ABA, DTT, & Some Other GOOD Stuff!!!

HAPPY EASTER!! 

I don't know how many of you will be looking for blogging tips on Easter Sunday.....but I'm a person of my word.....so here I am with your "Bloomin' Blogger Sundays" tip. 

And it's a special post, because I'm presenting it to you in a screencast for the first time! I was a little hesitant about posting this because I've always hated the way my voice sounds, but it's definitely a more user-friendly way to do a tutorial......for you and me both!  So I hope you like it!





Don't go anywhere.....I have more goodies for you! 

Recently, I attended an incredible 6-day Autism Training in my district on ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) and DTT (Discrete Trial Teaching) and I have had a couple of requests to share more on these topics. I put together 2 PowerPoints to share with my aides, so if you're interested in learning more about this phenomenal teaching method  and see how I teach in my classroom, you can view my PowerPoints below. **note: Even though the training was an Autism workshop and ABA is known as a strategy used for teaching Autism children, ABA works for all students. I teach a diverse group and use it with all of them; Downs, LD, EH, OHI, and Autism. It works!!

PPT #1
PPT #2

Students were actually brought in during 4 days of the training and we got to work directly with these students while being shadowed and receiving feedback by expert trainers. I just had to have some of the materials that were used for my own classroom, so I purchased these and just got them last week! I highly suggest all of these for your primary Autism classrooms or even for regular ed Pre-K or KG!

 These are all from either Lakeshore or Lauri Toys. You can click on the pictures to take you to the direct link. 

Here's a couple photos of my little Down's boy using the fine motor jars and the shape discovery boxes. 

I also highly recommend this book for all Autism classrooms! I use it daily! It is truly the best resource in my room!

Crafting Connections is another fabulous book by Dr. Ron Leaf. I got lucky and won this at the training, but it was already on my book wish list! It focuses on teaching social skills.

Dr. Ron Leaf is a fabulous and iconic presenter (and researcher) on Autism and his resources are all worthy! He even works alongside Lovaas and if you know Autism, you know Lovaas. If he is ever in your area, you have to make time to see him. You can find more info on his research and where he will be next at www.autismpartnership.com. 

Here's a great leisure read for both teachers and parents of Autism children, suggested by Dr. Leaf. A must read, but have plenty of tissues handy!

Now...for more goodies! 

I fulfilled my spring break goal and over the last couple of days have added these creations to my TN shop! 22 items now.....yippee! 

I made this with my Autism students in mind, but will use it with other students too. This is a great activity for Autism classrooms!

All are only 2 bucks or less and I feel confident you and your students will really enjoy them! The link for my store is {here}. 

But one lucky person can get 2 of them for free.....or if you don't like these, any 2 items from my TN shop!! Thought I'd try out punch tab this time! Enter to win below! 

You can also have a chance to win 3 more items from my store if you enter Mo's giveaway! 5 raffles from numerous bloggers and MY FAVE....the $40 TpT gift certificate!!!! 

Click her button to enter.

Have a great Easter & last day off for those of us returning to work from spring break tomorrow!!

FREEBIES GALORE!

I hate to admit it, but my very first linky party was a failure!!! Not one single link up!!! Can you believe that?? Hey, I thought it was a great idea.....and if anything it has helped me stay on track during my spring break! For those of you yet to go on your spring break, the linky is still open 'til the end of April. 

One of the things on my to do list was to upload and create a few more items for my new TN store...........mission accomplished!! I now have 20 items listed and have already sold 7 items since my grand opening 1 1/2 weeks ago!! I can't believe it! It just makes you want to keep creating!!! Here's a little preview of my two newest items!

I have a couple of students learning size attributes, so these will be perfect! This set includes 45 cards (one page of cards not shown) and 10 different sorting mats. This item can be purchased {here}. 

This a preview of another new item for sale at my store, but since this is Freebie Friday, you get it for FREE {here}. 

I'm also going to give this away for Free on Monday at "Manic Monday with Classroom Freebies." 

If you're looking for Easter Freebies, be sure to visit "Elementary Matters." She's having an Easter Freebie Linky Party!!! I have a freebie for you there too! 
Go link up and grab some more freebies!!!

SPRING BREAKERS LINKY PARTY

For all you spring breakers out there, this week and upcoming (a big sorry for those that have had spring break come & go), get yourself on track by joining in on my "Spring Break Linky Party!" 

My break started today and as I was making my "to do" list lastnight......I thought why not make it fun and turn it into a linky party!!!!  It's a way to get ideas from others, stay organized during your break, and hopefully it will be an incentive for you to get it done!

If you've participated in Farley's Currently, then this will work the same. Just right click on the image above, click copy, paste into Powerpoint, and insert text boxes to type your text. If you still have trouble you can view my tutorial on how to do this {here}. 

Then link up your list below. Please use the picture above too, to put on your post and link back to me....and leave a comment for the list before you. We ALL love to get comments, right?!!

So here's my list~

Monday- Some of you know I've been asking alot of questions about the best way to organize my clipart. It is a mess at this point. Today I plan to get it all organized by themes, holidays, frames, backgrounds. I am planning to rename the files to reflect the creator's name, so I can easily keep track of who to credit. We'll see how it goes! 

