Sunday, January 29, 2017

SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies!

Welcome to SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies!! Every Sunday I host this freebie link up here on my blog for Special Education Teachers! Visit every week to download free resources for your classroom! If this is your first time visiting, you can access all of the freebies from previous link ups by clicking on "SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies" under "My Files" on my right sidebar. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

If you're a TPT seller, blogger, or resource creator, I invite you to link up and share your own freebie using the link up tool below! 


Link Up Rules

1. All resources must be FREE! It can be free for the day, but please delete your link once you mark it back to paid.
2. Your freebie may link to your blog or store.
3. Freebie does not have to be related specifically to SPED, but should be practical for SPED.
4. If you are linking up from your blog, using this image in your post and linking back to my blog is not required, but is greatly appreciated! Be sure to share this image on your social media so others can see your freebie!

*I recommend using an image of your freebie & not your button when linking up. 

 Feel free to share the image above all over your social media to let other teachers know about these freebies! 

The link up tool will close on Saturday each week, but "forever" freebies will remain accessible! Come back every Sunday to link up or download new freebies!


Saturday, January 28, 2017

Modern Day African American History Month Unit



African American History Month is next month! I decided I wanted to incorporate Black History into my curriculum for the month of February, but in a way that is more meaningful and relevant for my special needs learners. While Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Thurgood Marshall, Sojourner Truth (to name a few) are all no doubt remarkable and historical African American heroes in our history...but they are irrelevant for my special learners. 

I felt that my students would better benefit from learning about African American Heroes from the 21st century and even the late 20th century. I wanted to teach them about African Americans that they may have seen on T.V., heard on the radio, or possibly even heard their parents speak about. 

I designed this mini-unit to do just that and I will begin implementing it in my classroom next week. Here are the featured heroes. 

BARACK OBAMA

OPRAH WINFREY

GABRIELLE DOUGLAS

JORDIN SPARKS

MICHAEL JACKSON

MUHAMMAD ALI

MICHAEL JORDAN

MICHELLE OBAMA

DAVID ORTIZ

TIGER WOODS

I leveled it to meet 3 levels of learners in my classroom. My high functioning students and students working at a 3rd grade level or higher will be able to complete all of the activities above; a biographical passage, comprehension questions, a Venn Diagram, and write a short summary about each hero. 

For my middle functioning students, I plan to assist them with reading the passage or even read the passage to them. Then, they will complete the Venn Diagram with facts about the hero and the "Name That Person" cut-n-paste activity sheets below. 

For my lowest functioning students, I've included a simple 10-page activity booklet for them. Each page features one of the ten heroes and a couple of important facts about them. Students then circle a picture from a field of three indicating what the hero is known for. They can also complete the cut-n-paste sheets as well. 

I'm super excited to introduce this unit to my students next week! I know they will be much more excited to learn more about some of these role-models that they have probably seen, heard of, listened to, and can better relate to. 

If you think your students would better benefit from a more modern day unit for African American History Month, you can check out this mini-unit in my store here

Happy African American History Month!

Monday, January 23, 2017

Student Self-Monitoring is SO Powerful!

I am a huge fan of student self-monitoring! Whenever possible, students should be self-monitoring. While my focus of this post is on self-monitoring behavior, students should also be self-monitoring their academics too! 

Self-monitoring is SO powerful! It makes students more conscientious of how often their behavior occurs, holds them accountable, decreases behaviors, teaches them independence and the best part for teachers, it puts the data collection in your students' hands; allowing them to collect your data for you! Who wouldn't want someone else to take their data, right!?

When we are constantly reminded of something over and over, we tend to change it or remember it. If you, the teacher, is the only one monitoring their behavior, are they even aware of how often they are engaging in a behavior?? Let's say I have a student that hand flaps. If I silently mark a tally every time she hands flaps, yeah, I've got my data, but how am I teaching her not to hand flap? Or furthermore, how do I teach her how to stop hand flapping!? Self-monitoring also teaches the appropriate behavior to your students!!!

