Spot it!

I was in LA over the weekend at a shoe store of all places wandering around looking at some games they had. I was intrigued by these cute little games inside tins. They had quite a few to choose from. My friend asked me if I had ever played it before and proceeded to tell me how much fun they were. I went ahead and purchased this one here "On The Road" as it would fall within our "Community Awareness" domain. Yesterday I got a table full of kids and a few staff and we pulled the tin open and began playing. There are numerous different ways you can play the game and we actually tried 3 of them, all very entertaining. The one the kids loved the most was very fast playing and wouldn't have worked with all my kids but these guys did great. 

Here's how it worked: Everyone had a card face up in front of them and there was a stack of the remaining cards in the middle of the table. The object was to find a picture on the top card in the center that matched a picture on your opponents card, call the picture "police car" grab the card and place it on your opponents card in front of them, now changing what their top card is. When the center pile was depleted, we all counted our cards and the person with the fewest in their pile was the winner. We also played it the opposite where everyone had 6 cards face up in front of them and there was one card face up in the center. On "go" you had to call and place your cards on the center card to match a picture on there. Sounds easy, but every time someone places there card before you the top card is changed so you have to start looking through your pictures again. 

I know as soon as I get to work today they kids are going to want to try some of the other ways to play. I believe there was 7 in all. I am positive there will be or can be slower ways to play where the kids maybe take turns that will accommodate some of our non competitive kids. I think I might actually pick up a different tin if I find them somewhere local!

Cooking Terms Bingo

I have posted in the past regarding the educational bingo games I use with my kids. They are on bathroom items, kitchen items, cooked foods, and fruits and vegetables. My kids love doing them and I have had to limit it to once a week since we have a ton of other things to learn and they would literally want to do this all day if I let them. Not only are they learning but since they think they are playing a game, it's a win win situation. Last week we were working on cooking terms and it came to me, why not teach them the cooking terms in a Bingo game? That night I went home and put one together. I laminated each of the 15 cards and also the cards I will use to call. We haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I know they are going to love it and what better way to learn, right? Things like this can be thrown together in about an hour and are virtually free for teachers to make. 

I would love some other ideas that could be made into a Bingo game if you have any!

Award Assemblies

Sorry it's taken me a couple weeks to post on this. The end of the first quarter ended a little over a week ago in our district. In the past, we didn't really acknowledge it except to send them home with a paper stating how they were doing on their goals in their IEP, exciting huh? This year, with the new Spirit Club implemented, we have decided to make it a little more special and have an award assembly just before we do our weekly dance hour out in the quad area. Each teacher was given two Steps for Success awards to fill in. The awards could be given for anything they felt the kids had done to help themselves move forward to a successful life. With 19 classes that was close to 40 awards. I really went back and forth about adding more so each kid could get one during the year but kept going back to the fact that we are supposed to be teaching them about the real life, and in the real life, not everyone gets an award, buzz kill I know.
We also wanted to acknowledge the kids with perfect attendance. I have always done something special for the kids in my room as I wanted to let them know how important this is. I found these cool personalized dog tags at a store on line and ordered them for 32 cents a piece. Out of 175 kids we had 42 with perfect attendance! I had 6 out of my 11 kids, which I'd like to think is a reflection of my teaching :-) The kids loved them! Now, 8 days post assembly, most of the kids are still wearing them. We plan to continue with these each quarter and buy a different style each time so they can add to their collection. If your are interested in seeing all the things they have, check out their web site here School Life. I am really glad we decided to do this. My staff said the kids were just beaming when they received their awards. I am curious to see if our attendance increases next quarter because of them.

Hope your week is moving along as planned, 

Amazing Karaoke!

I love DonorsChoose and over the past few years have been blessed to receive many wonderful things for my classroom. I usually pick what we need because well, I'm the teacher. But this time, with our weekly electives looming over my head and needing to pick what I was going to do, I left it in the hands of the kids. And they wanted karaoke! I REALLY had to think long and hard about this because I know my kids and frankly I kept imaging long hours of sitting in my room listing to one Disney song after another off key, but I gave in and we posted the project. It's all about them right? An hour and a half after it posted, my amazing angel friend from New York paid for our karaoke machine (we love her). Three days later it was in my classroom (the joys of ordering through Amazon)! 

You are not going to believe how amazing this little machine has been for my kids. Remember me talking a few weeks ago about one of my boys with autism, who only repeats my last word? And how he got up in front of the room and recited the entire Pledge of Allegiance? Well, he can sing! And I don't mean in key by any means, but he knows all the words to the songs and gets right up there and sings for us. Another of my boys who also is almost non verbal is amazing to watch! He not only sings, but he dances as well, and his facial expressions are priceless! 

