Learn how one educator uses G Suite for Education to help students overcome their negative self-images and embrace learning.
Made For Me Literacy provides special education teachers with engaging, comprehensive reading units meticulously crafted with special learners in mind covering various subject areas, including basic reading, writing, math, science, and fine motor skills.
Challenges with focus and attention can become a huge roadblock to learning for kids and young adults. Simply put, attention is critical to learning. If students can't focus on the lesson, they are going to struggle with understanding the new content. If students can't focus on the directions, they
It is important for parents to understand the difference between IEP vs 504. IEPs have more safeguards in place to ensure schools provide the right support.
Teaching empathy is important. In the simplest of terms, empathy is the ability to notice, understand, and share the emotions of others. It is a critical social skill for all people to have. In many ways, empathy is the social skill that paves the way for all other social skills. It helps us to take
These ABA therapy activities for kids with autism spectrum disorder will give you heaps of ideas you can use at school, in therapy, and at home!
Learn about types of accommodations for special education students in math, reading, writing, homework & tests, and organization. Download a free printable!
This is a great resource for the study of cooking! The linked page lists this printable as appropriate for adults, but they don't know homeschoolers very well then, do they?! I know homeschool families who have elementary-aged children that really know their way around a kitchen! So, if you are working with your child on their kitchen and cooking skills, this printable is for you!
Note: This blog post contains resources from our TpT store and our Amazon Associate store. -------------------------------------------- Get the Job...Keep the Job! This video helps students see the right and wrong ways to act in an interview. -------------------------------------------- Here are several classroom game ideas that I found on Pinterest. They focus and teamwork and collaboration. Click here. -------------------------------------------- Grocery Shopping in the Community -------------------------------------------- Free Counting Money Task Cards You will receive six Common Core math money task cards to help your students count dollars and coins. They work well for 1st and 2nd grade, special education and ESL students. A student response form, mini-writing assignment and answer key are also provided. -------------------------------------------- Pre-Cooking Skills -------------------------------------------- Life Skills Math: Reading a Recipe and Measurement Activities This packet works well in a measurement unit, functional needs class, cooking lesson, ESL and ASD. Students will read a cereal bar recipe and answer reading comprehension questions. The recipe is real, and your students will love helping you bake them...or at least enjoy them as a special treat. The second worksheet encourages hands-on interactions with measuring cups and spoons using manipulatives, such as dried beans. ----------------------- Free Financial Literacy Task Cards Money and Banking Vocabulary You will receive 6 task cards for applied math, finance class, economics or an advanced life skill class. Students are given a definition and must choose the correct vocabulary word. A word bank is also provided. You will also receive scavenger hunt directions and 20 other game ideas for task cards. A student response form and key are provided. Students love task cards instead of worksheets. Please note that these cards are just a sample (with different words) from a larger set. You may use this sampler set to determine if they will work well with your classroom. You may also use them as a quick assessment. Vocabulary words include: assets refinance right of rescission equity creditor balance sheet You may also like: Money and Banking Mega Bundle ----------------------- I also found this great blog post through Pinterest sharing more functional life skills to practice in the classroom. Click HERE. ----------------------- You may also like these free printable teacher resources: Free Telling Time Task Cards You will receive 6 math task cards for your students to practice telling time to one, five and fifteen minute intervals. You will receive scavenger hunt game directions along with 20 other uses. A student response form and answer key are also provided. ----------------------- Free Fire Safety Task Cards FREE Fire Safety Week: You will receive six vocabulary task cards for literacy center games. Scavenger hunt directions, along with 20 other games ideas, are also included. They work well for elementary, special education, ESL and speech therapy. You will receive a student response form and answer key. Vocabulary words include: fire engine air mask oxygen sprinkler system nozzle explosive ----------------------- Please take a peek at these books full of activities from our Amazon Associate store: Life Skills Activities for Special Children by Darlene Mannix The best-selling book for teaching basic life skills, fully revised and updated This book offers teachers and parents a unique collection of 190 ready-to-use activities complete with student worksheets, discussion questions, and evaluation suggestions to help exceptional students acquire the basic skills needed to achieve independence and success in everyday life. Each of the book's activities focuses on specific skills within the context of real-life situations and includes complete teacher instructions for effective use, from objective and introduction through optional extension activities and methods to assess student learning. The book includes numerous reproducible parent letters which can be sent home to help parents reinforce these lessons while children are away from school. A