Behavior System

Hi! Hope everyone has had a fabulous weekend! This is our last week before Spring Break and all STAAR ALT stuff is due is it will be a crazy one I just know! 

Todays post is about one way that me and my partner do our behavior management system. For everything a student does not do that they are suppose to do they lose minutes of recess. They for the most part don't like sitting out watching their friends play. We made these visuals and they go every where with the kids. We make the kids take the minuets off or watch us so it means more. 

Maybe this is something you can use? Or do you have a better idea? please share! Thanks for stopping by! Please follow me! And leave comments if you have questions, I love comments! ;) 

New Furniture

Happy Sunday Everyone!!

I have had a great relaxing weekend! What did you do? 

I am so excited about this post! My school some how got all brand new classroom furniture! With all the budget cuts I don't really know how this is happening... and we really need more TA's but it is all really nice since our school is SO old! Any one else getting new furniture? 

Heres some pictures of it all! 

My new desk!! Its SO big!!

My TA'S new desk!!

My new BLUE kidney table and chairs that are to big for most of my little guys! 

New YELLOW trapezoid tables! 

New shelves/cubbies I am using for centers sorry its so junky looking right now! 

And lastly my FAVORITE thing we got!!! I love that its so organized with the colors and I put pictures of whats inside so the kids can easily see and know where to put that stuff back at on the outside of the container. I am using these for choice activities after they have finished an assignment. 

I made this chart that goes along with all the choices for my non verbal kiddos. :)

So thats most of the new stuff! Hope you like it all! Hope everyone has a great week of school next week! Thanks for stopping by! Please follow me! and leave comments or email if you need to! :)

Picture Schedules

Hope Everyone had a great weekend!! It always goes by WAY to fast! Are you off tomorrow for Presidents Day? I am not :( we have parent teacher conference day and known of my parents wanted a conference so I guess i'll be finishing STAAR- ALT stuff! 

This post is about picture schedules for autistic students. I have had a lot of emails and questions about what do I use... So here are pictures!

The first one I use for a couple of students who are just starting out and they need the actual picture of the person or place that they are going to. The second one is for the next level which has a generic picture with the word of it underneath from Pictures With Symbols program or PECS. Each kid has one some where up in the room except the 4th graders are more portable because were trying to transition them into being more knowledgeable about what time it is and moving them on to middle school. Hope this helps and gives people ideas! I truly believe in the schedules for autistic child but it really helps kids with all disabilities! 

Thanks for stopping by! Please follow me and feel free to leave comments of email me, I love it! 

Valentines Party

HI!! 

Hope everyone had a great Valentines day! YAY for the weekend!! 

We had our Valentines party on Thursday and after the way the kids were today I wish we had done it today haha ;) But the party was great and the kids had a blast so thats what counts! What did yall do for Valentines? How was your party? 

This was our beautiful big delicious cake! 

This was the most of the kids eating! 

This was right before the kids past out their Valentines to everyone! 

Some of our food we had way more than this! 

2 of my students gave me these! SO SWEET! Love them! 

Me and all the kids made these! Turned out pretty good for their 1st time! 

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! I have a very busy one! Thanks for stopping by! Please follow me and feel free to comment!! :)

Owls

Happy Fat Tuesday! 

I havent posted a fun art or decoration thing in a while so I decided that I would show y'all the owls we made in my class! Some of my students qualify for adapted art which is just more one on one and they don't have to be doing all the hard art pieces the general kids work on. So me and the teacher came up with this idea and they turned out WAY better and cuter than I expected! I JUST LOVE THEM!!! 

Here is 3 of them hung up in my classroom! I am SO obsessed with them!! :)

Heres a close up of one! 

The eyes are made of coffee filters, the fur is from Hobby Lobby, the marks on the wings are chalk, and the leaves we stamped in paint with a stamp then cut them out, and everything else is paper! :)

Hope you like this! Thanks for stopping by! Please feel free to comment and PLEASE FOLLOW ME!! :)

Hope everyone has a great Valentines Day!! XOXOXO

Sensory counting

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! The weather is pretty gross and awful here! :(

This post is about these number cards I made at the beginning of the year to use in calendar time with my kids that are really sensory. I made them on poster board, the big number is made with sand from Hobby Lobby and the little dots at the bottom are hot glue. I made them from number 1-31 so each day during calendar we use them for the number of the day that it is in the month. They are very easy to make and super cheap! Any body use anything else like this?

Thanks for stopping by, please follow me and leave comments I love it! :) 

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Weather for sensory kids during calendar time

Happy February and Supper Bowl Sunday Everyone!! 