I can also say from firsthand experience, when students monitor their own behavior, behaviors diminish at a much quicker rate. Depending on the behavior, sometimes in a matter of days. For instance, I recently broke a student from putting his hands in his pants in 4 days, because he got tired of going all the way across the room to mark his chart every time he did it. As students become more conscientious of their behavior, I see them begin to catch themselves and refrain from engaging in the behavior. 

Here are some different examples of how I have my students self-monitor their behaviors. Keep in mind...just like we have to differentiate everything in our classrooms, self-monitoring is no different. 

This is my utmost favorite data collection tool that I use in my classroom. I simply LOVE the way it graphs itself. You'll see a sample below. 

This is the one I used for my student that was putting his hands in his pants. Each time he engaged in this behavior, I say, "Go mark your chart, your hands are in your pants." He puts a line through the next number for the date and at the end of each day, I circle the last number marked and connect the circles for an instant graph! It doesn't get much easier than that! And by all means, we do not want to make it convenient for them, so I always place the chart on the other side of the room, requiring them to get up, walk to it, and mark it. This is very important!
I'm sure some of you are saying, "My students wouldn't be able to that." A third of my students in grades 3-5 are high functioning, so they are able to do this, and for some I do hand-over-hand. For others that don't get this and need something more visual, I use this self-monitoring tool, which is the same concept. 

I still say, "Go mark your chart [and state the behavior]", but the student places a sad face on the Velcro strip. I then count those up at the end of the day and transfer them to the frequency sheet/graph I showed you above.  

For my students that have more aggressive and defiant behaviors and are escalated by being asked or may even refuse to mark a chart, these kids LOVE their "Cool Points Charts!" And I do too! This is second favorite tool for self-monitoring. 
This is one I am currently using with a newer student that just joined The Bender Bunch Family in December due to behaviors only. I have had great success with my Cool Points Charts and have been using these with my students for over 4 years! Every hour he and I do a "Cool Points Check." He fills it out. If he did it, he gets 3 points, if he did it sometimes, he gets 1 point, and if he didn't do it, he gets 0 points. Then, he gets the reinforcement that matches his points earned on the right. This allows for even those most aggressive and challenging students to still reap some reward and feel some success in life by at least earning a simple snack for trying. Just one point earns this child a snack for his efforts, but again I differentiate these depending on the student and the severity of their behaviors. He is self-monitoring his behaviors and these are filed in his binder as data....and might I add, his transformation has been remarkable. He can't wait to check his Cool Points every hour. 

This is a great self-monitoring tool that I use with students that have trouble marking the frequency chart, but can color, and only have up to 10 incidences per day. Each time they engage in the behavior, they color in a rectangle.
 This one is like above, but for students that engage in their behavior more frequently and need to self-monitor each hour. 
 The template below is copied on the back of the charts above and lists the student's pre-determined reinforcer menu according to reduced number of incidences. So, on this one it is the opposite of the Cool Points Charts. They will earn their best reinforcer based upon less points.
 For students that are having difficulties in Specials; Art, P.E., Library, etc. I use these. With these, students receive their best "A" reinforcer for "Awesome," a smaller "B" reinforcer for "OK," and in this case, "No Reward" for "Not Cool" Behavior. Again, it really depends on the student as to how I critique these. 
 This one is like above, but adapted for students that need more visuals, and not words.
 Some teachers like to use a Behavior Contract. I personally rarely use this tool for my students, as they need daily, minute-by-minute, or hour-by-hour monitoring, but it serves as a great tool for students that may have less frequent behaviors that don't occur on a daily, minute, or hourly basis and for students with long term goals. 

I hope you will try self-monitoring in your classroom and that it will be as successful for you as it is in my classroom! As an exclusive follower of The Bender Bunch and a WE TEACH SPED fan, you can download all of the EDITABLE self-monitoring tools I explained above {here} for free and start student self-monitoring in your classroom today!!!

Follow along next month where I will be posting about free classroom websites to use in your classroom and how I run and color code my differentiated classroom centers. 