revised and updated edition of the classic book for teaching basic life skills Includes 190 complete activities with reproducible worksheets, discussion questions, and evaluation suggestions for developing independence Offers ideas for developing practical skills to deal with identity theft, cell phone manners, budgeting, eating healthy meals, using credit cards, time management, and much more ----------------------- Life Skills Activities for Secondary Students with Special Needs by Darlene Mannix Ready-to-use lessons for teaching basic life skills to adolescents with special needs This book offers teachers and parents a unique collection of more than 200 worksheets to help adolescents with special needs build the life skills they need to achieve independence and succeed in everyday life. The book provides 22 complete teaching units focusing on basic life skills such as handling money, succeeding at school, using the Internet safely, getting and keeping a job, and much more. The book contains 90 reproducible worksheets for teaching students how to apply these life skills to real-life situations. ----------------------- Social Skills Activities for Special Children A flexible, ready-to-use program to help special students in grades K-5 learn appropriate ways to behave among others The revised and updated second edition of this bestselling resource book provides ready-to-use lessons--complete with reproducible worksheets--to help children become aware of acceptable social behavior and develop proficiency in acquiring basic social skills. The book is organized around three core areas crucial to social development in the primary grades: Accepting Rules and Authority at School, Relating to Peers, and Developing Positive Social Skills. Each lesson places a specific skill within the context of real-life situations, giving teachers a means to guide students to think about why the social skill is important. The hands-on activity that accompanies each lesson helps students to work through, think about, discuss, and practice the skill in or outside of the classroom. ----------------------- Social Skills Activities for Secondary Students with Special Needs The updated new edition of this valuable resource offers an exciting collection of 200 ready-to-use worksheets to help adolescents build the social skills they need to interact effectively with others and learn how to apply these skills to various real-life settings, situations, and problems. The book provides 20 complete teaching units focusing on 20 basic social skills, such as being a good listener, "reading" other people, and using common sense. --------------------------------------- Click HERE to view our Teachers Pay Teachers Promoting Success store. Shelly Anton is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. ** This means there are Amazon affiliate links in these blog posts. This does not mean you pay a dime more when you purchase a product through the link. It just means I am trying to save you valuable teacher time by making it easier for you to find great resources for your students, and I earn a few cents for my research and time. Thank you for all you do for kids!
In Living With Asperger's Syndrome, I explain what it's like to be a woman living with Asperger's Syndrome, now Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Kids and young adults need to be able to problem-solve on their own. Every day, kids are faced with a huge number of social situations and challenges. Whether they are just having a conversation with a peer, working with a group on a project, or dealing with an ethical dilemma, kids must use their s
Tips for staying calm, calming your child, and tools that they can use anywhere.
Strategies and supports for executive functioning challenges can make all the difference, especially for students who struggle with task initiation. This is such an important skill, since it's like the motor in allowing us to get started on all tasks and assignments. When someone is struggling to in
Superflex teaches kids they can be a superhero if they use flexible thinking strategies to self-regulate. When sneaky characters called Unthinkables visit our brains and push us toward socially unexpected behavior, children use their strategies to defeat the Unthinkables and steer themselves back on the pro-social track. Learn about this positive, motivating program to teach self-regulation!
Introducing Quadratic Factoring with Conspiracy Theory in Special Ed Algebra 2
special education, behavior, behavior plans, BIPs, writing a behavior plan
What types of accommodations can help students with dyscalculia? Here are dyscalculia accommodations teachers can use at school. These math supports can also help at home.
Inside: Browse, print, and use this comprehensive list of IEP Accommodation and 504 Accommodations. Includes a PDF.
special education, behavior, behavior plans, BIPs, writing a behavior plan
Check out all 13 fun & engaging activities for teaching volume of prisms. Includes print and go resources, online tools, and hands-on activity ideas.
Calming activities are important for kids and teens. These are the strategies they can use to self-regulate when they are upset, overwhelmed, or dysregulated in any other way. There are literally hundreds of different calm-down strategies you can try with kids and teens. Some of my favorite c
Crossing the midline activities for kids. What on earth are those? Sometimes in the educational world we start speaking a slightly different language than 'normal' people. Not that teachers aren't normal ... though ... you do need to be a little insane to work with small children all day long, don't you? Anyways. I had
Have a student who elopes? Need a way to debrief with them after? I developed this think sheet because every special education teacher knows eloping is a BIG thing when dealing with behavior. If you don't have an eloper, are you really a special education teacher? Just print and you are ready to go!
