Classroom Schedule

Here is a picture of my classrooms weekly schedule I have posted on one side of my white board.  I used electrical tape to section off the times and days. The activities are attached with velcro so they can be changed to new activities each week.  We go over the weekly schedule each Monday so the students know what is going on for the whole week.  We also go over the daily schedule each morning when the students arrive.  

Activity Boxes

Here is a picture of my boxes I use during down times and free time in my classroom.  Most every idea in them came from Pinterest!  4 of the boxes contain money skills activities.  Others include making patterns, sorting, stamping, counting, number activities, dice games, shapes, time etc.    We started this year with only ten and have continued throughout the year to add the rest.  I have had to change out some of the original ones that my kids didn't find as entertaining as others.  I am sure I will keep adding as time goes by!

Domino Money Set - Coins

 I have been spending time this year putting together some manipulative boxes for the kids to use when they finish their work and have free time.  Inside of each students morning folder is a checklist which includes all of my educational activities.  If a student finishes their work early they can find an item on their list that they have not worked on. After they finish the activity they will mark it off on their list. During "free" time the students can pick any of the activities. There are about 50 items on the list, 20 of which are the boxes.  The other items include all our games, matching, tracing etc. I add to it constantly so no one has finished the complete list.  Since the kids love Dominoes, and we are constantly working on money I thought they might enjoy this Domino set. I printed them on cardstock and laminated them so they will last us.  

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Domino-Money-Set

Morning Messages

 My students write a brief morning message every morning as they arrive.  It goes like this:  Good morning _____. Today is _____. Today we will _____ and ______.  Tomorrow - ___________.  Most of my students finish this within about 10 minutes and than they move on to their morning folders.  The other day searching around on Pinterest, I saw this cute idea of kids writing with paint and a Qtip.  So yesterday morning before the kids arrived, I set them up with the materials they would need to try this.  They really did love it.  It took such huge concentration and they were sooooo quiet, lol.  I guess it's good to change things up every once in awhile.  Might have to think of some other new ideas!

Grocery Shopping Scavenger Hunt

Every Tuesday my class goes on a community outing.  Tomorrow we are heading to the grocery store!  I try to come up with some sort of activity for the students to do while we are at our outings.  We will have a whole hour at the store,  and I don't want anybody getting bored! The kids will be in groups of 3 with an aide or me.  Each group will have this worksheet on their clipboard ready to write down the price and to see if it is on sale.  I cheated a little and checked out the sales ad before making the worksheet. I know that about half of these items are going to be on sale tomorrow when we go.  This worksheet is very basic, but I think it will be fun for them to find the items on their own.
FREE --->  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Grocery-Scavenger-Hunt

Social Skills - Friends

Here are some social skills worksheets I put together for my class.  These are some of the issues we deal with on a daily basis.  I bought some cute social skills books that I read prior to writing each lesson.  "My Mouth is a Volcano"  "How to be a Friend" and "How to lose all your Friends".  To be honest, I had a particular student in mind when I bought each one of these books (you do not need the books to use the worksheets). I wrote the worksheets to represent some of their actual issues.  I have more books on the way "I Want to do it My Way", "The Bad Case of Tattle Tongue" and "Sorry I Forgot to Ask".  Check back for worksheets soon!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Friends-Social-Skills-Worksheets

Money Skills

 I do money skills weekly in my classroom. My students can so easily be taken advantage of when it comes to making purchases.  Here is an 18 page packet that starts very basic with counting pennies.  I have included pages on counting change and dollar bills.  There are also three pages on making purchases using the dollar up method. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Life-Skills-Money

School Lockdown Book

Here is a small 7 page information booklet on school lockdowns.  My class will have their first practice lockdown on Friday.  We have talked a little each day about the practice drill.  I plan to do the booklets with them on Friday morning before the drill.  I tried not to make the book "scary".  I hope this will be useful in your classroom too.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/School-Lockdown-Information-Book

Thanks!

Menu Math Mexican Style

On a roll today getting ready for the big sale tomorrow on TPT! Everything in my store will be 20 percent off!  TPT will be adding an additional percentage off if you use the code SUPER! Here is another addition to my Menu Math unit your class might enjoy.  I do menu math at least twice a month in our morning folders and the kids love them.  I laminate the menus so I can use them over and over again.  Happy shopping tomorrow!!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Taco-Restaurant-Menu-Math

A Visit to the Dr. & Dentist

Here is a little look at my classrooms afternoon schedule. I teach an afternoon class each day from 1 - 1:30.  Here is the schedule I follow most weeks.