Sunday, January 22, 2017

SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies!

Welcome to SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies!! Every Sunday I host this freebie link up here on my blog for Special Education Teachers! Visit every week to download free resources for your classroom! If this is your first time visiting, you can access all of the freebies from previous link ups by clicking on "SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies" under "My Files" on my right sidebar. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

If you're a TPT seller, blogger, or resource creator, I invite you to link up and share your own freebie using the link up tool below! 


Link Up Rules

1. All resources must be FREE! It can be free for the day, but please delete your link once you mark it back to paid.
2. Your freebie may link to your blog or store.
3. Freebie does not have to be related specifically to SPED, but should be practical for SPED.
4. If you are linking up from your blog, using this image in your post and linking back to my blog is not required, but is greatly appreciated! Be sure to share this image on your social media so others can see your freebie!

*I recommend using an image of your freebie & not your button when linking up. 

 Feel free to share the image above all over your social media to let other teachers know about these freebies! 

The link up tool will close on Saturday each week, but "forever" freebies will remain accessible! Come back every Sunday to link up or download new freebies!



Sunday, January 15, 2017

SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies!

Welcome to SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies!! Every Sunday I host this freebie link up here on my blog for Special Education Teachers! Visit every week to download free resources for your classroom! If this is your first time visiting, you can access all of the freebies from previous link ups by clicking on "SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies" under "My Files" on my right sidebar. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

If you're a TPT seller, blogger, or resource creator, I invite you to link up and share your own freebie using the link up tool below! 


Link Up Rules

1. All resources must be FREE! It can be free for the day, but please delete your link once you mark it back to paid.
2. Your freebie may link to your blog or store.
3. Freebie does not have to be related specifically to SPED, but should be practical for SPED.
4. If you are linking up from your blog, using this image in your post and linking back to my blog is not required, but is greatly appreciated! Be sure to share this image on your social media so others can see your freebie!

*I recommend using an image of your freebie & not your button when linking up. 

 Feel free to share the image above all over your social media to let other teachers know about these freebies! 

The link up tool will close on Saturday each week, but "forever" freebies will remain accessible! Come back every Sunday to link up or download new freebies!



Wednesday, January 11, 2017

ABCmouse.com



Have you heard the news!?! ABCmouse just released the expansion of their new curriculum that now includes 2nd grade! It is now geared for children ages 2 - 8, or children working at a Pre-k through 2nd grade level. 



If you're not familiar with ABCmouse, it is an award-winning curriculum, available on computer, tablet, or phone, and is highly recommended by educators and parents. AND, it is FREE for teachers! Here are some facts about ABCmouse.

-ABCmouse is regularly ranked as the leading children's learning iPad, iPhone, and Android app in both the Kids and Education categories. 
-More than 8,500 standards-based learning activities covering preschool-2nd grade and 850 lessons.
-More than 1.6 million ABCmouse learning activities are completed each day, with over 2.2 billion completed to date.

I am so impressed with ABCmouse that I don't know where to start to share all of the fabulous features it offers! Take a tour with me to see for yourself!


This is what the student's homepage looks like. It is very user-friendly and so easy for children to navigate. I also love that that it reads all of the text to my students. So as they hover their mouse or finger over each section or link, it reads each category or command to them. This is great for our non-readers.

 Students can complete the activities you customize and assign for them in the "My Lessons" section or they can complete the activities in their Classroom or Learning Path that are determined by ABCmouse based on the student level you assigned them to. 

Setting up and adding your students and their level is super simple. Click on the "options" tab on the bottom left hand corner to be taken to the teacher dashboard. Don't worry, you'll have to enter your password, so students won't be able to access this without your password. 

Click on "Class Builder." Here you can add/remove students and create classes or groups. 


In the "Add Students" section, you'll be able to select their level from Toddler through level 10. My students are working at a grade level of KG to second grade, so I found that Levels 7-10 were the most appropriate for my students. 


To build and assign customized lessons for your students, choose "Lesson Builder" from the teacher dashboard and then click on "Start."