Tuesday- I just opened my new TN shop. I only have 13 items there now, so I plan to get some more items uploaded and hopefully even make a few more things. 

Wednesday- I'm hoping to wrap up all of my schoolwork, completely on Wednesday, so I can focus on my house Thursday and Friday.....and hopefully get some relaxing in on Sat. and Sun. 

Thursday- I've been saying this one since Christmas break! Wonder if I'll get it done this time?

Friday- This isn't really gonna be "spring cleaning." It's more like every day things that haven't been getting done, like laundry, mopping, and dusting. 




Enjoy your spring break! And good luck with your "to do" lists!!

SPRING BINS, TIE-DYE EGGS, & "BACK to TOP"

Hi guys! I'm a little late on my "Bloomin' Blogger Sundays" post because we've been in Vegas for two days. The Eagles concert was a-w-e-s-o-m-e!!!! We had such a great time! I keep thinking I'm back to work tomorrow, but wait.....I'm on spring break all next week! Yay! 

I got a little head start on my spring cleaning last week in my classroom. I don't know what it is about spring, but when it arrives, I really do seem to get that spring cleaning fever!!! Last week I decided to finally tackle cleaning out my file cabinets and organizing my materials by monthly themes. I have four file cabinets in my room and over half of these cabinets contained junk materials from before I even took over the classroom! Every day last week I loaded up my teachers rolling tote and brought home this:

Every night I ended up with a trash pile that looked like this:

And now......I have monthly themed bins that look like this:

Since I don't have a whole lot of stuff yet in just my 5 years of teaching, I organized mine using one bin for every 3 months and skipped June, July, and August. We get out of school the first week of June and start the last couple days of August, so I don't have a need for organizing a bin for those months. And they fit in the bottom of my cabinet perfectly. 

I forgot to take a photo of the inside....but inside I have folders for reading, writing, and math that are color-coded for that month. So in other words, each bin has three colors of folders in it. I love these bins because they fit and hang file folders perfectly (they're old Saxon math containers), so I put hanging folders inside where I placed the centers, books, stickers, etc. themed for each month.

I used sticker paper that I bought at Office Max to print my labels. 

You can get the labels for free at my "Teacher's Notebook" shop. 

Now I have one less file cabinet and three CLEAN file cabinets with space to fill with better and newer creations. 

And now for those of you in school next week and looking for an easy and fun Easter craft.....this is it! My class made these Friday and they turned out fabulous!

Tie-dyed Easter Eggs

1) I used my own egg pattern that I already had and printed on white construction paper. If you don't have a pattern, you could search google images for one or make a solid white one. It doesn't have to have any designs on it. 

2) Let the students choose 2-3 colors of food coloring & have them squeeze 5-6 drops of each color. 

3) Using a spray bottle of water, spray it. The colors will blend and give you the tie-dye look.

4) Hold up and let the excess water run off and lay on wax paper to dry. 

5) The picture doesn't show this, but I also punched a hole in the top of each one and looped a ribbon through it for hanging. 

You can also have your students draw designs or write on the egg first using a white crayon, which is what my student did on the egg on the right.

You can check out my EASTER Pinterest board, to see where I originally got this idea and for more Easter ideas!!

Okay, now for the reason I began this post in the first place.......oh, yea....."Bloomin' Blogger Sunday."  

Put the "Back to Top" arrow on your blog. 

You can try mine out now to see if you'd like to have it on your blog. Just click on the pink up arrow in the bottom right corner. I find it very useful on blogs I visit because rather than having to scroll all the way back up to the top of their blog to find something, I can simply click the arrow and I'm there!

Since this is already such a long post, I'm going to cheat a little and send you directly to where I learned how to do this on my blog. Plus, no need to always reinvent the wheel, right?? 

Click on the button and you will go directly to this tutorial. You will need to scroll down about 3/4's down to the Aug. 20th post. On your scroll down, you're most likely to find some other great tutorials of interest.   

As always, if you need any assistance or have suggestions for future tutorials or tips, please let me know! Happy Sunday!

FREEBIE FRIDAY'S HERE!!!!!

WooHoo! It's SUPER DUPER Friday!!! Spring Break started for me today! Nine days off! Yippee! I don't know who was more excited......me or the kids!! :)

I'm also super excited because tomorrow is my son's 16th birthday, and can you believe all he wanted for his birthday was to go see the "Eagles" in concert in Vegas!!! Ummmm......it didn't take me long to answer that request! It's like a birthday party for me too!!! I love the Eagles and have always wanted to see them in concert. And how perfect is that--that they're actually playing ON HIS B-DAY!! And even more awesome is that my kid likes the music from my era! How cool is that?? At least I can say I did something right in raising this kid! He appreciates GOOD music!!!

Then, to top it off, we're staying the night right in the center of  the Famous "Fremont Street" at the "Four Queens Hotel & Casino!" Not to mention I haven't had a day off with my hubby since MLK day, so it's a weekend out much needed!!! So excited, I can barely stand it!!!!!! 

Well before I head off to pack our bags, I have a FRIDAY FREEBIE for you! 

Ladybug counting cards 1-15. 

This is a sneak preview of a larger product I'm working on for my NEW "Teacher's Notebook Shop." Be sure to follow my brand new shop as I'm adding new items weekly!!!

 

Get your freebie {here}! Enjoy!