Work box Wednesday.... A few days late

            

It is time for the monthly linkup at Autism Classroom news for workboxes..... I am just running a few days late.  I made a work box for one of my students this week.  He has not started it yet, so I am hoping it goes ok!  

I will fill you in later this week.  My students have been working on sorting by size, but only two sizes: big & little.  I want to add to their vocabulary and challenge them a bit.  I came up with this work box to sort these bears by size.  I have no idea where these bears came from as they were in the room when I moved in.   The sorting container came with a train set my son got for his birthday.  I saved it just knowing I would use it someday.   I made the labels in board maker, laminated them, and just taped them down.  I did not make them showing pictures of the Bears so that I could easily change out then manipulative.  I wrote the word, small, medium, and large instead of using boardmaker because I wanted it in color and I didn't have a color printer to access. To do the task the student simply sorts by size in the appropriate section of the tray.  I honestly do not expect them to stand the Bears up all neatly like I did, but you never know!   I can't wait to see how this goes tomorrow!  

To find more great ideas head over to the Linky to see what else has been shared.  You can also find more work boxes I have made by clicking here!

 

World Autism Awareness Day

This is a copy of an email that I send to my co-workers.  I wanted to share with all of you in case you would like to use it!  

April 2nd marks the 7th year of World Autism Awareness Day.

As a special education community we know the impacts of Autism on our students and our families.  Lets celebrate our students unique differences by wearing blue on April 2nd (or an Autism Awareness t-shirt).  The same day businesses and homes around the world will be lighting up blue.  You can find out more by going to this website.  http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/world-autism-awareness-day

If you are interested in teaching your class a bit about autism here is some age based lesson plans.  http://media.autismspeaks.org/liub/LIUB+Educational+Toolkit.pdf

You can also find a wonderful Arthur video on YouTube. http://www.learningahoy.com/2013/04/autism-awareness-blog-hop.html

Last, but not least is a great video by Carly Fleischmann about what it feels like to be a person with Autism. http://carlysvoice.com/carlyscafe/

Pear man! A Gluten and Casein free "cooking" activity!

As we were finishing up our 5 senses unit, I did this activity to review and also to try some new foods!  We used a half pear for the face.  Next we use mini chocolate chips (gluten & casein free) to add eyes.  To add a nose each student cut a cherry tomato in half (With help of course!).  I found out one of my students really likes tomatoes! 



For the hair we used Chex (because they are gluten free).  The students each had a little baggie and they had to use their hands to crush up the chex.





Then they spread the check on top to add the hair.


And that is it!  Best part, all of my students were able to eat it!

Pin Party

Hailey (Autism Tank), one of my go to blogging buddies for when I need some new ideas, is having a Back to School Pin Party.  I thought this would be something great to join in on since I am lacking in posts (If you follow me on Facebook then you have seen pictures and know why!  I do not think I have made a dent in that disaster area.).

So here are 5 things I am going to attempt this school year that I have found on Pinterest.

This looks like a really easy way to close off my centers when I don't want little hands accessing them.

I would like to use a lot more visuals. Sasha has some great ideas for these!

I am finally biting the bullet and making my own teacher's toolkit, but I am also going to one to store all of those little visual pieces I mentioned above.

 



I would like to make some kind of IEP cheat sheet to help the teachers I work with better understand student needs.

 


Last but not least, my classroom chair needs a major overhaul.Hopefully I will get to it before the end of the school year.


So what are you planning on working on this school year? I can always add to my list. Head on over to Hailey's blog and link up with us!

Autism Awareness Blog Hop Giveaway

I hope you all have been enjoying the blog hop and all of the great stories (a few tear jerkers out there) and freebies. Just in case you missed any of the posts, below is a list that will take you directly to each stop.

 Don't forget to stop by Teaching Through Turbulence where Heather has a fantastic giveaway set up.   There is a $25 Amazon Gift Cards and a a surprise item from Therapy Shoppe (Check out this post for a hint.  Shhh don't tell anyone I told you.)!



 

Autism Awareness Blog Hop

Welcome to the first stop on a special blog hop for Autism Awareness and the Special Educators who dedicate their time and talents working with students on the spectrum. Today being the official day for Light it up Blue & World Wide Autism Awareness Day that is sponsored yearly by Autism Speaks we thought it would be a great day to start this hop.  There a lots of great bloggers participating and I hope you find lots of great information in the linked up posts.  The last day of the hop will stop at Teaching Through Turbulence where Heather will feature a giveaway.  You will have a chance to win a great prize from Therapy Shoppe or Amazon Gift Card! (I am crossing my fingers for the Therapy Shoppe one!)

Some of you may already know that I am a parent to a child diagnosed with PDD-NOS.  My son is 6 years old and helps (along with his 2 brothers) to keep my husband and I on our toes. He is technology geek just like his mamma and could probably teach anyone how to use a computer.  I recently explained to A about Autism and how it is something he is diagnosed with.  To help him understand I used this great video that I discovered a few months ago.




Great right? Anyway, I have been teaching in special education for 8 years now and if you follow my blog, you know that it is my love. I decided to share some of my  teacher, student and data collection forms with you as a freebie!

Click here to go to the Google Doc to check them out and to download them. I hope you find these documents as useful as I do and if you have any comments or questions please leave me a note below.

In addition to the freebie, I am also throwing a sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teacher's Notebook store.  Everything is 15% off!!  This will be from April 2 -5.


 Make sure you hop on over to The Resource(ful) Room  and to For the Love of Teaching Math to check out what Amy & Andrea have in store!! (If you click on the link, it will take you directly to the blog post, if you click on their button, it will take you to their blog homepage)













  
Did you miss the hop?  Check out the links below to visit all that participated!

I just love this

I just love this.

My latest blog on TeachHub is up and running.  It is about Social Stories which I find I am using often this year. I would love some feed back on how you use social stories in the classroom and how you go about writing them.  Since we didn't have a class in college about social stories I was at a total loss when I started teaching.  I hope writing out the way I go about it can help someone else.   Click here to check it out!

Autism Classroom

Being a special education teacher who never knows what types of students she will have year to year, I am always on the lookout for new ideas. I am also a parent of a child whose official diagnosis is PDD-NOS. So I found this website through a mommies group I belong to called Autism Classroom that looks promising. Click here to check it out.
Check it out if you work with students on the spectrum, which I think most teachers will at some point in their career. My question to you all is, what is your go to website for information on teaching students with disabilities?