I have been pleasantly surprised that every one of my kids really seems to enjoy the singing. All 7 of my boys with autism have done it, multiple times. It has helped some of them to have my aide up there singing along with them, as some of them don't read and this way they stay in line with the lyrics.    

We haven't started our bi-weekly electives yet, but word is spreading about room 6's Karaoke machine and I have been having a few "visitors" after lunch all week. And my aides, that's them in the picture, I think they are enjoying it almost as much as the kids!

Enjoy your weekend,

Earthquake Preparedness

 Millions of people worldwide will practice how to Drop, Cover, and Hold tomorrow 10/16 at 10:16 a.m. during the Great Shake Out Earthquake Drill. I put together a little slide show today that you are more then welcome to use with your kids tomorrow. There are 22 slides, mostly things I copied from different web pages. There are also some pictures of earthquake damage. Nothing too scary as I have some sensitive kids.

Earthquake Slide Show

Here is the link to Google Docs to retrieve it. Sorry, to big to email or upload. Be sure to save it before using it. For some reason it comes a bit jumbled, but once saved, it's fine. 

Halloween Dance & Skeleton Matching

In the past our program has put on a large Halloween dance for the kids which included pizza, pies, drinks, games, face painting, and plenty of snacks. We actually own a sno-cone machine, a nacho cheese dispensing machine, a popcorn machine and a cotton candy machine, all which we can no longer use with the new food rules. We also had about 6 games that one of our teachers borrowed each year from her church, which she can not get again this year. Soooooo, basically our large dance has been downsized a LOT! Since no teacher signed up to do the dance, the Spirit Club offered. 

Seriously, besides dancing and face painting, we are at a loss of what else we can do to make this special. Had you asked me in the past years if our Halloween party revolved around food I would have said NO way, but.... I guess, technically it did. If anyone has ideas of "free" or close to free ideas for 175 kids in an outdoor quad area (not to mention what might happen if it rains!) I would love to hear them! In exchange I am giving away a fun matching skeleton worksheet. You can pick which level you want to do with your kids. Please, please, please throw us some ideas, we are desperate!!!

You can pick up you free copy here. 

Hope your week is going great so far!

Job Interest Assessments

Since I have still been unable to locate a job site for my kids, and because finding a place that wants 15 extra people in their establishment working is quite difficult, we have decided to take a different approach this year, Job Interest Assessments. We will be doing this every other Monday and I really like how the first one went. I put the kids into four groups, three students per aide, and I take my two girls (who are the biggest handful). Each group had this worksheet shown, and were told to observe employees during our hour there. They were to write down on their worksheet (I had one writer per group) a job that they witnessed an employee doing. Well, the kids did a great job! They were encouraged to ask the employees what it was they were doing (if they didn't know), and we even learned a new work term! We then answered a few additional questions about the workplace. 

Back at school, while the kids were at lunch, I made 2 extra copies of each groups worksheets. In our afternoon class, I passed them back out to their groups and we listed all the jobs on the board that the kids observed and talked about each one. I was worried they would have a hard time coming up with 8, but there were so many they observed that it was not a problem. We then finished the worksheet with everyone answering the rest of the questions based on their preferences on their own worksheet.

 For the last question, we all got around my computer and went to Hobby Lobby's website. We found the link for "Careers" and following it. We read their introduction to working there and also found out they if you would like to apply for a job there, you will have to apply in person as they do not do online applications. 

I am really looking forward to doing more of these this year.

We have Winco and Subway Sandwich coming up in the next month and I can't wait to see how they do!

California Map Lesson

I found a cute worksheet on Pinterest last week that I thought would really help my kids not only work on map skills but also get a great lesson on the state that we live in. Unfortunately the worksheet was for Texas. So, what does one do? Make one for California!

Let me know if you would like a copy. I will send it to you in PowerPoint and you can add your city to it too!

Have a great weekend! I'm OUT OF HERE!

