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 have a “Pinterest perfect classroom” with matching decor and everything labeled accordingly and neatly organized. If your room looks like this-great! More power to you. If your room does not look like a “Pinterest perfect classroom,” well that’s okay too!
Why Pinterest?
Pinterest is great because it is actually a HUGE search engine. You can look up decor ideas, find teacher’s blogs, find links to activities and also find many free items that you can use as a teacher. Anyone can create a Pinterest account for free! Once you have an account, you can search for different boards or “pins” that are relevant to what you are looking for. For example, a special education teacher would be looking for different Pinterest boards that have to do with special education, sensory ideas, language, social skills, fine motor ideas, etc. Let me tell you about 8 Pinterest Boards for new special education teachers!
Elementary School Special Education
I actually created this Pinterest Board so it is near and dear to my heart! It has special education lesson plans, activities, resources and more for elementary school special education classrooms. Learn how to teach special education in elementary classrooms. Find task boxes and file folders to support your elementary students. I love sharing individual behavior management ideas along with strategies for teaching executive functioning skills. You will find tons of activities, games, and resources for teaching life skills!
Life Skills-Special Education
This board has great ideas about teaching life skills in Special Education! Life skills are skills needed to succeed outside of the classroom such as social skills, job skills, community skills, etc. This board has posts from other TpT sellers such as Breezy Special Ed, AdaptEd 4 Special Ed, Autism Adventures, and others!
Early Childhood Special Education
This is another one of the Pinterest boards that I created. It has resources, tips, tricks and advice for teaching special education in early childhood classrooms! I love sharing sensory toys as well as sensory bin ideas for your preschool and preK students. Here you will find ways to cook in your classroom with your preschoolers. Looking for adapted books for you early childhood students? This board is filled with them. Find emergent literacy ideas here as well!
Sensory Activities
When I created this Pinterest board, I wanted a place to post fun and unique sensory activities for special education teachers and aides to use with early learners, elementary school students, and students with autism! Find hands-on sensory activities that are easy to use. Sensory bins are a great way for students to explore. Sensory activities allow students to learn about different textures. You can use these sensory activities in your special education classroom weekly and be sure to incorporate the holiday themed sensory bins. Check out some sensory visual recipes here!
Social Skills hosted by Greenhouse Educators
Ever wish there was a handbook for social norms? There are! Social stories are not just for kids who struggle with social skills but are a great tool for classroom management. Whether you are a special education teacher, counselor, therapist, or parent, these ideas will help you conquer the unspoken social norms.
Preschool & Elementary Special Education Classroom Ideas
This Pinterest board hosts ideas for teaching special education in elementary and preschool. It includes a variety of resources from academics to social skills and has many different contributors.
Special Education- Middle and High School
If you are a new Special education teacher for middle or high school-you will definitely want to check this board out! It has TONS of ideas for middle and high school students hosted by Pathway 2 Success. Here are ideas for how to create a middle school classroom schedule and high school classroom schedule.
Behavior and Special Education
Behavior management in the special education classroom is essential for learning. Students with autism and other special learning needs present unique challenges to managing problem behaviors. This board has a collection of some great intervention tips and modification ideas from charts and logs to effective reward systems to use in your classroom. Most strategies are appropriate for elementary, middle and high school settings.
Special Education Classroom Ideas
This board hosts lesson plans, resources, advice and tips for special education teachers and educators! It is PERFECT for new special education teachers! Here you will find task box ideas as well file folder ideas. Find fun and creative ways to set-up your special education classroom. Having a solid classroom management system is so important so I love sharing ways to support you with this. Here you will find IEP goal ideas as well as special education student binders. Find visual schedules and adapted books right here!
If you are a new special education teacher, you may also want to check out this course, Simple Self-Contained Set-up to make your first year a breeze! (Only available once per year, join the waitlist or learn more here🙂
If you are a new special education teacher, I hope you found this helpful for planning during your first year of teaching! You can follow me on pinterest here!
Happy pinning!