I love that there are life skills lessons too! The particular student I am going to use in this example to show you how to build lessons is a student with Autism and is working on learning about the kitchen. So I typed "kitchen" into the search bar and these are the kitchen lessons that came up. Each lesson includes several activities. You can also choose to not type in a search and view all the lessons available if you are not sure.


Click on the lesson you'd like and click continue.

Next, choose your activities. Use the drop down filters to select what you're looking for and narrow your search.


You can choose specific learning topics....
activity types...

 or specific levels.
 You can also choose activities using the search bar, which is what I did for this student. I typed "kitchen" into the search bar and as you can see 23 activities came up. Check the ones you want, or I liked them all so I checked the "add all activities" box on the bottom right and clicked "save and next."

This step gives you the option to organize and arrange items in the desired order if you choose. If you like them in the order they are, click "save and next."

Last, assign your lesson. You can assign to classes, groups, or to individual students. As you can see, I am only assigning my "kitchen" assignments to one student. 


Then, click "save" and you are done.


You can go to your "Lesson Library" anytime to see what you have assigned and to edit, assign, or delete assignments by clicking on the white button in the upper right hand corner of each assignment.
Visit the "Progress Tracker" in your teacher dashboard to track the progress of your students. Here you can see how many activities they've completed and how much time they've spent on the site. You can even search specific date ranges.

Another awesome feature of ABCmouse is the teacher resources. Visit the "Teacher Resources" feature on the teacher dashboard and download tons of printables, student incentives, and logic puzzles.


 You'll also love the simplicity of student logins. No passwords required. Once you log in, students simply click on their name to get started. 

When students click on their lessons, they receive the following notification.

When my student I assigned the "kitchen" lessons to clicks on his lessons, all of his kitchen lessons will show. He will click on a lesson to complete it. Since I chose "ALL" activities when I set these activities up, he will get to do books, games, songs, art, and puzzles all related to learning about the kitchen.


Here is one example of a kitchen vocabulary lesson. As my student clicks on each item in the kitchen picture, the word will appear as you see with "pot", and the word will be read to my student. I also love that the kitchen resembles what a traditional kitchen really does look like.



Another thing that makes ABCmouse so fun for children is the "All About Me" section that they get to customize themselves. This section is accessed by clicking on their name on the left. Here they can change their Avatar, save activities to their files, save favorites to their "favorites" list, print their activities...and they earn tickets for each completed activity that they can use to buy things for their pets and to decorate their room with.


This is a great tool that teaches children how to print and save which can be transferred over to utilizing these features on other computer programs and students love being able to customize and have their own private files. 

Students can also visit their saved files, click on a particular file and have the option to crop, edit, or delete their files. They can also turn their files into a puzzle if they choose.

In this section, students can learn to take care of virtual pets, feed them daily, and even learn facts about their pets or complete activities pertaining to their pets.


Parents can also be a part of their child's learning with the ABCmouse "school to home connection" and children can work on your lessons at home. You can send invites by email or print invites to send home. All parents have to do is go to abcmouse.com/redeem and enter the code provided!


ABCmouse has definitely outdone themselves and taken all educator and childrens' needs into consideration. It is user-friendly for both teachers and children, has no advertising or pop-up adds, targets all areas of instruction designed by expert educators to include reading, math, science, social studies, and health, utilizes a multi-sensory approach that includes books, songs, puzzles, games, videos, art, and real world experiences, offers life skills activities and instruction, provides motivating and fun learning experiences for children, prepares students for more advanced computer use, provides an accountable teacher tracking system, allows for differentiated instruction, and allows parents to participate and be a part of their child's learning. 

Did I mention that ABCmouse is completely FREE for teachers! Just click on the image below, then click on "Teachers" in the upper left hand corner to sign up for FREE and start using ABCmouse in your classroom. 

If you're not a teacher, click below to try it for FREE for 30 days! Or sign up for an annual membership at 38% off



What do you think of ABCmouse thus far?

Do you know of another teacher that can benefit from ABCmouse? Forward these deals onto them!