I’m back to talk more about independent work stations. I don’t know if you’ve realized, but I’m basically obsessed with them. I think I’ve written about independent work stations at least a half dozen times on this blog if not more! I love them because not only do they provide an opportunity to teach students ... Read More about 5 Mistakes you are Making in your Independent Work Stations

Here are 10 different types of activities that you can use in your independent work systems in your special education classroom.

Task boxes can be highly beneficial for special education students for several reasons: They provide structured learning by way of presenting learning materials in an organized way, they provide visual supports, repetition & practice, and skill generalization. Task boxes can also be customized to meet each individual student’s needs and IEP goals, promote independence, and […]

There is a reason behind every component of a independent work system. Do you know the 4 questions each work system should answer? Click through to find out.

From developing fine motor skills, letter and number recognition, sight words, sorting, sequencing, reading, and math, these task boxes for autism tasks will help develop important life skills and beyond!

Overwhelmed and understaffed my first year as a special education teacher in the self-contained classroom, I discovered that implementing an effective independent workstation helped my students become more successful and independent. Click to learn how I got control using task boxes and independent workstations in my special education classroom. My students loved the differentiated math, language arts, science, and social studies curriculum with age appropriate clip art and real photographs.

Task boxes can be highly beneficial for special education students for several reasons: They provide structured learning by way of presenting learning materials in an organized way, they provide visual supports, repetition & practice, and skill generalization. Task boxes can also be customized to meet each individual student’s needs and IEP goals, promote independence, and […]

Every school year, I identify a few "grows" that I want to work on over the course of the year. This year, I want to improve my relationships with families, continue to learn new ways to teach core vocabulary and to incorporate more functional skills for my kiddos! I decided to make some new task boxes to work on some basic functional skills. Check out my new sorting and put-in independent work/ task boxes! Everything is made from stuff I already had in my classroom or from the Dollar Tree. Sort the game pieces. Pack the toiletry bag. Put the pencils in the pencil pouch. Sort by pencils and pens. Put the money in the piggy bank (just a painted yogurt container). Sort the office supplies. Stock the art caddy. Do you make functional skills task boxes? Please link any posts/ pictures you have of functional task boxes in the comments! I'd love for us to all share our ideas :)

Build student independence and learning in your special education classroom with a free clothing match task box!

Looking for a way to organize independent work time for your special education classroom? Students gain more independent and personal responsibility skills with an organized Especially Education Task Box Independent Work Station. Ideas to organize task boxes for independent time or for work time.

Want to set up a work task system in your classroom? All you need to know to get started is here! Read on to learn about Work Tasks for Students with Autism

Task boxes can be highly beneficial for special education students for several reasons: They provide structured learning by way of presenting learning materials in an organized way, they provide visual supports, repetition & practice, and skill generalization. Task boxes can also be customized to meet each individual student’s needs and IEP goals, promote independence, and […]

Who is prepping more work boxes this summer? I just love getting new ideas, especially for our older life skill students! Christina Bailey, a transition life skill teacher, offered to share a bunch of her work boxes on my blog! Thank you Christina! Christina works with transition aged students (19-26 years old) with severe cognitive and/or health impairments. Her school serves students from multiple school districts within the county who learn best in an alternative placement. Are you ready? Here they are!! Putting together (or taking apart) flashlights. Bonus points if students can get the batteries in correctly and get the light to turn on! (Motivation!!) Ice cube tray and colored pebbles with tongs. I love the fine motor aspect added here. Marker packaging. I absolutely love this task and would be a great one to buy during back to school marker sales (especially on those really cheap markers you don't really want to use in your classroom!) Erasers on pencils. This has always been one of my favorite tasks! Silverware sorting. A must for every work task station, am I right? And a super easy and cheap one to put together. Silverware rolling / packaging. I love this task as it is perfect for vocational preparation. Putting together curlers. Ribbon threading around a wire basket. I never would have thought of this task! I love using the wire basket to thread the ribbon, and bet students would have fun with this task too. Sewing kit packaging. Packaging tasks like this are great! Tea candle sort. I love this age appropriate color sorting activity. Toiletry packaging. Wouldn't it be awesome to get donations of items like this and put together kits to give out to the homeless as a classroom service project? So, there you have it! Did you get some more good ideas? Happy task box prep! If you ever have anything you want to share, feel free to email me. I love being able to share your fantastic ideas with other special education teachers like yourself!

