It’s that time of year again! School is about to start and if you aren’t back to work yet, you’ve started thinking about what the school year is going to look like. One of the first things I think about is what schedules my students will be using this year. I’m going to talk about a few of the types of schedules in the multiple disabilities classroom.
Tactile Schedule
Tactile schedules come in many shapes in size. Usually, a large piece of board or foam has an item representative of that part of the students day. For example: Perhaps there is a paint brush for art and a spoon for lunch. They can get more abstract with representation varying. For example: You may see a small mouth for speech or an X for no and O for yes. Many of my students utilize this type of schedule.
Object Schedules
Object schedules entail using the actual object as part of the schedule. I may have several bins and each one contains an item associated with the day. Bathroom is one of the students actual pull-ups, lunch may be the students actual spoon at lunch, and so on. These schedules are great for students that need actual objects to help them understand their day.
Visual Schedules
Visual schedules are for everyone! What I do is vary the types of images. We may use real images on cards that are 3 inches by 3 inches with a black background or I may have line art symbols with the students preferred highlight color.
If a student has fine motor issues I may mount the visual schedule pieces on a Duplo block so that it’s easier to grab.
There are many ways to use schedules with your students. I generally just try and find what is best for my student. Once I know the student better I can modify the schedule to fit their individual needs.
You can read about creating tactile schedules in this blog post.
What kind of schedules do you use in your classroom?
