Creating Online Interactive Materials for Students with Google Forms

We are living in some wild times of trying to figure out online learning for our students! It's an adjustment for students, families and teachers to try to make this all work. This situation has required parents to become teachers and forced teachers to get even more creative with their teaching!

I don't consider myself a tech wizard or expert by any means... I've had to spend hours watching YouTube videos and searching online for how to make materials for online learning. Through this whole online learning journey, I've started using Google Forms as a way for students to answer comprehension questions and to collect data. So I'm here to share a simple tutorial for making Google Forms to use with students.

Reading Groups in Special Education: Working on Comprehension & Writing

You probably already know that I LOVE literacy in the classroom! I love everything about it- from helping students grow a love for books, to seeing the connection between literacy & communication, to doing read alouds with kids, and watching students sound out their first word!

Something I've always believed (and have seen to be true over my years in the classroom) is that even if students aren't "conventional readers," they can still do a lot during literacy instruction! We often have students who can't read (yet) in self-contained classrooms, but that doesn't mean we can't teach the five core components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics & word study, reading comprehension, vocabulary and reading fluency.

New Teacher Series: 4 Things I Wish I Learned Sooner

Let's be real... teaching is tough, and the first few years in the classroom are particularly hard!

There are a few things that I wish I would've learned my first few years teaching. These are pretty common things that veteran teachers/ mentors might tell beginning teachers in passing, but new teachers often aren't given concrete ways for implementing the tips.

Trust me, I understand that it's incredibly hard to implement and live by these suggestions, but if I can encourage you to even partially internalize and act on them, then I'm happy!

6 Fun & Simple Art/ Fine Motor Activities

I've always struggled to be consistent with doing art projects in the classroom. We recently added a whole group time to our schedule and it's been a game changer for doing more art projects!

We have an assigned topic for each day of the week:
Monday: exercise/ gross motor
Tuesday: fine motor project
Wednesday: book club
Thursday: board games
Friday: art project

Most of the projects we have done use cheap materials or things you probably already have in your classroom. Check them out!

New Teacher Series: Using Antecedent Interventions

Something I've wanted to do for a while now is start a blog series specifically for new/ beginning teachers! There are SO many things that I wish I had learned or had access to my first few years in the classroom.  I'm hoping to make the first few years a little easier for teachers with these posts!

Although the series will be targeted towards new teachers, I think many of the things I'll share in the series can help or inspire experienced teachers too!

This post will focus on using antecedent-based interventions (ABIs) to support students. I'll explain what ABIs are and share multiple easy to implement!