Using Unique Learning Systems (ULS) can be overwhelming the first time you log on. Here are my top 10 tips for using Unique Learning System.
I just finished my second year of teaching. I have learned so much over the past two years. I have found so many wonderful Teachers Pay Teachers products, have become familiar with common reading and math curriculums such as, Edmark, SRA, and Touch Math, and have created many of my own supplemental materials. With that said, my absolute favorite resource that I have access to in my classroom (and at home) is Unique Learning System (ULS) and News 2 You (n2y). I have found that when used together, the two curriculums are entertaining and engaging, aligned to Common Core State Standards, easy to use, comprehensive, and appropriate for a variety of learners. When I first started using ULS/n2y I was a bit overwhelmed because of how much content there is on the website. I am still learning more and more about the curriculum and discovering new activities and resources, but I have become very familiar with some activities and lessons. I am teaching ESY and I am using it as a time to try out new lessons and activities with my students. For those of you that would like to do the same, the summer units are FREE. Check them out here. Before I Begin Planning: 1) I print out the Suggested Monthly Plan ONCE for the entire year. This is a monthly plan that was created by the company. Because each classroom is unique, you will need to adjust the plan as needed for your classroom. My classroom is composed of Level 1 Learners. I take that into consideration when planning. I can use this Monthly Plan for my entire year. I currently use the curriculum for whole group instruction, but hope to begin using it for small group instruction as well this upcoming school year. We use ULS on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and n2Y on Wednesday and Fridays. The Suggested Monthly Plan includes a blank planning page for you to use as you would like. 2) I print out the Supply List each month. This a "cheat sheet" of all the supplies that I will need to complete the lessons and activities for the entire month. This saves me from making multiple trips to the store each month. Hey! I can even order from Amazon and be done with one click of a button. 3) I print out Supplemental Reading List each month. This is a great go to sheet for books to read during Morning Meeting (my calendar time) or during those random transition times that you need something to do. All of the books are leveled and relate to the monthly theme. Some of them require a subscription, but some are free! 4) I print out the Printing Guide each month. This is my favorite sheet. I actually do not print out many of my ULS lessons and activities. Most of the activities we do using the computer and projector or an iPad, but I love this sheet because it allows me to see all of the activities for the entire month. I can check off the activities as we do them and color coat the activities we will be doing by month. My Favorite Lessons on Unique Learning Systems: Lessons 1&2: These lessons are sweet and simple. We read a book as a class and then answer five comprehension questions. We do these lessons several times throughout the month. We work on predicting what the book is going to be about before we read, identifying the author and illustrator, and reviewing the book. The level 1 comprehensions questions in Lesson 3 are absolutely perfect for my students. We project the questions, have the computer read them to us, and I call one student at a time to the board to answer a question. I prompt them to answer as needed. Lesson 7-9: We read the words together. I review the initial letter and the sound that the initial letter makes. Because none of my students can write (the lesson below is far too difficult for the majority of my class), I am hoping to practice typing the words and stamping the words by modifying some of the worksheets and activities in Lesson 8 & 9. Lesson 11: BINGO. Lesson 11 contains vocabulary word cards (calling cards) that I am planning on putting up on my pocket chart each month and simple bingo cards that can be used over and over again to review the vocabulary words for each month. Lesson 16a: We practice counting objects that relate to the theme. We match the number and then talk about concepts such as, less, more, and same. Lesson 24: I appreciate the patterning worksheets on ULS, but I like the patterning worksheets on n2y even better. My students have gotten so great at patterning over this past year that I am going to have to move on to the more difficult lessons. Those are my favorite lessons and activities. I have heard several people mention that unique is just too difficult for their students. I agree that some activities are difficult, but they can easily be implemented with modification. I have students of all levels in my classroom and all of them can interact with this curriculum in some way. If you have several Level 1 learners and non-verbal students, be sure to check out Active Participation Guidelines and Active Participation Scripts. After reading those instructional guides and reflecting on my own classroom, I developed this AT Checklist as a way for me to remember what I need to do to make each monthly unit accessible to my non-verbal/more impacted students. My iPad communication application of choice is Dynavox Compass, but you can use whatever device that you have access to. You can download my assistive technology to-do list here. How do you use ULS/n2y in you classroom?
Do you use Unique Learning System™ during remote learning? Read about how I use Unique Learning System™ for my remote learning classroom.