Monday - Social Skills
Tuesday - Computer Lab
Wednesday - Life Skills
Thursday - $ Skills
Friday - Fun Work

I am still in the process of putting together a full years worth of curriculum!  This is my 3rd year working in the program I am in and I really hope by the end of this summer to have everything in order and ready to go for future years.  My fingers are crossed!  Here is a couple worksheets I put together this week to go in my life skills folder.  Fortunately I am a talker and can make any one page worksheet last at least a half hour.  I love getting the kids involved in in the curriculum.  They love telling stories and they love role play.  Again, they are mostly non readers, so I use these worksheets more as a guideline.  I do have them copy from the board, the answers.  Hope you can use this.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Visiting-the-Doctor-and-Dentist

Thanks!

Israel Opens a Bank Account

Guess what?  Tomorrow after school ISRAEL GETS TO OPEN HIS FIRST BANK ACCOUNT!!!  He "needs"an ATM card like no other!  Israel is autistic and I can't even begin to tell you how many times I got to hear about this ALL WEEK!  I put together this little worksheet and we did it together with the whole class.  We even walked over to the bank and had him ask them what he would need to bring.  He practiced all morning what he was going to say.  We are confident that he will do an amazing job tomorrow. So proud!














http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Opening-a-Bank-Account

Homemade Tortillas

I am EXTREMELY fortunate to have 3 amazing aides in my classroom with me everyday.  I also LOVE to pass the reins to them anytime they want!  I think the kids really like the change, and I like to sit back, hang out with them, and learn something new myself.  Last week one of my aides hosted her 3rd annual tortilla making class.  The kids LOVE it!  She teaches them how to make the dough, gives them each a piece and they knead it in their hands.  They use a tortilla press and even cook them themselves on a griddle.  Most are hesitant of the hot grill at first, but once they see the others participating we usually get them all to make at least one. Easy, fun homemade tortillas!

Life Skills Worksheets

 I have posted a few of my life skills worksheets in the past and have been selling them individually in my store for the past few months.  I have now put quite a few of them together at a great discounted 
price!  I also added a "Making an Appointment" worksheet that I put together yesterday.  If you have already downloaded this item, please download it again to get the new worksheet. Update: "Asking for Help" worksheet added 1/29/13
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Life-Skills-Special-Education-Binder

Super Bowl Activity

Pick up your FREE Super Bowl worksheet in my TpT store!!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Super-Bowl-Activity-Worksheet

Assessments

These are the assessments I use the first few days of the school year.  I can see where each student is and what areas we need to work on.  It also is beneficial in writing the IEP.  
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Special-Education-Student-Assessments

Groundhog Day Fun Pack

I hope everyone's new year is great so far.  We are back in school this week and all my kids had a wonderful holiday off.  Here is a fun pack to use with Groundhog Day coming up on February 2nd (which happens to fall on a Saturday this year).  My class will not likely finish the whole pack, but I think it will be fun to do a couple on the Friday before and one or two on the Monday after.  I have also included black and white images in the pack.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Groundhog-Day-Fun-Pack

Camping Fun Pack

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! My resolutions this year are to keep up on my blog (at least weekly) and to get more products into my TPT store.  I really want to start working on a social skills packet, but every time I sit down to do it, it's just not there.  I will work on that though.  Here is a packet I have been needing to do for my class.  We plan on having a camping day sometime in January. We will roast hot dogs, make s'mores and tell campfire stories!  Only one of my 12 students has ever been camping, so we thought it would be fun for a mini experience.  I tossed in the scavenger hunt for anyone who may actually use these worksheets on a camping trip.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Camping-Fun-Pack

5 Senses

I have been wanting to do a packet on the 5 senses for some time.  And since I have a lot of down time this week, here we go!  I will probably split these into two different lessons when I add them to our morning folders.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/5-Senses-Fun-Pack

Kitchen Measuring

Here is a small packet on kitchen measuring.  I have included measuring with liquid measuring cups, dry measuring cups and measuring spoons.  Great to use in your classroom before you start actual cooking classes.  

 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Kitchen-Measuring

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Here is a fun little packet I did for Martin Luther King day.  I added a link to the store where I found these cute graphics.  He does a great job!  Be sure to check out other products in his store.  Enjoy!
.http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-Clipart-PNG-Files-for-Personal-or-Commercial-Use

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-Fun-Pack

Paint Stir Snowmen

I found a cute american flag craft http://dreaming-n-color.blogspot.com/2011/05/paint-stick-flag.html last year made from paint stirrers. I sent a couple of our aides out to our local home improvement stores to see if they could get some given to them for free.  Little did I know how giving these stores would be with their paint stirrers.  They literally came back with hundreds.  Sooooo I found a few additional crafts to help us use them up throughout the year.  We made these cute snowmen today!   Here is the link:  http://funfamilycrafts.com/paint-stick-snowmen/

I still have oodles of stirrers left! I am still on the lookout for more ideas if anyone has any suggestions.

Menu Math Packet

I have put together 3 menu maths in the past few months and have been selling them seperately.  I have now bound all of them together to make 11 pages of menu math!  They include McDonalds, ChickFilA and Burger King.  The menu prices are accurate with the prices where I live, so I hope they are the same for you.   

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Menu-Math-Binder