Where I Live

 A few weeks ago I picked my grand daughter up from school and she had this really cute activity with her. I have seen this and even have it pinned on Pinterest, but as soon as I saw it in person, I knew I wanted to do it with my kids this summer.  I pre-cut each of the pages but let the kids put them in order and we helped them with the stapling. We worked on this activity for 3 Thursdays (2 pages each day) and finally finished them this last week. For the first three pages we drew a picture of ourselves, one of our house (street) an one of the sign that brings you into our city along with what our city is known for (agriculture, oil etc).  I Googled coloring pages for state, country, continent, and planet for the kids to color in, cut and glue onto the colored paper.  They also wrote a brief explanation "I live in the state of California" etc. on each page. Even though they look totally grumpy in this picture they really did love making these!

I actually just noticed that he wrote "earth" instead of "planet" on the orange page. He's my boy that wants to finish as FAST as he can and because of that makes many mistakes!

Danger Signs Wheel

ESY starts tomorrow at my school.  Even though I teach the same subjects during ESY that I do during the regular school year, I try to make it a little more fun for the kids (and myself, who am I kidding). Here is a fun danger sign activity we are going to start the day off with tomorrow.  Since the majority of my kids are non-readers it's important to familiarize them with signs they may see that tell them there is a risk of danger. For better quality I suggest you print the pages onto card stock.  After cutting out the three circles, students can color the cover page and put the wheel together using a metal brad. If you interested in a copy, you can find it over in my TPT store!  
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Life-Skills-Safety-Signs-Wheel-1262269

Community Logo's

I'm having a blast putting together these fun Velcro book for the kids.  Here are two using logos found in the community.  I picked stores in my community that my kids would be familiar with.  I can easily change one or more of them if they don't match stores near you.  I was fortunate to find this clear Velcro at Walmart so the kids can still see the picture through the Velcro.  It was in the sewing sections and came in about half inch circles.  My kids are mostly non-readers so this way they can see where to return the picture when they are done  
with the book.  Kind of like getting two lessons in one!  I added an extra sheet that has no picture, just the word, in case you have readers and thing that will be more beneficial to them. There has been quite a bit on interest in them in my classroom and with a bit of prompting and help all my kids have been able to do them.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Community-Logo-Activities-970170



Have a great rest of your week!  

Student Led Projects

There are twenty three classrooms in our program grouped into four different levels.  Most of our classrooms/levels have student led projects they have started to help earn money to pay for activities for the kids. Other classrooms have projects that don't generate income but help with things we need done for the program like filling our classroom water jugs, maintaining the vans, and keeping our campus clean. Here are some of the income generating projects we have:


A gardening service
A house cleaning service
Jewelry making
Recycling
Car washing
Baking
Hair Clips

My classroom, for the last 3 years, has provided a food delivery service for students and staff in our program.  Currently we are doing this every other Friday.  The fee we charge is usually around one dollar per order (not item).  We deliver pizza, burgers, Mexican food, sandwiches etc.  Monday mornings we start by putting up flyers around campus announcing what restaurant we will be serving that week (I also send out an email to each teacher with the restaurant flyer attached).  I don't offer every item on a restaurants menu so we can keep it simple for the kids. Thursdays we pass flyers out to students as they are leaving school.  

Friday mornings from 8:00 to 9:30 my kids, with help from staff, collect all of the orders and money. We then fax or email the order in to the restaurant.  Before lunch some of the students go with my aides to pick up the food while the rest of us prepare for it's arrival.  Once the food comes we separate the food by classroom, put each classrooms orders into crates, and add any chips or sodas that have been ordered (we purchase these separately). The kids then deliver the food to each classroom.  We have gotten so good at this we can do it in about 15 minutes. The kids love doing this, it gets crazy and everyone is yelling out orders, but they really get a sense of accomplishment when they are done.  Costco pizza is one of the favorites. We have sold over 75 orders, up to 200 slices, in one day!  