In February I blogged for the first time about what was actually INSIDE my work boxes. My first post focused specifically on "put in" work tasks. If you missed that post, read it {here}. This post is going to focus on sorting activities. At one point this school year my students ranged in ages 2-5 years old. I really can't emphasize enough the variety of skills I need my task boxes to offer. And they need to be skills a child can complete almost independently. You can always differentiate the level of a sorting task which is nice. They can simply sort by color or make things a tad more complicated and sort by object. I also consider the amount of items they are sorting to contribute to the difficulty. Some students may only have the ability to be successful with sorting 10 items, where another may be successful with sorting 25 items. But let's jump right into the sorting activities that I'm currently using in my classroom! I know a lot of these are self explanatory but I'm going to feel the need to talk about them anyway. For this box students sort the erasers onto the correct picture. I found the erasers and the Dollar Tree and I made the sorting mat on my computer with Pics for PECS. I purchase a gazillion of these little containers from the Dollar Tree. They usually do 2-3 color sets per year and I always buy some. They come in packs of 4 for $1 and we use them for so many things. Students sort the colored Popsicle sticks into the containers. This is essentially the same task as above- students are sorting the sticks by color. However, they are putting them into the correct spot on the container. I simply colored around the holes on this lid with a sharpie to designate each hole to a certain color. Students are sorting erasers for this task. I taped an eraser into the bottom of each container so students knew what container to put them in. I found these erasers a few years ago in Staples. I can't remember if they were clearance or in a dollar section, but I stocked up on all the different ones they had. (There's more used in another activity) Who says hearts are just for Valentine's Day?! Again, using these awesome containers from the Dollar Tree, students sort the hearts into the containers by color. I've had the hearts for a while so I don't quite remember where I purchased them. I don't think you can tell from the photo angle, but the cups shows are blue, purple, red, and yellow. I purchased the cups and the manipulatives at the Dollar Tree. I found the manipulatives in the party favors section. The cups match up perfectly making this a great sorting activity! The erasers are back! This is the same type of activity, there are just three items to sort versus two in the previous activity box. I recently made this letter sorting activity with some letter beads I picked up at Michael's. I had to hot glue them into the tray so the students new where to sort them to. (Yes, I know I duplicated 2 letters--whoops!) I will say I think the letters in each bag vary. I picked the letters for the tray that I had the most of for sorting purposes. Color sorting for two colors with the pom-poms. I bought the little dip dishes at the Dollar Tree. I also picked them up in green and blue to use for sorting activities too. I can't believe I didn't think to buy these little dishes sooner! Silverware sorting! I simply taped picture of each item to the bottom of a tray (found at the Dollar tree) and purchased plastic silver pieces from the Dollar Tree as well. I wanted the materials to look as real as possible, but also didn't want to use real knives for sorting. Obviously. I found these flip lid containers in packs of 2 per color at the Dolalr Tree this summer. I labeled each container with a letter and write letters on foam cubes. Students sort the cubes into the containers by letter. I found these clothespins at Michael's during Valentine's Day. I got the pails there at that time too. I use this activity in two ways. For some students they simply drop the clothespin into the correct container. Others, will clip the clothespin around the edge of the pails for extra fine motor practice. I believe this number mat is made by Lakeshore. It's been around for a while. The activity itself comes with directions for various games and activities. I added it to a task box to use a sorting activity for numbers. Students place each number in the correct square on the mat. I purchased this activity in a pack from Hailey Deloya at The Autism Tank. You can purchase the sorting pack {here}. I just prepped these two pages and added them to a task box for a sorting activity. Easy peasy. This sorting activity was really simple to put together. I already had a ton of pipe cleaners. I just picked up some travel toothbrush containers at the Dollar Tree. I cut pipe cleaners to fit inside. Student sort by color, then place the lids on the containers when they are done. This would be the most difficult sorting task we have. They are not only sorting by color, but by shape too. I only have 2 students who complete this activity. One is doing so independently, one who still needs a few prompts. Here are more of the mini dip containers I mentioned above. Students sort the buttons by color. I found the buttons in Michael's in a craft pack. I took a Lakeshore bug sorting activity we had and placed two of the animals in a work box. This also comes with bug scoopers. I had a pair in the box as well, but a lot of my students were playing with them so I took them out. All the items in this box were purchased at Dollar tree. Green and blue stones with the mini dip dishes. Using some farm counters and what I believe are old paint cups? Students sort the animals out by colors. We used to have transportation counters in this activity but I had students who just wanted to drive them around the table- HA. So we switched to farm animals. I simply made this sorting mat (I think), printed it out and laminated it onto black construction paper. Students sort the counting bears by color into the correct circle. So there you have it. All of our current sorting task boxes. Next up I'll feature all of our matching activities. If you're looking for more great work box ideas be sure to visit Autism Classroom News! The first Wednesday of every month Christine posts a work basket Wednesday link up. Head there to check out more ideas from other special ed bloggers! Don't forget to enter the {giveaway} to win my latest Cookie Tray Activities pack {AND} all of the magnetic supplies you'll need for cookie tray activities! (Giveaway ends 3/9/15)