One of the most frequent questions I have been asked is how I use Unique in my classroom and how I plan! I have to admit, I am an avid fan of Unique Learning System, however, I do not use ALL components of the unit. I have been using ULS for about 5 years now, enough to have figured out which pieces of the unit fit best with my students. One of the good things about Unique is that they provide you with an abundance of materials. I have not met one teacher yet that is able to use ALL of the plans from the unit (and if you are one of those teachers more power to ya!). For me, the key is to find what works best for your students! Monthly Mapping The first thing I do is grab a monthly calendar and my blank planning template (I will post the link to this free resource below). I mark all the days that we will be off and out of school. Once I have those days crossed off I start my planning. I print the first page from the unit that lists all the lessons. I plan when I will give my pre-assessment and then when I want my students to have their post assessment. If you do not use the Unique GPS, I highly recommend it! You can see student weak areas, what they need to focus on and you can see their growth over the month. I love it! Next, I choose the activities that I feel best introduce the topics to my students and highlight them. After I have all the activities chosen, I add them into my calendar. Unique GPS data FREE Blank Template Download Template Here Selecting the Activities I have used Unique long enough to discover what works best for me and my students. It has changed yearly. This year, I used the following activities consistently every month: Leveled Book (Lesson 1) and corresponding activity Leveled Book Comprehension (Lesson 2) Easy Read Book (Lesson 3) and corresponding activity Easy Read Book Comprehension (Lesson 4) Vocabulary (Lesson 12) Literary Experience (Lessons 15 and 16) Vocabulary Sort (Lesson 18) Science Experiment (Lesson 28) History Timeline (Lesson 29) Supplemental Activities I use: Adapted Book Packs (samples of the packs in the picks below!) I created these book packs to help me supplement the curriculum because I needed more books! I started creating differentiated activities to go along with the books. Each adapted book set comes with at least 3 adpated books each book with 3 differentiated corresponding comprehension activities. 1 file folder game to cover vocabulary, 2 differentiated levels of vocabulary task boxes, and 1 counting card activity directly related to the monthly theme. Some packs include bonus materials! Science Adapted Book Packs I currently have 11 science themed activities listed and 5 science themed adapted book packs available. You can find the link to them above. I also have them available in a BUNDLE. Social Studies Adapted Book Packs I currently have 6 adapted book packs available. I also have these bundled for convenience. You can find the bundle here. Craft Activities related to topic Extension Activities from higher level unit N2Y activities Summer Themes: Summer Camp Theme Amusement Park Theme Planning the Lessons I don't have a ton of time in my classroom to teach science and social studies content. On top of all the IEP work, speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, specials, and getting them out to gen ed, I needed to integrate my lessons. So, my planning had to be simplified and integrated. During my small group/morning meeting I decided that when I was reading books, they needed to be adapted and content related. So my first step in my planning is mapping out my literacy activities. You can see those in the picture below color-coded in purple. After I have those planned, I go back and plan on my specific content related activities, which are usually only 15 minutes long. Those are in the picture below color-coded in green. The best part about planning this way, is once I have one month planned, I can pretty much easily plug in the rest of the year's lesson plans! I just re-use the same format and timeline from the first month. Some adjustments might need to be made based on days off, special activities, but for the most part, it's quick and easy to plug in my plans for the month! Ideas for Lessons Vocabulary I always like to introduce the topics from the unit by introducing the new vocabulary. Some things that I have done in the past to make these activities fun and engaging: Mystery Box- add items to a box and have the students feel items and take guesses on what the new unit is going to be about. Example: for the light and sound unit I put a light bulb and a tamborine in the box and had students feel and guess what the items were. Play Hide and Seek- Hide new vocabulary words around the room and have students find them. When they find a vocabulary word have them read it to you. Mystery Word- Put vocabulary words in a brown paper bag and have students choose a word from the bag and tell class and hang up the word Put students in charge of changing the words- Our words are hanging on the wall next to our white board, I like to lay all the vocab words on the table and ask the student to find ______ and hang it on the wall. After I have introduced the vocabulary we play the corresponding match game the next day. I like to incorporate the leveled books during my literacy lessons. Typically, I will introduce the first book, and have students find the vocabulary words and highlight them. For my lower level students, the adapted book packs I use incorporate the vocabulary making it quick and easy for you to assess using the books. I typically read the book and have my students make selections from the icons from a field of 2 or 3 depending on the student. I make sure to emphasize the unit vocabulary words during the story and direct instruction. We do the vocabulary sort around three weeks into instruction so that I know the students have a had good quality time to absorb the content. I usually use this as an assessment, and students complete either individually