Teacher Meltdowns

It's busy busy busy at my work this week! I had two aides out today for starters, and this Friday is the end of the first quarter. Benchmarks and grades are both due. Come to find out today, they have changed the way to post them so I was on that all morning trying to figure out what we needed to do. I am also organizing an assembly for the kids on Friday to hand out their "Perfect attendance" dog tags (I'll talk about this more later) and trying to gather the "Steps To Success" awards (later too) that I handed out to all the teachers to fill in and need back by tomorrow afternoon. And to top it off.... I will be absent Friday for the whole thing!! That's ok, our spirit club team is amazing and I have delegated appropriately. After all of that, and while my kids were in the cafeteria eating, I went in to talk to my boss about an issue with getting my new projector mounted in my room. Now, I can't exactly explain what happened while I was in his office, because frankly I do not know. We talked, he wasn't mean or condescending, there is just a glitch (and maybe too many people telling me different things) in the path to getting my new projector mounted. No big deal right? Well, I left his office and just burst into tears! I tried walking it off and took the long way back to my class doing deep breathing exercises the whole time to no avail. I seriously considered getting into my car and just taking a drive, but I didn't have my keys on me! I finally got back to my room (luckily without being seen) and had myself a little meltdown. You know, the big tears, runny nose, hard to catch your breath... yep, that's what I had.  I was finally getting over it when one of my co-worker friends walked in and it took all I had to not restart the whole thing again. Seriously this went on for about a half hour! And every time I saw one of my friends I could feel the tears welling back up again. Well, I calmed down, the kids came back, and we finished out our day. THANK GOD! Does anyone else ever have days like this? I am hoping today was "my" day and that I will not be needing anymore of them for quite some time. Thanks for letting me talk about it, I think I feel better now.

Yours Truly,

3 Lessons In One - Art~Table Setting~Nutrition

We have been working on this activity since last week and I have been so anxious to see how they would turn out. Last Thursday I gave the kids each a piece of white paper and had them create a place-mat for themselves. Art is taken different for every one of my kids. Some of my kiddos will finish art in 2 minutes and need a little prompting to add a little something extra here or there. Some of the others can create for hours. As you can see from the photos, some of them are very talented in this department. So, place-mats done, we did a lesson on casual table setting on Friday. We all sat around our work table and went over each part of the setting and where it goes one by one on the place-mat. We glued them on as we talked about each piece. We raised our left hands and raised our rights just to make sure we were getting the right sides.

This morning (day 3) we did a lesson on creating a well balanced meal. We have done this in depth already this year along with some My Plate resources so this was just a refresher. After lunch we got working on putting the meals together. We passed out magazines to them and had them locate, cut, and paste the meal of their choice along with a drink to their plates. The end results were FABULOUS!! Here is one that one of my more artistic boys put together. He spent a lot of time on his place-mat, but wouldn't you love to eat on it? 

This was a really fun lesson for all of the kids. No one fell asleep, and it was after lunch.... Success!

Circuit Maker

It's surprises me every year how my whole classroom shifts on what they like and what they don't like to do. The last two years, not one student has touched the puzzles on my shelves. This year, it is like the hot ticket activity. I even had to buy a couple extra so there was enough to go around. I remember about three years ago my box of pattern blocks was what everyone wanted to play with. The last couple years no one seems to care for them at all. 
Last week a co-worker of mine bought a Circuit Maker set for his students and called me over to check it out. I was pretty sure my boys would love it as they are really into putting things together this year. I picked it up over the weekend and introduced it to the kids yesterday. I don't know who is enjoying it more, the kids or the staff (me included). It starts out pretty easy and will build as they start making more.
It says ages 8 and up on the box and so far a couple of my boys were able to do it on their own. some of them needed help with the layering (which is clear on the instructions) but they were able to snap them together fine and follow the grid. I have only allowed them to each do two as I wanted everyone to get turns making them. So far we made a circuit board that turned on a light and one that made a buzzer sound! I can't wait to see what the next pages will bring!

Holiday Activity Worksheets

Lately every time I click on Pinterest, I keep seeing my Columbus Day Activity Worksheet I put together last year. Every time I see it, it reminds me that I have 9 other holiday worksheets patiently waiting in my "need to work on" folder. It's one of those things I have been trying to get to for the past few months and then just forget about. So much so that I have even missed the holidays they were meant to be used for. So, I have spent the last week finishing them up and this morning I finally posted them in my store! Each worksheet has 4 -5 activities for the kids to do. I hope your kids enjoy them!

You can find your copy here in my store!

Just Dance!

Can you believe there are only 2 weeks left in the first quarter!!! OMG where does the time go?? We are still school bound except for 1 day a week when we are getting to leave campus to attend PE. I am still hopeful that CBI will begin the week of the 6th and am keeping my fingers crossed. 

