Drafting goals math IEPs doesn’t have to be a difficult task. I love drafting math goals for my students that are aligned to standards. One common misconception is that students will meet grade level standards through their IEP goals. This isn’t necessarily the case. Oftentimes, we are helping students make progress towards state standards when we draft IEP goals for them. In this post, I have compiled 4 math goals to align to the Kindergarten Numbers in Base Ten standard. Building the skills in the numbers in base ten standards is an important step in building number sense skills. These numb ..read more

**This post about counting books your students will love contains affiliate links** Are you tired of the same old counting books? I know my students were! That’s why I went on a hunt to find counting books that were fun and engaging for my students. These are 10 of our favorite counting books. Grandma’s Tiny House Grandma’s Tiny House is a classroom favorite. This book counts from one to fifteen and grandma’s family and friends fill her house. The books is filled with rhyming and beautiful pictures that my students love. I had the pleasure of listening to JaNay Brown-Wood present over the ..read more

**This post about IEP friendly outfits contains affiliate links.** Can you picture it? You’re working in your classroom all day and have an IEP scheduled for after school? It’s not like I’m going to change out of my work outfit into an IEP friendly outfit. I like wearing clothes to school that are both functional (I can get down on the ground and play) and IEP meeting appropriate. In this post I’m going to share some of the basics I use to build IEP friendly outfits. I created all of these outfits with just 10 pieces. You can have 6 different looks that you can rock any day you have an IEP me ..read more

Setting up a home school communication system is an essential for the special education classroom. When you set up a home school communication system, you’re setting up a relationship with families. The connection between home and school becomes easier when you have an effective system. I have four tools I use to make home school communication a breeze in the self contained classroom. Want to know what they are? Keep reading! 1. Home School Communication Binder I have always used a binder to facilitate my home school communication. This system is super simple to set up and I explained how I s ..read more

Want a quick and easy way to save time in your classroom? Do you often find yourself printing out just a handful of icons for students at a time and still forgetting to print and prep some? This happens to me often. That’s when I started using a system to batch prep icons in my classroom. I set aside time every week to prep icons that we needed in our classroom. Want to know how I streamlined icon prep and saved time? Keep reading! Setting up a batch prep system for icons was a life saver in my classroom. 1. Prepare Inventory Sheets I created an icons needed inventory sheet for my classroom ..read more

Did you know that I build sabotage into my day to help build communication skills in my classroom? Using sabotage is a great way to contrive situations where students need to ask for help and use communication skills. If I didn’t use sabotage for communication, my students would not always have a reason to use their communication skills. Want to provide sabotage opportunities in your classroom? In this post I’m going to tell you all about sabotage and share 20+ ways you can use sabotage in your classroom tomorrow. What is Sabotage? Sabotage is the art of contriving situations so our students ..read more

Drafting math IEP goals have become one of my favorite tasks. I actually love teaching math and moving students from one area of mastery to another. In this blog post, I’ve drafted 8 math IEP goals that you can use with your students. Don’t be overwhelmed if these skills seem difficult. The idea of writing grade level aligned IEP goals is that students are making progress towards grade level standards. I’ve made it so these goals are easy for you to customize for your students. As you read through this post, you’ll notice that some of the numbers in the math IEP goals are bold and italicized ..read more

Are you teaching adaptive skills in your classroom? Teaching students basic adaptive skills is essential to their life outside of school. These 20 hands on activities for adaptive skills are some of my favorites! In my classroom, I focus on 6 main areas of adaptive and daily living skills. Here’s where we focus in our classroom: Household Community Money Time Clothing Food Body Parts Household Activities Teaching students household vocabulary and determining where things belong is an essential skill. Setting them up for helping with chores and living a successful life starts with these skil ..read more

**This post about Math and ELA spinner games contains affiliate links.** If your students are anything like mine, they love to play a game during their learning centers. I’ve been using some spinners to play games in my classroom and my students can’t get enough of the games! I was able to score a few spinners at the Dollar Tree that work great for my classroom. If you’re looking for spinners, these ones will be great for playing any of the games I’m sharing. Here are 4 ELA games and 6 math spinner games that take little to no prep. My favorite part about these games is that all you need is a ..read more

I don’t know about your classroom, but my self contained classroom was always hectic in the mornings. It took me some trial and error to come up with a system that works for us. I have talked a bit about my morning work routine in the classroom, but last year that wasn’t really working for my students to I added in something new. Adding a morning choice time into our routine helped my students make choices in the classroom. It also helped us ease into a morning work routine. Want to know how I set up a morning choice routine and how it works? Keep reading! 1. Get Set Up The first thing I did ..read more