Can you believe it is December already?!  After Thanksgiving, we dove right into holiday prep and lots of holiday activities.  This year my class seems to be weak in fine motor so I am trying to incorporate various activities each week to work on building up those little muscles. Decorate a gingerbread manMy students love playdough!  An easy adaption to just using playdough is to have a cut out of a gingerbread man and challenge the students to make eyes, nose, mouth, buttons etc.  I love seeing what they come up with! My original mats came from Unique learning sy ..read more

Collaboration with general education teachers can be one of the hardest jobs of a special education teacher.  You need to find time to talk that fits in with both teacher's schedule.  Then if you have students in more than one general education class, you need to work out times with multiple teachers. I have been teaching in the co-teaching and inclusion setting for the past 13 years.  Here are a few tips I have learned. Document, Document, Document One of the most important things I stress to all special education teachers (and General ed!) is documentation. Document the acc ..read more

We all have heard the saying that "You can not pour from an empty cup".  We know how important self-care is, but sometimes as teachers (and moms), we sweep it to the side so we can continue to do our mountains of paperwork.  As special education teachers, we often work with kiddos who are behaviorally and/or emotionally challenging.  With these challenging situations, we could experience "compassion fatigue"  This can lead to increased depression, emotional exhaustion, decreased happiness at work, difficulties with our personal relationships, and loneliness.  ..read more

In my opinion, one of the hardest things to help students with in preschool is modifying their behavior.   In order to know if they demonstrate behaviors (okay, usually this is obvious) that need modification and to know if our interventions are working we need to have some kind of tracking system. I have talked about data collection before and I know that one system doesn't work for everyone.  I switch my behavior tracking systems sometimes multiple times throughout the year.  Today, I wanted to share some ideas that work for me. First things first, you need to identify ..read more

I don't about you, but being a special education teacher, I tend to run a lot of small groups during the day.  While running groups, I have little to no transition time so everything has to be ready and at my finger tips. The first way to do this is good planning.  I have a weekly planning sheet for each group. Nothing grand, but it works for me.  Next is your set up. I have a set of 10 drawers and each drawer is labeled.  In the drawers are activities by group, various alphabet activities, the books for my Orton-Gillingham/Wilson assessments, paper, and other resource ..read more

Social Stories.  We say it a lot, but do you know what they actually are and how they can help your students? What are Social Stories:  The concept of Social Stories is attributed to Carol Gray. She began developing the concept in the 1990's and if you look on her website she has a few articles explaining the history.  In short, a social story is a learning tool that is used to provide social supports for individuals. Social Stories are evidence-based and help the individual using the social story understand some of the little things in life that we often know ..read more

Data Collection can be tough.  Between teaching, behavior management, bathroom routines, nursing services, speech, OT, PT, assistive technology and who knows what else how are we also supposed to collect data?!?  Well, guess what.... we don't have a choice. (Ha, I know you all know that, but sometimes we need a reminder). Embedded Instruction: The number one thing I do to make sure I can collect data while wearing all of my other hats is to embed my instruction.  When you embed instruction into your daily routines, you can collect data on the things you need.  Embedd ..read more

We have been having a lot of fun in my preschool ECSE class.  The kiddos are super excited about Christmas and  I have been using that to my advantage.  We have been using playdough to work on our fine motor skills and imagination.  We used popsicle sticks and playdown and tried to make trees.  Later in the week after reading and the Gingerbread Man, we used gingerbread man cuts out (laminated!) and made faces, buttons, etc.  The kids were then having their gingerbread people talk to each other. This tree has been a huge hit!!  I f ..read more

Ever been to a professional development and after sitting and listening for an hour you just need to move?  So you cross and uncross your legs, tap your pen, then get up and go use the bathroom because "Hey we are adults and we don't need to ask to use the bathroom".  Well, guess what?  Our students need that movement also.  Studies have shown that students focus more on instruction when they have opportunities to move and sit in a position that is comfortable for them.   As their teachers, we need to help these little people find the best learning p ..read more

Do you use sensory bins in your classroom?  This year I have decided to implement sensory bins with my preschool class and the bins have been a huge hit! I wanted to share some of what we have used so far that has been successful. Base Materials:I have used a variety of base materials to get our bins started. colored sand rice kinetic sand straw leaves Kidfetti plastic pellets oatmeal water beads Add ins: Some of our bins include the base material and then just stuff to scoop and play with such a cups and funnels.  In some of the other bins, I put various items that the kids can ..read more