Beginning of the Year Training for Inclusion Teachers

One week until our first day of school! I'm eager to see all those sweet faces in my classroom. Not to mention school supplies! I LOVE new school supplies!

In fact, this is one of my favorite movie quotes of all time...

But to get to the fun stuff, we have to get those classrooms unpacked and organized and sit through hours of less-than-exciting meetings. Because our special ed team (autism, speech, & "regular" special ed) doesn't want to be one more dull, obligatory meeting in the queue, we work hard to prepare an efficient way to train for our inclusion teachers. It is important to provide enough student information to inclusion teachers and special areas teachers (art, music, & PE) while not overwhelming them before they have faces attached to names. So, our usual plan is to go through the following sequence a few days before our "Meet the Teacher" event and then follow up at the end of the first week of school to provide more in-depth information.

Here are the topics we cover during this training:

• Welcome and thank inclusion teachers for taking on the challenges and joys of providing a high expectations, accommodating, inclusive classroom.

• Each special ed teacher rotates through the grade level groups and reviews each student's special ed eligibility, behavioral, academic, and language accommodations, schedule of services, any outside services that they will receive (OT, VI, AI, PT), the student's BIP (behavioral improvement plan), special tools/visuals that will be provided for each student in the classroom (such as adaptive seating, headphones, technology, visual tools, timers, calming areas), as well as requesting particular scheduling accommodations (e.g. making sure writing is right after recess to allow for maximum focus or making sure to align math time with another classroom to allow us to pull multiple students for resource group).

• In addition to the IEP, I provide a student profile sheet. This is a quick reference for teachers to identify accommodations, testing requirements, service time, as well as notes related to behavior that will be helpful in day-to-day situations, but may not be explicitly stated in the IEP (click on the example to download the template for your own use).

• We review the purpose of resource time. Resource (pull-out) is prescriptive in nature and not comprehensive instruction in the subject area. Because our time is limited and it is prescriptive, we focus on quality over quantity. The student may not produce as many products as classroom peers. Grades need to be adjusted accordingly.

• We discuss each teacher's particular preference for how inclusion support is provided. Do you like us to be interactive or quiet? Some teachers love to have a partner to jump in when a lesson is not working while it throws others off their game. I like to know a teacher's preference and not have to guess!

• We discuss the type of information that needs to be shared with special ed in case we're not aware (changes in the family, health concerns, behavioral changes, slipping grades, tardies, tools/strategies that they see are making a positive impact--or not!). We also discuss when to text or call us directly during the day. I emphasize that if they notice one of my students "ramping up" or fading behaviorally, I would much rather be texted early on so I can try to get the train back on the track before it derails completely. It is much easier to head off problems before aggression occurs while using those moments to help students practice strategies for dealing with frustration, anger, fatigue, or anxiety.

• We discuss our expectations for teachers in Admission Review Dismissal (IEP) meetings: bring student portfolio with work samples, current data, specific & positively phrased examples of progress or lack of progress, specific examples of the ways supports and interventions are being provided. We discuss what you legally can & can't say in ARD meetings (do NOT tell a parent their child they NEEDS MEDS! Or that you believe they have Purple People Eater Syndrome! You are not a doctor or a diagnostician!). We emphasize the use of "sandwich" comments when needing to address a difficult topic: positive-difficulty-positive.

• Finally, Orlanda and I like to meet directly with the inclusion teachers of students who take part in our social thinking groups to explain the social thinking terms teachers will likely hear us and students use during the year and encourage them to incorporate the terminology into classroom lexicon to aid in generalization. The handout below is a useful reference tool. We cover Whole Body Listening, Expected/Unexpected behavior, Thinking with your Eyes, Brain in the Group, Size of the Problem, the use of 5 point scales and Get Ready-Do-Done charts, and how to use thought bubbles in the classroom. Click on the image below to download for your use.

We've found that training our inclusion teachers in this manner is most efficient given the short amount of time we have for prep before school begins and yet doesn't overwhelm our teachers with too much information before they have a framework for each student. Our teachers have told us they feel ready to start on Monday informed and prepared. 

How do you prepare your inclusion teams for a new school year? Share in the comments below so we can learn from each other!

And Happy New School Year! 

Wow Us Wednesday ~ Lesson Plan Link Party!

We have a brilliant idea if we do say so ourselves....

Well, it will only be brilliant if YOU join in! There are so may smart therapists and teachers out there that work so hard to create purposeful and engaging lesson plans for students. I know I am guilty of re-inventing the wheel too many times instead of reaching out to ask for and share ideas with my fellow teachers.

So, let's change that!

On the first Wednesday of each month, we will open up our Wow Us Wednesday Lesson Plan Link Party. We will keep the links open from Wednesday-Tuesday, so check back several times over the course of the week to catch all the great ideas. Feel free to link up any great lesson plans that you would like to share and make sure to "like" the ideas that you really enjoy. We will feature the top three "liked" lessons in a follow-up post.

What's a link party you say? It is a great way to be linked up to other blogs and share information in one easy stop. But Kelley & Orlanda, what if I want to share and I don't have a blog? Never fear ~ the Dynamic Duo is here! There is a way you can share your idea. Just follow the instructions here.

I'll start the party off with a lesson plan that I find to be incredibly useful with my 5th grade social groups. I think it would be a fantastic lesson to use with middle and high school as well.


One of my tried-and-true activities that I do yearly with my 5th grade social group students is designing our own vision boards. A vision board is a tool that helps students identify what they want various aspects of their life to "look like" in the future.


If we already have rapport established in a group that has been together for a while, then we do this activity at the beginning of the school year. If the group is composed of students who do not know each other well, then we do this activity after we've had time to do some team building.

