If you saw my classroom tour last year, you may notice I am in a different room. In fact, I am in a different room, a different school and even a different state! This summer was full of exciting changes in my life, including transitioning to a new position.
After two years in a specialized non-public school, I have made my way back to a public district. I teach a second and third grade Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) specialized class. My school currently has two specialized classrooms: a kindergarten class and my 2/3. Both classrooms are staffed by 3 paras and 1 teacher and do the majority of classroom instruction following principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA).
Keep reading to get an inside look of my ABA classroom!
A Quick Note
If you saw my classroom tour last year, you will know that I keep things pretty simple. I am definitely not a “Pinterest teacher” anything like that… I love a classroom that looks pretty, but that isn’t realistic for me. AND THAT’S OKAY.
My Classroom
Though it is one of the smallest classrooms in the building, I have never had a classroom that is this big. That being said, I only have 5 students who are with me for the full day.
We have 10 desks, a semi circle table and a small rectangle table in the classroom. Other than chairs and a small set of cubbies, this is the only furniture we have. All storage is built into the radiator or the wall.
Seating
Student desks are spaced as far apart as they can be for Covid-19 safety. My students do not all wear their masks for the entire day, and though all staff members are vaccinated, we want to protect all members of our classroom and community who may or may not be at risk.
Staff members work with 1-2 students at a time. We rotate daily; the schedule is on the white board for everyone to see. Our classroom is almost entirely direct trial training and instruction (DTT/DTI). It is important that we are able to sit on all sides of the student depending on the lesson and prompt level. Teachers sit in rolling desk chairs to allow for quick transitions.
Teacher Corner
We also have a semi circle table where I hold my small group lessons. Three students from another class come to me for academic support. Each day, I hold a literacy group and a math group with those three as well as multiple social skills groups.
Behind this desk is my “teacher corner”, where I keep all of the things that I know I will need throughout my day. Extra dry erase markers, sticky notes, my laminator and Velcro are only a few steps away. I also keep all of my professional development books (read my post on my favorites here), curriculum workbooks and academic stimuli in this corner so that I am able to access them quickly.
Storage
As you can see from the pictures above, we have shelving built into the radiator. It isn’t a ton of space, but it makes it so that everything is accessible. We do have a few closets where anything that needs to kept away for student safety can be put. This is also where we keep extra snacks, first aid supplies and PPE.
Besides for the first shelf of teacher supplies, everything is open and accessible to the students. At the start of the school year, I allowed them to explore the supplies, manipulatives and games and observed the way they used them. This was my informal baseline of how they used materials and what kinds of activities they gravitated towards.
Everything is labeled. Anything that is likely teacher directed (like the tracing books) is labeled with just words. Anything that a student would want to take out themselves or may be asked to get for themselves is labelled with words and pictures (like markers).
On top of this shelf, we have the students program books, writing and construction paper, coloring sheets and puzzles. This is also where students keep their personal bins of stimuli for learning and their bins for specials (they push into a gen-ed class!).
Sensory Center
In the back of my classroom I have a few color changing tiles, stepping stones, and a trampoline. There is also a bean bag toss and table in this area for kinetic sand and blocks. We have a door to the school yard in this back corner. It is blocked off from student access and is alarmed for safety purposes.
Have any questions about my classroom?
Want to try some free ABC data sheets? (click here!)