or with some physical assistance. For my higher level students they complete independently and have very little accommodations. For my lower level students they complete with some assistance (for physical needs) but I color code their sorts to make it more independent for them. Color-Coded Vocabulary Sort (Not from Unique, but strategy I use for differentiation) Adapted Books/Literacy I use both of the leveled books provided in the unit. I adapt them so they are interactive and the students can use icons to engage in the story. If the book warrants, I will use props to keep the kids excited about the story. I use these books to cover content, otherwise I would not have time! My typical routine for literacy is: Introduce the book Read and emphasize vocabulary Have students match icons to story from a field of 2 or 3 Complete literacy activity and discuss vocabulary Re-read book focusing on content Comprehension assessment I repeat these steps for the five books that I use during the unit. I created my adapted book packs so that I would always have a content related book to read and an activity to correlate! It makes my literacy planning so much easier! I love using the literary experience. I use these monthly but pick and choose upon availability of the books that correspond with that lesson. Adapted Books for "Plants Can Grow" Unit Adapted Book Packs Props for acting out story "Bunny in the Garden" Science Experiment I love doing the science experiments with the kids! I love getting them excited about them! I typically do my science experiment the third week of instruction however in this example (May) I needed to do it sooner due to the nature of the experiment (keeping plants healthy). I break my experiments down into smaller sections to increase engagement. Here is my typical routine for science experiments: Day 1- Introduce experiment- show items used in experiment, pass out experiment packet, look through experiment and discuss our steps. Day 2- Re-read experiment, discuss and make hypothesis, "check off" materials to make sure we are ready to go! Day 3- Conduct Experiment - following steps of experiment Day 4- Review our experiment, complete conclusion I try to do experiments on Thursdays because we have extra time on this day because we have no specials! One fun way I like to get them excited is to purposely leave materials for the experiment out around the classroom. When they find them, I say, "I guess you'll have to wait and see for experiment day!" Science Experiment "Keeping Plants Healthy" Crafts I like to do crafts related to the topics of our units. I usually just pinterest or try to think of my own. Also, if you have access to the intermediate level of the unit, they have crafts as part of their lessons! I usually pull from that unit as well. Craft for "Our Impact on the Environment" Unit Craft for "Plants Can Grow" Unit How do you plan your units? I would love to hear new tips and tricks! Drop a comment below if you have any suggestions for me! Follow my classroom journey on instagram for more ideas, tips, and fun!
ULS, unique learning system, special education, sped curriculum, ULS student view, sped lessons
Using Unique Learning Systems (ULS) can be overwhelming the first time you log on. Here are my top 10 tips for using Unique Learning System.
Using Unique Learning Systems (ULS) can be overwhelming the first time you log on. Here are my top 10 tips for using Unique Learning System.
I have been using Unique Learning System in my class, here are a few ways that I prepare the monthly lessons to fit the needs of my students!
ULS, unique learning system, special education, sped curriculum, ULS student view, sped lessons
One of the most frequent questions I have been asked is how I use Unique in my classroom and how I plan! I have to admit, I am an ...
Bundle: Thematic Units, aligned with ULS Units 11-20 - Elementary Band Updated for 24-25 school year. Make learning more engaging and planning easier with thematic learning! This resource is designed for special education students and is aligned with the elementary grade band from Unique Learning Systems (ULS). Materials are intended to support differentiation of units, some to supplement learning and some specifically adapted for students with cortical vision impairments (CVI). Each unit in this resource includes: Unit Portfolio Covers (3 Variations) CVI Adapted - Leveled Readers - Printable CVI Adapted - Leveled Readers - Read Aloud CVI Adapted - Easy Reader - Printable CVI Adapted - Easy Reader - Read Aloud Themed Coloring Sheets CVI Adapted - Themed Flashcards - #1-10 Themed Visual Tens Frame Addition within 20 Themed Visual Tens Frame Subtraction within 10 Additionally included: ULS Newsletter Units 11-20 Virtual Library Units 11-20
As many of you may know, my class has a variety of levels and learners.
ULS, unique learning system, special education, sped curriculum, ULS student view, sped lessons
Discover ways to improve unique learner success and teacher satisfaction with overlooked resources and options in n2y’s Unique Learning System.
Bundle: Thematic Units, aligned with ULS Units 1-10 Updated for 23-24 school year Make learning more engaging and planning easier with thematic learning! This resource is designed for special education students and is aligned with the elementary grade band from Unique Learning Systems (ULS). Materials are intended to support differentiation of units, some to supplement learning and some specifically adapted for students with cortical vision impairments (CVI). Each unit in this resource includes: Unit Portfolio Covers (3 Variations) CVI Adapted - Leveled Readers - Printable CVI Adapted - Leveled Readers - Read Aloud CVI Adapted - Easy Reader - Printable CVI Adapted - Easy Reader - Read Aloud Themed Coloring Sheets CVI Adapted - Themed Flashcards - #1-10 Themed Visual Tens Frame Addition within 20 Themed Visual Tens Frame Subtraction within 10 Additionally included: ULS Newsletter Units 1-10 Virtual Library Units 1-10