Having intentional conversations with our kids about special needs is a way to love our neighbors and honor the Lord.
Too often when us parents are in the throes of calming our child with special needs, their siblings get left to just "figure it out." Caring for a special needs child often involves a ton of attention to taking care of that one child. The siblings tend to feel they are overlooked, isolated, and unnoticed. That is why it is important to make sure we are supporting the special needs sibling. Here is how to do that.
We've been on our journey of being "parents-of-a-child-with-special-needs" for over two years now. The first year didn't seem that much different than raising any other child, but for months 13-24, we definitely started to feel the stretch. The first year was so easy because raising a baby is raising a baby. For us, Em was never on feeding tubes, or oxygen, so aside from the fact we did physical therapy weekly, there really wasn't anything different. After that first year though, Em got bigger, her physical disabilities started to become more noticeable for strangers, and the fact that she's so big (tall), started to make it a little draining and taxing when we had or wanted to do things. All that paired with the fact that it felt like she was never sleeping meant that we were practically avoiding the outside world as much as possible. However, after living like a hermit for a solid 10 months, I realized it wasn't fair to her, Jay, or our entire family to avoid doing fun adventures, or going to fun activities just because things would be more difficult. So today I'm going to share with you a few things that have made all of this just a little bit easier for us over the last few months. A Portable Sleeping Tent: Because Em is so tall, she fully outgrew being able to sleep in a pack n play at about 20 months. This meant that if we traveled anywhere, we didn't really have a place for her to sleep because beds aren't safe for her, and she would just roll all over the floor all night and never sleep if we tried that, so we needed something that could confine her a little more. We've been loving our PeaPod Plus tent that we got from Sear's in May. I love that it's super compact, so when we're not using it, it folds up into a small disc, but that the actual tent is 52'' in length meaning that it should be long enough for Em for a few more years. It's significantly less bulky than a pack n play, and there is a padded mat on it that makes it just as comfortable. Bigger Hotel Rooms: This last year we've kissed goodbye the idea that we can all sleep in one room together and have it work out. We have officially moved into the realm of two bedroom suites which seems so unnecessary, but because Em has such a hard time falling asleep, and she's often pretty noisy until she falls asleep, it's nice that we can stick her in her own room, and then Jay can sleep on the pull out couch, and Derek and I can have a room to ourselves, where we hopefully can't hear anything that our kids are doing. To me, it's worth the extra money while traveling to be able to get a good nights sleep and not hate everyone during the day when we're trying to go places and do things. Plus, we just reserved a room for $149/night at a Marriot for when we're in NC in a couple weeks, which is almost what you'd pay for a normal room in some places... so... worth it. A Good Stroller: When Em was born we bought the Baby Trend Sit and Stand Stroller on Amazon and it was horrible for us. I know a lot of people love their sit and stands, but I'm pretty small, and not incredibly strong, and it was so large and bulky to push that it was really straining my wrists every time I used it. I wound up giving that one away, and used a $20 umbrella stroller from Target for about a year. Then finally when we went to Florida this year, I wanted to get a stroller that could convert from a single, to a double, in case Jay wanted to ride, and then when Jay no longer wanted to be in a stroller, I could have it as just a single for Em. I found a 10 month old Phil and Teds double stroller on craigslist for $300, which is more than half off the original price, and jumped on the deal. It's been one of the best parenting purchases I've ever made, and and I love that it will work for us for years and years to come. Em is in our stroller 90% of the time when we go places, so it was really important to get one that would last, and that would function for our needs. Babysitters: You have to tell yourself that you're not the only person who is capable of taking care of your child. When we lived in NC and Em was a newborn, we left her with young women from church all the time because they were all obsessed with her, and enjoyed watching her. When we moved to Georgia and didn't know anyone, it was hard to feel comfortable leaving her with other people because she was so limited in her mobility, and I thought that the sitters would accidentally hurt her, or try and have her sit and she would fall over... but then this summer I just got over myself and started ditching her with every babysitter I possibly could, and you know what? She was fine every time. She would cry for five minutes, get over it, and then happily play until whoever was watching her put her down for a nap, or put her in bed. After going from zero dates in an entire year, to more than 10 in the last three months, I can say Derek and I like each other ten times more than we did during our non-dating period. I realized in some cases, some kids may have more needs, like oxygen, or a feeding tube, but