Back to school Learning Ahoy style!

So, what do you think about the Who's that Blogger contest? One of my friends (who is also a fellow blogger, check out Not2Crumby: Teaching is a Piece of Cake) found my picture quite hilarious.  Have you figured out which one is me yet? Make sure you go try to win all of that free stuff and enter the giveaway for the Amazon gift card!

<-------- This cute graphic came from Crystal over at The Library Fox.  It is me!! I am so excited to finally get my own mini-me that I just wanted to use it somehow!

 I wrote a post over at TeachHub about getting ready for back to school, but it has not been posted yet. I feel like the information is important now since we are all in back to school mode, so I am sharing it here. I, of course, write a bit different on Learning Ahoy then I do for TeachHub, so there are some changes from the original.

Back to school time for special educators is a time where we can attempt to prepare ourselves for a year full of IEP goals, data collection, and of course fun. There are some things that I do(and am scrambling to do right now with the new position) to help make for a successful school year.

 1. Update my teacher binder: I have wrote about my teacher binder on TeachHub and it is something that I still continue to use. Every year I tweak it a bit and this year is no different. This year I bought a new binder (yay for the lovely school aisle at Target) and some new tabs, however it all still sits in a bag. I have updated my Student Information sheet to include texting (using Remind101) and I will give it to parents to fill out at Open House. I also include IEP information sheets in my binder. If you would like any of these you can find them by clicking  here. (They are FREE!!!)


 2. Update data binder: I found last year that my data section was just to huge to be included in my Teacher binder, so data got its own binder. I update my data binder to include my new students with copies of their IEPs, goals, and data collection sheets.


 3. IEP Goals: Speaking of IEP goals, I like to review my IEP goals and put each students goals on to one sheet. Another teacher I know even color codes hers by domain area. Having all of the goals on one sheet enables me to quickly look at a goal instead of flipping through 50 page IEP documents(or 75 pages....). I can also share these goal sheets with specials teachers(Art, Music, PE) and paraprofessionals so that they can also easily see what the student is working towards. I copy parent/teacher/therapist input forms that I use when we are writing the annual IEP and stick them in the back along with the copies of the data collections sheets (It is always great to have extras on hand so you are not running to the copy while trying to assess). There are some great ones available as a free download from Not2Crumby on Teacher's Pay Teachers. (Do I keep shamelessly plugging one of my best buddies blogs in here?  Yes, she is a newly wed and just started blogging and really needs some teacher blog stalker follower love.)


 4. Organize, Organize, Organize: I have admitted in the past how unorganized of a person I am, but I am really trying hard. I have found a few small systems that work for me, but I am still overwhelmed at times. I have finally come to the conclusion that to help me become more organized (which I feel will help me teach to my greatest potential) I need to purge.... big time. When you don't have as much stuff, then there is not as much to get messy. Do you really need to keep those copies of art orders from 1975 or lesson plans that you wrote in college?

 If you are looking for more information about getting ready for back to school as a special educator or just need some more info about special education check out the series going on over at A Special Sparkle.




 

Teacher Binder Freebie!!

Teacher Binder Freebies

As I promised a few days ago, here are my teacher binder freebies. I hope you can use them in some or all of them in your binder.  Click on the picture caption to download them in Google Docs.  All Clipart is from Clipart Club 4 Teachers.  I highly suggest checking out her blog (occasional free clipart!) Please leave a comment and consider following if you grab this freebie.  I love feedback.   Enjoy!!!

Organized Teacher

As you probably know I am on a a quest to make my classroom a more organized space. I feel this will really help my students. Last summer I read Debbie Dillers book Spaces and here. I do plan on revisiting that book when I get home (I am currently in NJ visiting my family), however while my husband was driving I decided to read a book on my kindle app. I downloaded this for free last summer and I regret to say that it is no longer free, but still it was a great read. The book is Organized Teacher, Happy Classroom by Melaniet S. Unger. She goes through all kinds of stuff in her book from The benefits of an Organized Classroom, purging, storage, a teacher binder, and my favorite chapter(Chapter 8) which talked about organizing curriculm. This chapter also discussed using binders (I love binders!) to organizes your theame papers by month. So you would have a binder for September that would hold all of your back to school papers, and a binder for October that would hold your Columbus Day, Halloween, etc. I love this idea!!! I can eliminate an entire drawer in my file cabinet. I can not wait to get started on these once I can get into my classroom. If you would like to check out her book the link to it on Amazon is below.  I am also adding the link for Debbie Dillers book if you are interested.
I wanted add that I am planning out my next post for Teach Hub and it will be on my Teacher Binder and how I used it as a special education teacher. I also plan on having some freebies with it that will be available here before the Teach Hub post goes live. So keep you eye out. It should be out next week!

Organization

Wow!! The past few weeks have been busy. I recently wrote my blog for Teach Hub about teacher organization and admitted that organization is not my thing. My desk "area" is a stack of piles. I wrote about some of the different binders that I use (sub binder, assessment binder, teacher binder....). Apparently my post was quite the hit! I got an email from the editor to say that it had over 4000 hits in one week. To me, that is HUGE! If you haven't read it yet and would like to, click here. I also added a new board to my pintrest page called Teacher Organization. I have been adding information on the different binders and also different organization ideas that I find. If you would like to check that board out click here. I would love feed back on what you use to organize your space. I am always looking for new ideas. Along these lines, I read an article about adult women with ADD on Friday and I found it really interesting. I have never been diagnosed with ADD, but find that I have some of the "characteristics". The article discussed how women with ADD don't put stuff away because then we will forget we have it.... light bulb!!! That completely made sense to me. So now I need to figure out how to put my stuff away, but not forget about it. I see a lot of inventorying and list making in my future. If you would like to read the article, here is the link. I am hoping to stop neglecting my blog, but I have a feeling with the new baby's arrival creeping up on us (end of March) it may not happen, keep your fingers crossed. I have so much to share!!

Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies: Getting to know your students (& the parents too) ...

Lorraine over at Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies has a GREAT and adorable information sheet for parents to share information about their child. Go check it out!

Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies: Getting to know your students (& the parents too) ...: "As teachers, we get to know our students pretty quickly but we don't always get to know the parents right away. I use this questionnaire I c..."

Teacher Binder

I decided that I want to make a teacher binder to keep all of my student information, parent contact, lesson plans, etc in. I have not been able to find anything created that seems to fit my needs, so.... I am creating my own. I am hoping to make it the first thing I sell on Teachers pay Teachers. Today I made a parent contact log that I wanted to share with my readers. I thought about adding check boxes to the reason section also... something like behavior, happy gram, IEP, ect. Please let me know your comments and if you think I should change anything. Also if you have or would like a teacher binder, what would you include in it?
Parent Contact Log