To try to fill up some time with the kids we decided a few weeks ago to turn the music on in the quad, get a DJ (one of my aides, who btw is fabulous at this) and let the kids dance. What started out as a one time thing has now been repeated the last two Fridays and the kids are just having the best time. We play the music for an hour, and let me tell you, they dance the WHOLE hour! They slide to the left, they slide to the right, there's hopping, stomping, cha cha-ing.  I even learned me a little gangnam dancing today! What a bunch of happy faces! I was trying to get a pic to show you,  but with over a hundred kids out there boppin I would have had to apply way to many happy faces to cover up their own beautiful ones that I can't show on here.  Every time a new song came on they screamed like they were at a concert, I couldn't help but just stand there and watch the joy they were having. Even our students who are deaf were up front center dancing to the music they could feel coming from the speakers. Don't you just stand there sometimes, looking at your kids and say to yourself..... "Yes, this is why I come here everyday." Well today I had one of those days.

Hope you have a safe and fantastic weekend,

Personal Information Activity

Twice in the last couple of days I have ran across activities where the kids need to match their name or their phone number from paper tiles onto a sheet of paper. I decided to come up with something similar for my two boys who are still working on this skill and add all their personal information into one activity. 

I have them printed and have cut out each of the letter and number tiles so far, but haven't had time yet to laminate them and add the Velcro dots. I am hoping to get that done sometime this weekend. Here is a how they should work when I am finished with them. These boys are pretty sharp so I am pretty sure they will be able to master this in a short amount of time. Since I only have 2 kids I am doing this for it's pretty "doable". Not sure I would want to do this for 12 of them though. 

Will update on our progress! Tomorrow's FRIDAY!!!! Have a great weekend if I don't talk to you before then!

Getting Organized - Curriculum By Subject

Every year I tell myself "self, you need to be more organized this year". As my curriculum grows I find it harder and harder to keep track of what I have done and what I need to do. 5 years ago I would just create a worksheet when I needed one, then save it in my computer in the hopes of remembering I had it for the next year. I was so overwhelmed with having to create everything I used that organization was out the window. 2 years ago I started printing out everything and placing it inside binders by subject. Last year I tried teaching in the order of the binders, but then I would get pulled, or the school would plan something during my class time, or some kid would keep picking his nose and the lesson on food storage was put on the back burner as we worked on Nose Picking 101. By the middle of the year, I couldn't remember where I was or what I had done. 

This year I have created a worksheet with all the lessons I have and taped it to the wall next to my desk. So far, 4 weeks in, I have done an amazing job at marking off each lesson after I teach it. I am going to try REALLY hard this year to STAY ORGANIZED! Does anyone else do something similar to this? How do you keep yourself organized? I would love to know.

Here is what I have been using. I am sure I will add to it when some new issues arise, but for now, this will have to do. Wish me luck :-)

The Pledge of Allegiance

Happy Tuesday! I am going to admit right now that I have been doing a terrible job at having the kids recite The Pledge Of Allegiance each morning. It was one of my plans this year and so far I have been slacking. My new boss has decided that we are going to start doing it every morning as a whole and have different kids lead it from the office onto the speakers in our classrooms. I was super excited as now it can get done even if I'm busy with something else at the moment. So, yesterday I got the kids all up one at a time and had them recite it in front of the class. Even though 2 declined to even try the others knew it by heart. Even one of my autistic boys who really only repeats what I ask him with a "yes" or "no" added at the end recited the whole thing????? Crazy. After listening to them I got to thinking if they really even understand what it was they are saying? There are some pretty big words in the Pledge of Allegiance. I went home last night and put together this little slide show and today I handed out this worksheet and we got to work dissecting The Pledge. I think the kids have a much better understand of what they have been saying all these years. I used very basic definitions and did elaborate and give examples as we went over each word. A very successful lesson if I do say so myself  :-) 

ASL - Finger Spelling Our Names

We have one classroom in our program that accommodates the deaf students who attend. One of my good friends is the teacher in that class so we get the kids together often for fun activities.

I think it's important to try to teach my kids some sign language so they can try to communicate with the others kids when they are together. My friend does "Sign Time" with a few of the classes during the year and last year it was even an elective the kids could sign up for. Today we learned how to finger spell our names doing this fun activity. 

My friend turned me on to the Enchanted Learning website where I was able to find the fingered letters. I saved each one to my computer and pasted four to a page so I would have the whole alphabet for later uses. After counting how many I would need of each, we made copies and cut them apart. I laid the letters out on the table and had the kids walk around finding each letter in their name. They colored and cut them out, then pasted them onto a piece of large white paper. My friend had a sheet of the regular alphabet available for them to color their letters and they cut those out and pasted them below their finger letters. 

Everyone had to go up to the front of the room and practice signing their names before we hung them up for all to see. This was actually a pretty long activity. From start to finish it took them about and hour and a little longer for a few of them. All in all, a great time was had by all!