I really can't stress how important it is to train/teach at least 2-3 other people how to care for your child so that you can have a break. Get a Gym Membership: This kind of goes in the same vain as the babysitter, but we recently got a gym membership at the YMCA, which means I can drop my kids off at the daycare for up to two hours (though I never go more than one hour) each day, and get a well needed break from my kids. Not that I don't love them, but being the primary care taker, and having no other family around... it can feel daunting at times. I love that my kids will happily go do something fun for themselves while I work out and have a peaceful shower when I'm done. Also, if you can't afford a Y membership, look into their financial assistance program like we did. We wound up getting our membership fees waved due to Derek's income and the high amount of medical bills that we pay for Em. Have a Friend Who Really Gets It: All your friends with typical children are great, and they're supportive, and loving, and we need those friends too, but having a friend who is going through the same things as you on a daily basis is invaluable. We met a family when we moved to our new house who has a son with autism, and they've literally been through pretty much every single thing that we've been through with Em. I've loved being able to bounce thoughts and ideas off of her, especially since her son is older than Em, so she likely has all the good answers for things before I get to that next phase in our lives. A Sensory Blanket: I've talked about how much I love our sensory blanket in this post here. But it really has been life changing for us, and if you're on the fence about making one, all I really have to say is just do it! You're 4 hours of moderate labor away from the most joyful nights sleep you've ever had in your child's life.
Nowadays, it’s teachers who spend the most time working with special needs children. Learn about what it takes to teach these kids well.
Have a special child? Here's why it's terrible for a parent of child with a disability to hear the words: "I feel so SORRY for you."
Can you believe 2016 is already coming to an end? Ok, some of you might be like is 2016 over yet! 2016 was filled many events throughout the world. 2016 […]
Sometimes raising an autistic child can leave you feeling confused. I know, I've been there. Learn what NOT to do with your autistic child so they feel supported.
One of the hardest aspects of being a special needs family is accepting the reality that this isn’t something you’re going to “get through”. I’ll be honest, it really bothers […]
She came up to me, our first Sunday there, and said, “If your son needs to be in a more quiet place, he is welcome to hang out with me in the lobby. I have the church’s WiFi pass code and he can use it if he has a device. I know it must be...
Sometimes raising an autistic child can leave you feeling confused. I know, I've been there. Learn what NOT to do with your autistic child so they feel supported.
Looking for special needs quotes? As a mom myself of a special needs child, here are the 150 best special needs quotes for comfort.
Looking for special needs quotes? As a mom myself of a special needs child, here are the 150 best special needs quotes for comfort.
Autism and ADHD are each an invisible disability. How can parents explain their children's invisible disabilities to others?
The wonderful thing about school vacations is that you get to spend extra time with your child. The downside to this is that some students with special needs will backslide in their educational ach…
Traveling with a special needs child doesn't have to be hard! Check out these 9 tips to make your next travel plans a breeze! #specialneedsparenting #a ...
Many of you know about my daughter Rory and her Congenital Femoral Deficiency. She currently wears a 6 centimeter shoe lift on her right shoe. Her
We Provide Best Therapies For Special Needs Children Of Age Group 2 To 17 Years Old. Home Programs Also Available For Distant/Foreign Parents.
Here's a list of the 30 famous people and celebrities with disabilities - super inspirational and amazing famous people with special needs.
Last month, I wrote this post asking parents of children with special needs to answer a question about what parenting in their everyday lives is like. My goal was to promote understanding and awareness, because parents with special needs children often feel like “people just don’t get it.” This is the question I asked: Parents,Continue Reading
Special needs parenting is hard. I mean really hard. It’s difficult physically, emotionally, and mentally. I’m not going to take the time in this post to explain why it’s so […]
Have a special child? Here's why it's terrible for a parent of child with a disability to hear the words: "I feel so SORRY for you."
As the number of children diagnosed with autism rises, chances are good you know someone who is parenting a neurodiverse child. Here are some ways you can support parents and caregivers of autistic children, and tips on how to handle some common situations.
Sometimes raising an autistic child can leave you feeling confused. I know, I've been there. Learn what NOT to do with your autistic child so they feel supported.
Do you wonder what a day in the life of a special education teacher is like? What goes on in your child's special education classroom? Whether you are a parent of a special needs child or not there is a lot of misinformation and myths that you may have assumed to be true. I'm setting the record straight on 4 of them.