Free Life Skills File Folder Activities for the independent work station in special education classrooms. Practice life skills for community integration!

Do you want to try task boxes, but think your students are too high for them? They aren’t! I find it easier to do higher level academics in task boxes than coming up with new ways to practice lower level skills such as “put in”. This post may include affiliate links. First, let’s talk about ... Read More about Higher Level Academics In Task Boxes

I've preached and preached about why it's SO important to teach students to work independently and use structured work systems. I want to show you three ways to use structured work systems in a variety of settings. These systems are great because they can be implemented in any classroom and at home! You can also use similar structured systems during direct instruction and groups to provide students with consistent structure. I love all of these systems because they're PORTABLE! They're small and students can easily take them from class to class or between home and school but they provide students with the structure they need! Binder system: A common structured work system a the binder system! This is different than the usual binder system that just has Velcro pieces in it though! A binder set up like this is awesome because it can include the structure of a schedule and you can use any work materials (worksheets, books to read, Velcro tasks, etc.). Binders are also great because students can easily take them to/ from different classrooms with adapted work or take them home with homework. I love to add a first/ then chart on the front of the binder to remind students what they're working for. Students can then take the reward (i.g. swing) off and take it to a staff member when they're finished working. The inside of a binder system. Hot glue the schedule on the left side of the binder. Use dividers with pockets (you could also use pencil pouches!) and then put matching schedule card on front of divider. Put a "finished" card on the back pocket of the binder for students to put their completed work. You could also include another pocket folder to put the "finished" card on, but I find it's hard for students to slip papers and work into the dividers. You can see a video explanation of this work system set up here! Folder system: This is the easiest to master and most basic system I'm going to share. A folder system is great because they BLEND IN. I'm all about giving our students materials that look just like the materials that their peers are using. A down fall to the folder system is they aren't great for using with tasks with Velcro pieces (unless you have the pieces attached to the page somehow). Again, I like to add a "first/ then" char to the front of my folder systems. All the folder system needs is a "to do" label on the left side and a "finished" label on the right. Students just move the work over to the right as they complete it. You can see a video explanation of this work system set up here! Small drawer system: Drawer systems are also commonly used and are great! I love drawer systems, but I try to use them less than binders and folders because they aren't as portable. It's easy for a student to take a folder or binder to their general ed classroom or home, but bringing a set of drawers home or to another classroom isn't always practical. Drawer systems are great for Velcro tasks or for larger tasks (like puzzles or true task boxes/ shoe box tasks). You'll have your schedule, a drawer system (a small one or large one) with matching schedule cards glued on, and a bucket with a "finished" card glued on. You can see a video explanation of this work system set up here! If you want to grab the schedules/ printables for setting up structured work systems in your classroom, head over to my TpT shop to grab them for FREE!