The first step is to create a web that describes the important components of a balanced life. Here is an example of our web.




The kids then cut out pictures of magazines or find images on the computer to represent their short term and long term goals for each of the areas on the web. This really opens up a lot of discussion and even helps some members find commonalities between each other.

They create their own vision boards and present it to the group. Here are a couple of examples of finished vision boards by 5th graders.



We use these vision boards all year as anchors for discussions about how our social behavioral choices either support or harm our ability to reach our goals.

I hope this activity will be good to add for your beginning of the year planning!   ~Kelley

Here are the friendly guidelines for our get-together:

•  
• When you link up, please grab our button and include it somewhere in your post. You can find it on the sidebar. Or you can simply link to this post on your blog. Thanks!
• Please visit the other great bloggers that link up to check out their ideas and leave some comment love.
• Please consider joining the Dynamic Duo as a blog friend. Follow us by email (on the sidebar) or through your blog reader. That way you can make sure to get the most up-to-date posts.

So, get an awesome lesson plan ready to post and join the party!

How to Ease the Back-to-School Transition Jitters

I can't believe summer vacation is almost over. The transition back to school seems to come all too soon every year! 

This time of summer we all start to feel stressed about transitioning from summer to school. I don't know any students who find transitions enjoyable. Anxious behavior is to be expected from most of our children (and more than a few parents and teachers!).

Please consider sharing the suggestions listed below with parents to help ease your students' transition back to school.

• An increase in difficult behavior or tantrums is not unusual. Be calm and consistent with your expectations.  Consistency of expectations is essential to decrease anxiety.  Do your best to stay emotionally calm. Positively reinforce calm behavior with praise and preferred activities.

• Keep conversations about school starting to a minimum. Discussing it over and over again does not calm anxieties. Imagine if you are afraid of spiders and the people around you want to talk about spiders every day for a couple of weeks. I doubt that it would help you stop being afraid of spiders. Continue about the business of getting ready for school (buying supplies, etc), but minimize the conversation while occasionally emotionally checking in. Let your child know that if they do want to talk about their feelings, you are available. Saying something like "How are you feeling about going back to school?" or "Do you have any worries?" can help your child know that you are available to talk.  

• Respect your child's feelings. Don't try to convince them to be excited about school. Simply listening and reflecting back their feelings can help take a lot of the "power" out of those anxious feelings. 

• Children who have difficulty with transitions do much better with a visual schedule. This is absolutely one of the most effective things you can do to decrease anxiety!  Print off either of the two calendars below or have your child make his/her own. The week before school starts help your child write a plan for each day. It would be helpful for them to also fill in an activity that they are looking forward to doing after school each day for the first week of school. Help them see that preferred activities can be enjoyed even after school starts again.

• Check off each day as they pass so your child can see what is next on his plan.

• Get your child back into the routine of a regular bedtime and wake time. Please don't wait until the weekend before school starts to adjust their sleep schedule. 

• Consider arranging a playdate with a school friend. Consider taking the kids to play on the playground at school. This can remind them of the fun times they will have once they are back at school.  

• Arrange everything for the first day of school the night before (clothing, lunchbox, supplies, etc). Eliminating the mad rush in the morning will help keep things calm.  Again, having a simple visual schedule made for the morning can make things more predictable and calm for your child. You can help your child write or draw a schedule or you can make one using google images. When my children were younger, I actually took photographs of them performing each step of the schedule. It was more motivating to see themselves successfully doing the right thing. A basic morning visual schedule can look something like this:  

Or this...

Or it can look like a simple list if your child is a good reader and does not need picture cues.

• Above all, keep a positive and calm attitude. Your "vibe" is easily felt by your child.

Finally, if your school holds a "Meet the Teacher" event before the beginning of the school year, consider setting up alternate times for your students to come in without the crowds. Also, consider snapping some photos of the classrooms and new teacher's faces to email home before the beginning of school. Simple things like showing where a student will put his backpack or lunchbox help ease anxiety.


I hope these suggestions will be helpful.  Now go enjoy the last bit of summer vacation! ~ Kelley

Pinterest Inspired Summer Projects

I'm sure many of you have become as addicted as I have to Pinterest. I love having a place where I can "park" ideas until I have time to actually think about how or if I should incorporate them into my classroom.

Summer vacation is officially here in Texas. I will likely be blogging less often this summer since I am focusing on spending time with my two boys, finishing DIY projects around the house, and taking a much-needed beach vacation. Now that I've gotten *most* of the closets cleaned out in the house and have painted one (of 4) rooms that need to be painted this summer, I'm starting to go through my pins and see what I want to prep for school next year.

Here are a few of the projects on my to-do list

To print & laminate:

http://yourtherapysource.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-freebie-brain-breaks-game.html

 

http://yourtherapysource.com/freeclayfaces

I tend to use a lot of these with organizationally-challenged students...

Love this idea... Glue a pom pom to the end of dry erase markers to use as erasers!

Now that I've moved to a MUCH smaller classroom for next year, I'm going to try hanging all my anchor charts/visuals & hope they fit in the tiny closet!

and I'm considering putting together a cute bench/storage system for the gross motor/sensory area with clear bins (instead of the solid red) to store various sensory break materials...

http://grade2happenings.blogspot.com/2012/06/benches-and-stools.html

I'm thinking of updating my sub binder with pics -- maybe pics of students with parent permission in case I have a sub who is not familiar with my students?

I've also got professional development sessions scheduled for reading, writing, and sensory needs. I'm also planning on spending more time on reading through my Brain Gym materials. I'd like to make sure to incorporate more Brain Gym across the grade levels next year.

What projects are you up to this summer?
~Kelley