Do any of your programs run student led projects?  I would love to hear of other money making ventures students are participating in!

Pedestrian Safety

It's been crazy busy at my work the last few weeks.  We started a new billing system that has been having issues from the get go, grades and benchmarks were due for the first quarter, and I finally finished the last two IEP's of all my incoming freshman.

Sooooo, to celebrate this amazing weekend we are about to have (it's going to be in the low 80's) I would like to give away this worksheet I put together last week for my class on pedestrian safety (I split it into two classes).  I hope it can be of some use to you.  

Have a great, RELAXING weekend. (I have plans to stay in my jammies the WHOLE time!)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pedestrian-Safety-932525

Community Based Outings

 Our program does a lot of community based outings. As much as we are trying to get our kids used to being in the community we are also trying to get the community used to being around our kids.  Once a week I have to arrange some sort of hour long outing for my kids to attend.  With limited "free" attractions where I live. Coming up with new, entertaining, educational and interesting outings to do can sometimes be difficult especially the later in the year it gets.  

 So, to avoid trying to find "101 ways to entertain yourself at Walmart" I have started putting together activity sheets for a variety of stores in our community.  Last year I posted some that could be used at the pharmacy, grocery store and Walmart or Target.  Here are the links if you missed them. 
http://empoweredbythem.blogspot.com/2012/04/pharmacy-hunt.
html http://empoweredbythem.blogspot.com/2012/04/grocery-store-activity.
html http://empoweredbythem.blogspot.com/2013/02/grocery-shopping-scavenger-hunt.html http://empoweredbythem.blogspot.com/2012/09/superstore-shopping.html

I put together these three worksheets over the weekend that I plan on using this year. It's a good idea to go over the worksheets before you leave for the outing in case there is any explaining to do.  I think it also gets them excited to get there and start working.  I keep my kids in small groups (2-3 per staff) so that we don't clog any aisle with our presence.  I am sure when these stores see a bus unloading a bunch of kids out front of their doors they might be a little concerned. Remember we want this to be a great experience for EVERYONE involved!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Classroom-Community-Outing-Worksheets-835804

Seat Belt Safety

I have been having a few problems this year with students not wanting to wear their seat belts while on the bus.  Sooooo, I made this up over the weekend and plan to use it tomorrow in class.  I'll let you know how it goes!


Karen




http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Life-Skills-Seat-Belt-Safety

Elections and Voting

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Life-Skills-Elections-and-Voting

Here is a worksheet on elections and voting.  With the 2012 elections coming up next school year I wanted to do some sort of worksheet to get my kids involved with the voting process.  Now remember, most of my students can not write on their own without copying from a source.  I try not to do all my worksheets with a lot of written answers.  Some of my slower kids spend the whole period trying to keep up writing the answers that I feel like they miss the whole lesson.  And, since they can't read what they wrote anyway I don't find it necessary to do all the time.  Quite a few of my worksheets, even though they have places for answers,  are never written on by the students.  I write the answers on the board, and they participate.

Stranger Danger

Here is a fun worksheet I did with my students yesterday.  Most of my students do not write without copying, so we did this verbally.  My kids are so into role play that we didn't get past question number one before someone asked if they could come up and practice in from of the class.  This is probably my cue to start some sort of drama club.  We spent almost an hour going over scenarios and of course the kids had stories of their own to tell.  Hope you enjoy! 


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Stranger-Danger-Worksheet

Calling 911

We practice calling 911 many times during the year.  My students LOVE acting out scenes of an emergency.  They literally will lay on the floor and look unconscious while the "call" is happening.  I have a student in my class who is verbal but very hard to understand.  We practice just getting out one or two words (mom sick, dad hurt) and than answer yes or no to the dispatcher (me) questions. 

Here is a worksheet that can be used before role play. 





http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Life-Skills-Calling-911

Taxes

Here is a worksheet on taxes.  We live in California so I used the taxes that apply to us.  I also used a minimum amount of income tax.  The majority of my students will never work.  The couple that will, will most likely work part time. 


