If you are a new special education teacher, I am here to let you in on a little secret! (PINTEREST is a search engine, yup that's right) Your 2 new best friends will now be Teachers Pay Teachers and Pinterest! If you have for some reason not heard of either of these, it’s time to create accounts ASAP! All joking aside, Pinterest is a great website to utilize for educators. You have to be careful, however, not to get caught up in the “Pinterest haze''. What I mean by this is you don’t have to ... continue reading...
Search Results for: iep bins
ESY Routine for K-2 Special Ed
Are you teaching ESY (Extended School Year) this year? Do you have your students or other students from your district? I am teaching ESY for my district this year, and I have a few tips for creating a simple ESY routine for K-2 special ed. Visual Schedules Don't try to reinvent the wheel with ESY. You know what works during the school year, so use that during ESY. One of the most important pieces of your ESY routine should be a visual schedule for your students. Once you get the ... continue reading...
A Look Inside a Week of my Lesson Plans
Lesson planning in a self-contained classroom can be tricky. I struggled with lesson planning a ton my first year of teaching! Thankfully I've learned some tips and tricks along the way. Let me show you a look inside a week of my lesson plans! Calendar Time Calendar Time is my favorite time of day! My biggest tip to teachers in self-contained classrooms is to have a routine morning meeting each day. Start the first hour of your day with a calendar/morning meeting. My students love ... continue reading...
Five Things I Wish I Learned in My Teacher Preparation Program
When did you decide to become a teacher? When it was time for college, I enrolled in the Elementary Education teacher preparation program at the University of Vermont. Whether you decided in college, grad school or later in life, every teacher has gone through a teacher preparation program. While I loved my program at UVM, there are certain things you could only learn on the job... UNTIL NOW! Enter The Simply Special Ed Blogger Team The Simply Special Ed blogger team is a group of ... continue reading...
5 Classroom Hacks for New Special Education Teachers
Are you a new special education teacher? Is your head spinning with a never ending list of things you need to do to prep your classroom? Let me help! I was in your shoes not too long ago, and I am ready to give you some tips I've learned along the way. I have 5 classroom hacks for new special education teachers. Classroom Hack #1: Make a Classroom Schedule A functioning classroom schedule is one of the most important pieces of a successful special education classroom. I use a zoning plan ... continue reading...
Socially Distanced Classroom Setup: K-2
It is finally here: back to school time...in person! This also means it is classroom setup time. Let's take a tour of my Socially Distanced Classroom Setup: K-2 STU (Structured Teaching Unit) classroom. In this blog post, you will learn about how I set up student stations, schedules for students and staff, and data collection. We got word that we will be returning to in-person instruction in just a few short weeks. I had to think creatively of how to setup my K-2 structured teaching special ... continue reading...
3 Ways to Target Basic Skills in Special Education
Do you teach basic skills? A lot of our students need direct instruction for basic skills. Even for older students- sometimes these skills are lost along the way, no longer touched on (we need to remember to practice even the basics!), or just plain never taught (think: lots of teacher changes, school changes, and IEPs being passed around). It's our job to assess our students on these skills, directly teach them, then offer different modes of practice so they can master and generalize ... continue reading...
The First 10 Days of School
If you are anything like me, the first 10 days are a struggle. You have so many new ideas for the new year, so many things you want to implement, and you feel pressure to start on the very first day. Here's my number one tip: DON'T. Just don't. In special education, and more specifically the self contained setting, what our kids really need is STRUCTURE. Of course you have tons of structure planned and you want to follow the schedule from the start in order to best show them what daily ... continue reading...
First Year Teacher Shopping List
CONGRATS! If you are here you must be a NEW special education teacher, or a first year teacher. If you are wondering where to get started- this post is the perfect place to be! I am going to share all of the things you need to get started on the right foot with a brand new special education classroom. You see my posts on instagram and Facebook and wonder (where did she get that!) today I'm gonna give you ALL the ((full disclosure, some affiliate)) links. You will need these things to create ... continue reading...
Balancing Your Daily Schedule
I am so excited to share with you my schedule series! I have been working these first 2 months of school to get my schedule situated and am excited to share so many of the pieces with you! First up! My daily schedule. YES, my kids go to specials and inclusion, and YES my paras each take lunches. But this is the general schedule that my classroom follows each day. Students go to specials with their homerooms, and are pulled for therapies, but it all evens out and they make up things they missed ... continue reading...
Simply Special Classroom Tour
Welcome to my Life Skills classroom! I am so excited to share with you my classroom tour! When you step foot in my classroom, our bins are on the left. Students know to put their lunchbox, water, and any notes in these bins each morning as part of their morning routine checklist. The first area is of course our SCHEDULES. These are so important to student success throughout the day. I use left to right schedule (you can read more about how to set these up here) in my classroom. Some kids ... continue reading...
Simply Special Workbox System: How I Run my TEACCH Work Box Station!
I implemented a new station in my classroom this year that I am so excited to share with you! I have always used task boxes and work bins in my classroom but wasn't very organized about it. I had math boxes over here and ELA boxes over there and they were all mixed up and mislabeled- it was confusing my staff, made my students less independent and drove me CRAZY! I was so excited to take the summer to work on this project- and it was a lot easier that I thought it was going to be! This ... continue reading...
A Look Inside my Autism Classroom!
I have been so excited to bring this to you! About two weeks ago, I got a new job, and have been NONSTOP busy ever since. Creating for my new students, setting up my new classroom and familiarizing myself with my new school has certainly kept me busy- but I am so excited to finally share my new room with you. Welcome to my Autism Classroom! When you enter my room, you see schedule boards and the calendar/ group work table! This year, I made my classroom schedules using a mix of Smarty ... continue reading...
Workbasket Wednesday!
This post will give you a peek inside some my classroom workboxes- basically the life line for my academic skill periods! Work baskets help build independence, fine motor, schedule skills, and wait skills, all while working on IEP goals! Utensil Sorting Utensil sorting is a great activity for kids working on sorting by function or class and working on life skills. All you need is a bunch of varying forks/spoons/knives and some bins to throw this together! This activity builds ... continue reading...