I cant believe its already February, Where has the time gone? I am rooting for the 49'ers today because Crabtree is on that team and went to Texas Tech University were I did and is really good! Who are you rooting for? Any who I was asked in an email about some ideas for weather during calendar time for kids who it needs to be mostly sensory and now I am going to do a post about it. I have a couple of kiddos that use this and I think it works pretty well and I think they can really tell the difference. 

I use the spray bottle for when it is raining. I spray it into the air above the student and let the mist fall lightly on them. I would ask parents to make sure this is ok before doing just incase. The blue pad is a cold pad that I keep in the refrigerator, I use it to symbolize cold days and the white pad is a heating pad that I put in the microwave for 2 minuets and that symbolizes that its hot outside today. Anybody have any other ideas? Or anything else you use for weather like this that would be sensory let me know! Thanks for stopping by and PLEASE follow me!! Feel free to comment i love it! :)  

Have a great week next week! 

Lotions for days of the week in Calendar

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! It always goes by way to fast! I was actually able to get a lot of my school work done for my masters what did you do? 

So as you may have seen in some of my other posts I have a couple of kiddos that need a lot of sensory input. One thing I do that I have had a lot of people say they really like and are going to steal the idea is, for every day of the week I use a lotion from Bath and Body Works that smell means the day of that week. I really feel like the kids that its really for understand the concept and of course the other kids have to have some because they think its so fun haha 

Here is a pic of the ones I use in order from Monday on the left all the way to Friday on the right. I use these ones because they are the ones that will never change or leave Bath and Body Works during all seasons and you cant start using one kind and then if it goes out of season you just switch on the kids and use a different scent of lotion that would really throw them off and defeat the purpose. I hope someone can use this during their calendar time! I know I struggle with some of mine an what to do but I really like this and have had a lot of success and hope you will to! 

Thanks for stopping by! Please follow me and leave comments I LOVE them! Have a good week! 

Switches

Happy Thursday!!!

Boy has this been a long week! Got all my STAAR ALT stuff ready and will be starting next week, ready to get it over with. Luckily I only have 3 kids to do, any one else doing STAAR ALT? 

This post is about using switches in the classroom to make choices. I have a couple of students I use this with and it works really well with them. Any one else use switches in their classroom?

The box in the middle allows you to plug 4 different devices into it and use at least 2 different switches.  So you see the yellow switch and when the  student hits it the fan turns on. You can pick how long it stays on which is one of my favorite things about it. The red button when hit turns on the pink pillow that vibrates. These students are having to learn that every action causes something and they have done really well. I use these two the most because this just so happens to be these students favorite things. I also use head phones with music and lights. Hope this makes since!

Thanks for stopping by! If you have any questions please comment! Please follow me!

Have a great weekend! 

Sensory Board

HAPPY MLK DAY EVERYONE!!!

I am enjoying this beautiful 70 degree day off in Austin today! Hope everyone else is off as well! 

Today my post is about a sensory board I had put in my room in October and then I added things that would stimulate specific needs for my students as well as things they don't like.  I use it for 3 of my students that are non-verbal and need a lot of sensory play to get them interested in things and to talk or make noises. This is also a way that they can make choices on things they want or don't want. I have one student that is working on reaching for things in front of him rather then to the side this has really helped him a lot. One of my other boys that uses it has CP and in a wheelchair. He is working on sitting criss cross in front of the board while keeping his head up instead of it just falling- controlling his head and neck. While sitting there he has to reach forward and crab things on the board. Here it is:

As you can see there is a verity of items on the board from music instruments, lights, or things that are  textured in some way. I can easily change the things out when needed. Does anybody else have anything like this? Or use anything like this? 

Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to comment! Please follow me!! 

Hope you have a great Monday!!  

Object Calendar

Happy Hump Day!!

WOW what a week, my birthday was on Monday so I went out of town to Washington DC to visit a friend and had a blast and just got back yesterday! I had never been before and really had a lot of fun! Any one else ever been to DC? I loved all the History and historical places! Any way this is a really quick post about an object calendar one of my students uses. He is Blind and has multiple other disabilities, but since he is blind I cant use the typical picture or PECS schedule with him. 

Here is a picture of it. Its divided into 5 sections for the first part of the day starting from left going right. first is calendar next the toilet paper tube is for bathroom the ball is for PE the book symbolizes reading and the spoon symbolizes lunch or time to eat. So he goes to it and touches the item before we begin whatever it is. Then at the end he goes and takes it off the calendar and it should drop into the bucket below meaning were finished with that moving onto the next thing. There is an object for everything he could possibly need at school as well as for our field trips. They are all labeled and the pictures on the wall are for incase I am not there someone else knows what is what and what it looks like. There is also his schedual next but it got cut off in the picture. This is so nice because everyone that works with him knows how to use it and what to do etc. Does anybody have a student who uses something like this? Any suggestions? This is my hardest kid... I am sure we all have one! haha 

Hope everyone has a great rest of the week! Thanks for stopping by and please follow me! Thanks so very much! 