Starting a task box center and system in your special education classroom is a way to increase student independence and free up staff.

Foster meaningful and enriching environment while having many opportunities to demonstrate skills at their level through work tasks.

I've preached and preached about why it's SO important to teach students to work independently and use structured work systems. I want to show you three ways to use structured work systems in a variety of settings. These systems are great because they can be implemented in any classroom and at home! You can also use similar structured systems during direct instruction and groups to provide students with consistent structure. I love all of these systems because they're PORTABLE! They're small and students can easily take them from class to class or between home and school but they provide students with the structure they need! Binder system: A common structured work system a the binder system! This is different than the usual binder system that just has Velcro pieces in it though! A binder set up like this is awesome because it can include the structure of a schedule and you can use any work materials (worksheets, books to read, Velcro tasks, etc.). Binders are also great because students can easily take them to/ from different classrooms with adapted work or take them home with homework. I love to add a first/ then chart on the front of the binder to remind students what they're working for. Students can then take the reward (i.g. swing) off and take it to a staff member when they're finished working. The inside of a binder system. Hot glue the schedule on the left side of the binder. Use dividers with pockets (you could also use pencil pouches!) and then put matching schedule card on front of divider. Put a "finished" card on the back pocket of the binder for students to put their completed work. You could also include another pocket folder to put the "finished" card on, but I find it's hard for students to slip papers and work into the dividers. You can see a video explanation of this work system set up here! Folder system: This is the easiest to master and most basic system I'm going to share. A folder system is great because they BLEND IN. I'm all about giving our students materials that look just like the materials that their peers are using. A down fall to the folder system is they aren't great for using with tasks with Velcro pieces (unless you have the pieces attached to the page somehow). Again, I like to add a "first/ then" char to the front of my folder systems. All the folder system needs is a "to do" label on the left side and a "finished" label on the right. Students just move the work over to the right as they complete it. You can see a video explanation of this work system set up here! Small drawer system: Drawer systems are also commonly used and are great! I love drawer systems, but I try to use them less than binders and folders because they aren't as portable. It's easy for a student to take a folder or binder to their general ed classroom or home, but bringing a set of drawers home or to another classroom isn't always practical. Drawer systems are great for Velcro tasks or for larger tasks (like puzzles or true task boxes/ shoe box tasks). You'll have your schedule, a drawer system (a small one or large one) with matching schedule cards glued on, and a bucket with a "finished" card glued on. You can see a video explanation of this work system set up here! If you want to grab the schedules/ printables for setting up structured work systems in your classroom, head over to my TpT shop to grab them for FREE!

Task boxes can be highly beneficial for special education students for several reasons: They provide structured learning by way of presenting learning materials in an organized way, they provide visual supports, repetition & practice, and skill generalization. Task boxes can also be customized to meet each individual student’s needs and IEP goals, promote independence, and […]

At the beginning of the year, I am always that hot mess teacher; HOWEVER, there is always one thing I make sure I have running smoothly by the end of Septem ...

My first year of teaching was HARD. I had five kindergarteners, one first grader, and one fifth grader.

Total Pages: 10 File Size: 3 MB

Independent work tasks are needed in every special education classroom! These task boxes can be used as teaching tools and building independence through student work. This resource includes detailed instructions for teacher setup, Amazon list of possible materials, digital data tracking form, student visuals, teacher visuals and directions for use for 20 work tasks. These activities are for fine motor tasks that require a matching aspect. Best part! You can either use the pre-created student visuals with images taken for you to show each step of the task OR you can create your own student visuals! This resource requires the addition of some basic materials such as bins, office supplies, small containers. A detailed Amazon supply list is included to make it easy to determine what you will need to create all of these centers! Includes US and Canadian Currency BUY THE BUNDLE AND SAVE! If you use this in your room, make sure to tag me Full SPED Ahead on Instagram or Facebook! Don't forget to leave feedback that way you can earn points towards future TPT purchases! I love hearing your feedback! Also, follow me on: TeachersPayTeachers Facebook Instagram Pinterest Blog As always, please contact me with any questions! Email: [email protected] Thank you again for your purchase and download! Heather Cacioppo