to know their interests) as well as send home a Reinforcement Survey/Preference Assessment. These two strategies allow me to figure out what my students interests are - AND gives me good time to run out and buy them! I learned that for students on the spectrum, "work is play and play is work". Therefore - my students love the idea of the predictability in their work and knowing what comes after (their individualized reinforcer) puts them at ease. My students in the past had very specific interests that they really enjoyed - so I made sure various forms of their favourite things were in every area of my classroom for the first week of school to get them comfortable (Books on their favourite item, specific toys, themed work tasks, etc).

This little lady loved flowers (Fresh ones were the best!). I knew this ahead of time, so I greeted her on the first day of school with fresh sunflowers picked from my garden (and that we grew as a class last Spring!).

Sensory beads and sand timers (both for timing activities and for self-calming)

Our weighted lizard (Larry) was a companion and preferred item for many students!

I knew one student loved the alphabet - so I found opportunities to explore it using different materials, textures and in different areas in the classroom. This is taken at the teacher table, organizing the alphabet in proper sequence.

WATER BEADS!

DATA COLLECTION RESOURCES:

Data, oh how I love data! Collecting data has to be accessible, quick, ongoing and of course easy to read. Since it is only August, and I have yet to meet my new learners, I have not created individualized data pages which connect to their IEP goals. However, I do have my 6 clipboards with colour coded privacy pages all ready! I have also prepared behaviour data tracking resources ready to be used for the Fall. I like to keep my data clipboard hung behind my teacher table to be grabbed on the go whenever I'm working with an individual child. I also like keeping data pages near students independent work stations for support staff to contribute and collect data. This year I'm going digital for ABC Data Tracking so I look forward to using less paper... and becoming a bit more techy! 

PARENT COMMUNICATION LOGS:

So long are the days of a traditional agenda! In my classroom, we use interactive parent communication logs to get all parties involved (child, parent, teacher, support staff). These logs allow the student to circle how they feel, what they did and for staff to add details specific to bathroom routines, lunch, notes from the day, etc. My favourite part is hearing about students evening/weekend on the reverse side. This often helps me understand any precipitating factors that may be linked to a new behaviour I am seeing in the classroom. It also allows me to build social communication into our afternoon routine and ask questions that push students to tell me all about their evening! Here is a sample of what I am using this year:

These resources definitely set me up for success in September. I think the MOST important is figuring out those reinforcers that will really get your students comfortable and motivated. Equip yourself with those and you will be cruising!

I will be sharing a detailed post (and pictures) about my new structured teaching environment in the coming weeks. Love the possibilities that arise in Fall and during class setup!

Thanks for reading -

M.