The daily tasks in a special education classroom can be overwhelming! Occupational therapists (OTs) might have some tips to help! OTs are all about independence! The most your students can be independent in their daily routines, the easier your day will be as the teacher or classroom staff. Plus, the students will be gaining valuable skills that will take them far beyond your class.
Incorporate More Visuals for Daily Tasks
My #1 tip for increasing independence for your students to make your daily tasks easier is through visuals!
1) Visual Schedules
Mornings can be hectic! By decreasing the need for adult assistance in morning routines, the day can feel so much less chaotic. While these skills will have to be taught initially, students can maintain independence by relying on visual schedules in stead of adult prompting! With 147 visual schedule pieces with real pictures, these Simple Daily Visual Schedule Cards are a must have in your toolkit! The whole group labels for things like arrival, morning meeting, circle, breakfast, work centers, and more are perfect for making morning tasks easier! If you are looking for individual schedule strips for each student, these Simple Daily Visual Schedule Cards are editable and color coded!
2) Visual Crafts
Carrying over the idea of visuals, increase independence with visual crafts! While maybe not a daily task, I have supported self-contained teachers in creating weekly routines with seasonal crafts. You can be working on fine motor skills, executive functioning/independence skills are more with visual crafts! These activities are engaging and take some time to complete!
Check out the FREE Pizza Visual Craft if you’re new to visual crafts in your classroom!
3) Visual Recipes
Not all of the visual recipes will be independent [especially if you work with younger students or those with limited safety awareness]. But along the same lines as the visual crafts, students LOVE following the visual directions to make seasonal recipes. As an OT, I love the fine motor skill development that can occur with these functional cooking skills!
Think about increasing student independence in making lunch or snacks by teaching independent cooking skills with resources like this FREE visual recipe for PB + J! Students can also make things to sell in a classroom business or to give as gifts like the FREE Father’s Day BBQ Rub visual recipe!
Vocational & Job Skills as Daily Tasks
4) Daily Classroom Jobs
Do your students have daily classroom jobs? If not, what are you waiting for? This is a simple way to not only teach important vocational/work skills, but also to get things done around your classroom! Students can sharpen pencils, help reset visual schedules, clean the board/floors, take out the trash, etc. The Simple Classroom Jobs for Special Education resources has tons of job ideas!
5) Vocational Skills Training
Alex has a great blog on goals for transition discussing goals for vocational skills, household chores and self-help skills! OTs can help many of these goal areas! Check out my blog on high school goals and how to target them for some more ideas! Giving students tasks like this throughout the day, again, not only teaches important lifelong skills, but also “checks things off the list” as far as daily tasks go. Haley has some good thoughts on how to start a job skills program in her blog here!
6) Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)
OTs also tend to be big into independence with ADLs. Kate has a great blog that includes information on teaching and encouraging self care skills in her classroom [check it out here]. How can your students practice self care skills in their daily routines? Things like washing hands, washing face, brushing hair, brushing teeth, putting on deodorant, dressing or toileting are all great areas with which to start! If you need resources for thinks like toilet training, check out this SSE resource! I have even had some of my higher level students work on using an electric razor to shave their face or nail clippers to trim their nails. Can your students put on/take off their own coats/backpacks and zip them? Independence in these arrival and departure routines will make daily tasks so much easier!
Independent Work
If you aren’t sure what independent work in a self contained classroom is, check out Sabrina’s blog for an overview. Below are some ideas [from an OT!] on what you can use as independent work!
7) File Folders/Task Boxes
Task boxes or file folder activities that students have mastered, make great independent work tasks! Some teaches use a three draw system work teaching independent work skills. Really any task that the student in independent in can be used! Rather than reinventing the wheel, definitely check out the resources SSE has like this FREE Task Box 4-Pack: Community that targets matching + sorting.
8) Fine Motor Centers
As an OT, I like to prep fine motor centers for my self-contained teachers to use as independent work! I teach the students the skills during my sessions, and once they are independent, we incorporate it into daily tasks for the repetitive practice. I see am improvement in their fine motor strength and endurance!
9) Laptop of iPad Daily Tasks
We sometimes shy away from time on the iPad or laptop – especially unsupervised. Consider using guided access on an iPad to “lock” kids into the app you want them utilizing. There are some valuable skills to be learning/practiced on a device. Consider a tool like typing.com or ABCya.com to practice keyboarding! There are tons of free OT apps as well!
10) Centers
Alyssa created an easy-to-follow system for you to easily develop/plan & launch successful centers in your self-contained classroom with the Simply Centers System course! Click here to join the waitlist!
I hope these 10 suggestions were helpful in brainstorming some ways you can make daily tasks easier in your classroom. I’m excited to hear how your students are building skills through these daily routes! Please share in the comments! Alex is doing a lot of what we talked about above in her middle school life skills classroom! Check out her blog on it here for more ideas for your classroom!
