Ideas for Making Structured Work Systems Portable & Practical for any Classroom

I've preached and preached about why it's SO important to teach students to work independently and use structured work systems.

I want to show you three ways to use structured work systems in a variety of settings. These systems are great because they can be implemented in any classroom and at home! You can also use similar structured systems during direct instruction and groups to provide students with consistent structure.

I love all of these systems because they're PORTABLE! They're small and students can easily take them from class to class or between home and school but they provide students with the structure they need!

Packing the BEST Teacher Field Trip Bag

Field trips are SO fun but can also be super stressful and chaotic. Having a field trip "go bag" can make field trips run a little smoother! I like to have our field trip bag packed and prepped at all times!

I found our backpack at Micheal's for $13 (I used at 40% off coupon) and used my Cricut machine to make the iron on with A Perfect Blend fonts.

Creating a Morning Routine in a Special Education Classroom

Creating a classroom morning routine that works well can be tough... It's the first chunk of the day and it's often a hard transition for students.

Before I explain our morning routine, I want to give you a little background about my classroom. Classroom models like mine typically have anywhere from 8-15 students and we have a teacher and 2-4 paraprofessionals. It's technically a "self-contained" classroom, but all of my students have a general education teacher in their grade level and go to their general ed teacher for at least part of their day depending on their needs.

3 Tips for Transitioning Your Class Inside From Recess

Transitioning students from recess back to the classroom and to a learning environment can be one of the hardest transitions of the day. I think this is for one main reason: recess is super fun and reinforcing to students, and going back inside and working probably isn't as reinforcing as recess. So what do we need to do? We need to be strategic and make ending recess WAY more reinforcing for students!

Using Google Forms to Communicate with Parents

Communicating with families regularly is one of the easiest ways to build positive relationships with families. In the past, I used paper back and forth books. I thought I was being SO time efficient because I made books that had checklists, I individualized the books based on what each parent wanted to know about the students day and I could write in 10 books in about 15 minutes.

But I was still struggling to write in all the books on a daily basis. I was struggling to find the time at the end of the day (when students were still there) to complete the books. Pages were getting ripped out of books on the bus. Books were getting lost. Families weren't getting important information they needed, so it just wasn't working anymore...