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Life-Skills-Paying-Taxes

Dining Etiquette

IIt is very important to me to make sure my students have more skills when they leave my classroom than they did when they arrived.  I do not teach academics per say, unless it pertains to adult living (money, measuring, time).  My main goal is to teach independent living skills, social skills and vocational training.  I may not be able to teach Johnny to count to a hundred or to know that two quarters make a dollar by the end of the year, but I would like him to be more respectful, have better manners, be more responsible and treat others more kindly.  That makes me happy.  Here is a worksheet on dining etiquette.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8NVsf6Y1KIvek9lYXRHUlJCVFk/edit

Public Restroom Etiquette

I went to an autism conference this week and loved one of the speakers!  His name was Peter Gerhardt Ed.D and I could have listened to him ALL day! I got the idea for this worksheet on "Public Restrooms" from a story and powerpoint he was presenting during his speech.  The majority of my students are not autistic, but I think that this worksheet will be great for my LD students as well. 


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bathroom-Etiquette

Safety Sign Bingo

           My students LOVE playing Bingo. 

I have a safety sign bingo game, but this is so much more fun!  Have the students cut out all the signs and glue them randomly onto the blank bingo card.  (They will not use all the signs). I have a larger version of these cards that I use to call out and discuss as we play.

Pick up your copy HERE

Entertaining Guests

We do a few activities on entertaining throughout the year.   In this activity we are pretending we are having company come to our home for lunch.  The students have to make a grocery list by using the recipe cards attached.  Go to the grocery store with your list and find the items you have listed.  Add your totals when you get back to class.  Would even be fun, financing available, to put the students into groups of 5 and let them  buy the ingredients and create the meal.  We do another activity similar to this, where the students create their own menu for a pretend dinner party.  We go over all the things that would make a meal from drinks, salad, soups, main dishes and desserts.  They cut pictures from the abundance of food magazines we have and paste their menu to paper.  The menus range from mac and cheese with Hot Pockets to prime rib and brussel sprouts!  It is a lot of fun!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8NVsf6Y1KIvY3NHOTR1a1lTeWVBdlhJYlNwOU9aQQ/edit
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8NVsf6Y1KIvVVl2ZnhELUJSemFPckpZejFTQnlLZw/edit

Grocery Store Activity

                                                                    

 My students enjoy this grocery store activity.  I don't recommend bombarding one grocery store with 30 kids though.  Since there is a grocery store on every corner where I live we split the kids, aides and teachers up into smaller groups and go to a variety of grocery stores.   Students may need help at first trying to find the product with the best price, but it's a great way to incorporate money into the lesson.  This is also fun because at the end, after each group adds up their total, they can tell you which store had the better prices.  It almost becomes a bit of a competition.  Pick one up free at TpT.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Grocery-Store-Hunt

Pharmacy Hunt

Life Skills......


We have a pharmacy within walking distance of our school site so why not do a class on personal hygiene products, right?  The students love getting out, and I am pretty confident they should be able to (in small groups) find all of the items on their own. 

We can add up the totals when we get back to class!http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pharmacy-Hunt

Community Awareness Car Rally

I have been off on spring break so have had a little time to put together some worksheets to finish out the school year. This one I put this together to help the students locate different resources in our community. We are fortunate to have vehicles to take the students around to different places which helps out a lot. The first class we use the worksheet titled "Community Awareness Questions". We go over the list and brainstorm the answers on where to find the resources on our list.

The second day we take the students in small groups out into the community to find the resources. Each group will have the second sheet titled "Community Camera Rally". Each group will also have a camera to take pictures of each designation as we find it. We will print the pictures and go over what we found on another day.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8NVsf6Y1KIvMDVWdXhoMEJRTHVVRXRsd2dmemRMQQ/edit

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8NVsf6Y1KIvdlFvRHh2cm5Ub2VtbFBkdmZRMWt0dw/edit