Changing Curriculum & Coin Stamping

 Every year my classroom has a little shift in the students I spend my day with. Last year I had a lower academic group of kids join us, even to the point that I had to go out and purchase a few Melissa and Doug items for them since we weren't much above counting and colors. The information we get from the high schools that the kids are coming from is not always accurate so where they get placed is sometimes a little off. Occasionally we can make small shifts at the beginning of the school year but other times I just like to think there is a reason I was chosen to spend the year with them. This year brings me a couple new kids who are a bit higher then those I have had in the past. So, I am needing to change up my curriculum to adjust to them. 

 I am changing out some of my activity boxes to add ones that are a bit more challenging for these guys. Here is one I added this week. Since I will put a huge emphasis on money I thought these coin stamps, (which by the way have gone down in price since I bought them a week ago!) would be a great addition. I made up a couple worksheets for them to use the stamps with and so far the kids have really enjoyed working with them. If you can see in the picture, it says the coins and the amount needed (ex. 2 dimes, 2 nickels, 3 pennies) and the kids stamp the correct coins then add the total to the page. 

I am on the lookout for more, so if you know of any other good money activities please share.

Have a great weekend!

Putting Away Groceries

Here is a fun life skills lesson on putting away groceries. I have this lesson in a cut & paste worksheet already but since Velcro is my new best friend and any cut & paste worksheet can easily be adapted into a Velcro book, here you go! There are 33 food pieces and three options of were you can put them, 12 pantry, 9 freezer, and 12 refrigerator. I used clear Velcro, cause it's my favorite! I am giving this away for free in my store to anyone who promises to comment on my blog at least once in the next year. No pressure, lol. Here is the link to pick up a copy for our kidoes. I would love to hear how they liked it.

The Specials - Update

Has anyone had the opportunity to watch this show? I am in LOVE! I only caught one episode that was on the OWN channel over the weekend so I went ahead and bought Season 1, for only $27 bucks (10 episodes)! I really think my kids are going to enjoy this. A reality show with people just like them?? Fabulous!

Here is an excerpt from their website:
In-depth documentary telling the story of how Carol and Dafydd Williams set up "The Specials" home & helped their daughter Hilly realize her dream of living with her friends.

And here is what the OWN site has to say about it:

There is also a season 2 available~ I'll give you a good review after we are able to watch them. It will take a bit to watch 10 episodes but I promise to keep you up to date!

Here is the link to their site.

*UPDATE* I just received an email letting me know they have refunded my money for the video. Apparently Oprah owns all the rights to the shows for the next 5 years and they are no longer allowed to sell them to buyers in the USA. I will keep you up to date if Oprah starts selling them. So bummed :-(

Community Based Instruction

A very essential part of my programs is community based instruction (CBI). This year we are fortunate to have the opportunity to learn in the community 3 times a week. One day we will work at our job sites which at this time include Subway, McDonalds, a nursery, a pizza place, a Mexican restaurant, Burlington Coat Factory, both of our local colleges and major car dealership. Another day we will do physical education. We go bowling, or to one of two recreation centers or to a local park.

The final day we will spend at a variety of destinations in our community. This year because of all the new rules that were implemented, I have had to come up with some additional worksheets to use during these outings. Now, we won't do a worksheet each time but they are good for my kids to keep them busy for the hour+ we are at our destination. While we will still take our yearly trips to the zoo, the planetarium, a couple museums, the library, newspaper etc. I love doing instruction in stores. ANY stores for that matter! It's like a HUGE classroom right at our fingertips!

I am slowly trying to put all of the worksheets together (I know i have more somewhere) so I can post them for you, hopefully soon. Most of them I have done in the past and a few of them are new ones that I plan to work into our schedule this year. These worksheets have a variety of activities and most all of them fit into the goal of "finding an item in a store". Hopefully I will have it posted by the end of the week and I can just add to it as I make more. 

I would love to hear your ideas of what you do for CBI with your class. Do you do worksheets? Must you have a lesson planned? Let's share. You can pick up a copy of my worksheets HERE.

Have a great weekend!

Social Skills Packet COMPLETE!

Well I finally did it! After months of work (and periods of no work) I finally finished the last of the social skills worksheets this weekend,Yeah to me!!!! I had to add an additional one on "Public vs Private" at the last minute but got that done too! So, here it is, the complete volume of 27 social skills worksheets! I am sure I will continue to add as problems arise, but for now this is it. Here is a sneak peak at the new entries!

HERE is the link to the entire packet