Making Choices

Happy Wednesday Everyone!!! 

I teach mostly non-verbal and autistic children and once they complete their assignment in my reading or writing group they get to make a free choice of something to do for the remainder of the class. For the majority of them they each have a board like this

This is one of my students and the things he likes best. I tell him to go make a free choice and he walks over pics what he wants using the visual image and place it in the "sentence" I make him say I want____ (whatever it his he chooses) Then he gets it. So he is using his words in a sentence form to get what he wants. This is the best way for children to learn to make choices and as soon as he gets this well enough I will move to just basic PECS pictures or Symbol with Writing images. This also helps children put meaning to pictures and actual objects and match them up. I have these all over my room and they have worked wonders and I have seen the children that use them really benefit and become more successful! Just an idea, hopefully some one can use this in their room! Does any one else use something like this? 

Thanks for stopping by, please follow me! I would really appreciate it! :) 

Magic Noodles

WOW the first two days back from the break have been crazy!! I got two new students and with all the rain my kids have been crazy! I am also really excited because on Friday I am leaving and going to Washington DC for my birthday on Monday with some girl friends! I am missing Monday and Tuesday next week so I am busy trying to get everything together for the sub! I wanted to do a quick post about these awesome things my adaptive art teacher showed me that my students LOVE. I swear they will do anything to play with these! 

They are called Magic Noodles! Any body else use them?? You can get them at Hobby Lobby- they are $6.99 but a lot of times there 30 or 40% off and if they aren't  and you have an I phone use the hobby lobby website and get a coupon for %40 off and they are even cheaper! These are fabulous for keeping kids busy, my children with autism are fascinated with them. They are like packing peanuts just dyed with food coloring. The student has to touch it on their tongue and then touch it to a piece of paper and it sticks. Then they can get two of the noodles and touch the ends on their tongues and the two noodles will stick to each other. The students love to make art work or what I call masterpieces with them. I also have my students make letters and words with them! 

Hope you all have a great first week back! Hope someone can find these useful and have as good of an experience with them with your children as I have! Please follow me and I love comments! :)

Community based instruction

Happy New years Everyone!!! 

So at my school we do community based instruction which is taking the students out into our community for them to explore and learn by using the skills we teach them everyday and connect them with the real world environment. We go to Target, Central Market, Barton Creek Mall, Randall's, Capital area food bank to volunteer, Bowling, and more. We walk to these places, take the city bus, or school bus, this way the kids learn as many way of transportation as possible. Here are some pictures of us bowling. Hope you enjoy! Have any questions please feel free to ask! 

Heres kind of a group shot of everyone! They just LOVE bowling and have the best time! 

They also have these awesome ramps for my guys to use that cant do it on their own! I love it because everyone can join in the fun! 

Look at that smile!! :) to cute!! 

Another great example of how everyone can bowl and use the ramps! SO awesome!! 

I'll be sure to show more pictures from the other places we go! I know with all the budget cuts its hard for a lot of schools to do this but I highly suggest it if you can! I have seen huge improvements and differences in my students from just one semester! 

Have a great day! Please follow me!! :) 

Late Christmas

Happy late Christmas/ Happy Holidays and HAPPY NEW YEARS to everyone!! My new years resolution this year is to blog more I promise!! I am gonna do better!! So here are some late things we did in my classroom during December for Christmas/ the Holidays. 

This is one of the classroom doors the kids made the snowmen with their faces on them, turned out so cute! 

Other classroom door! Kind of ran out of time to make it to cute :( 

Our class bulletin board! The kids made the stockings by using their feet and cotton balls! 

Here is our class tree, all the kids made the ornaments you cant really see but they did such a great job!

I did Elf on the Shelf with my kids and they absolutely LOVED it!!! I didn't take pictures of each day I was just so busy, but I will next year and will post them, promise! I recommend every teacher and parent using this its so great! 

We do Community Based instruction at my school and so we took the kids to the Barton Creek Mall and they let us take a group picture with all the kids and Santa for free! it was great, we gave copies to all the parents for Christmas! 

This was the last day of school! We had a party and all the kids had a book exchange, it was perfect! 

Hope you enjoy and maybe get some ideas for yourself or classroom! Please follow me and I love comments and questions!

How I am gonna try and enjoy the rest of the break, its going by way to fast! :)