Why Don't I Get Invited to Birthday Parties??

"Why don't I get invited to birthday parties," one of my students asked! This just breaks my heart and makes me so sad, but this is reality for most of our special needs children. Let's face it, most of them don't have "friends." Not solid friendships anyway, or friends that really want to spend time with them. It may appear to others on the outside that they are well-liked and have friends on the playground and at school, but on the inside, that is not usually the case! 

A good friend of mine has a 12 year-old child with Down Syndrome and she will agree with me 100%. She recently posted this on Facebook and gave me permission to share it in this post. She writes, "Everyone loves him. From the outside looking in, it appears as though he has quality friendships. As a parent though, I know that in almost 13 years, he has been invited to exactly 2 birthday parties outside of family. One was a school wide party and the other one was in first grade." The day she posted this was a very proud moment for this mama, because guess what? He got invited to a birthday party by someone on the football team that he is a part of....{wiping tears}. Can you imagine the excitement this child felt to feel like he was a valued member of his team? It was probably one of the best days of his life! 

Most people don't realize how something so simple as a birthday party invite can mean the world to a child! These children should not have to miss out on these magical childhood moments! Even at my age, some of my most memorable moments of my childhood were made at my birthday parties! 

As a teacher of mild/moderate to severe special needs students, and a teacher in a low-income area, not only do my students not receive invites to parties, they rarely get to have their own birthday party! 

So over the summer, and before I ever even read my friends post about her son, I decided that this year, as part of our life skills/social skills curriculum I am going to host a birthday party for ALL of my students in my classroom! For those that have birthdays during the summer months I will host their party either at the beginning of the year or end of their year, depending where their birthday falls.

I want to make it as fun and genuine as possible for them! Sure, I always brought in cupcakes on my students' birthdays and gave them a little surprise bag. But that's not a birthday party! I want them to be able to make their own invitations and pass them out, as my "own" children did. I want them to have party games, eat cake and ice cream, and open gifts! I want them to have a "real" birthday party and I want my other students to be able to attend a "real" birthday party!

I know throwing a birthday party can be expensive and some times parents are not able to financially help out. So this summer, I created this Classroom Birthday Party Pack to help me organize these birthday parties and to make it super easy on a low budget! 

I made invitations that they can color, decorate, and pass out. I am going to let them invite 3 other individuals on campus in addition to their classmates. It can be a friend from the playground, custodian, another teacher they love, or who ever they choose! It's THEIR day!

These are easy to print and fold, and on the inside they can fill in their name, date, time, and the place of their party (which will be our classroom). 

I made a parent letter that I plan to send home 2-3 weeks prior to the birthday party. The letter encourages parent involvement, but does not obligate or pressure them. This was important for me, as I know that many of my parents are single parents, do not work, do not have transportation, and cannot assist or participate. I want them to still feel welcome to attend the party!

 I made a boy and girl version, and both in color and B & W.

To make party activities simple and save money, one activity children will get to do during the party is make a birthday hat. 

 This costs me no money and they can choose from 2 options!

Each child will also get to make a birthday bracelet.

In addition to playing games, I'll also give the birthday girl/boy a birthday certificate! My students LOVE getting certificates!

Also in B & W.

I plan to play musical chairs as my students' love this game, pin the tail on the donkey (which can be bought once  for $1 and reused), and I'm thinking about possibly a pinata. If the parents are not able to bring in anything, my aides and I are going to pitch in to get a cake, ice cream, and drinks. I'm so lucky to have such wonderful aides that love our students as their own!

My aides and I are also going to all bring in a wrapped gift. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It could even be from Dollar Tree. My Treasure Tree typically consists of nothing but Dollar Tree goodies and my students LOVE this stuff! 

I also made a birthday wish list that I am going to complete with my students on the same day they make their invitations. I will send a copy of this home to their parents as well.

 Lastly, I made a shopping/to do list for me!

 I'm super excited about this, and so are my students and parents! When I told the parents about it at Open House they were all just as excited as me! I am so thrilled to be able to provide this experience to my students and can't wait to share these moments with you! Our first party is September 23rd!

I'd love to see other special education classrooms around the world providing this experience for their students too, so I've compiled all of these resources into a "Classroom Birthday Party Pack!"

 

What's a childhood without birthday parties and what's a birthday party without friends, right!?!

Party On,

SPEDtacular Sunday Freebies!!!

This week really flew by and it's already time for some more SPEDtacular Freebies!!! Every Sunday I host this freebie link up here on my blog! Visit each week to download free resources for your classroom! If this is your first time visiting, you can access the 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 hope you'll link up and share your own freebie with us! 

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! Also, feel free to share this image on your social media so your other SPED friends don't miss out! :)

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

Link up your free resources below and/or download the free resources you can use in your classroom! The link up tool will close on Saturday each week, but most freebies will remain accessible! Come back every Sunday to link up or download new freebies!

An InLinkz Link-up

New Year, New Look! Classroom Reveal!!

Schools back in session here in Nevada!!! We just finished up our first full week of the new school year and I'm so excited to finally show you my 2016-2017 classroom!! 

When you first walk into my classroom, this is on the left. We are required to have our schedule posted by our entrance in my district.

If you look straight ahead and not to the left at our schedule, this is what you will see when you walk in.

This is the view from the front of my room. I have reading and math centers on the left sectioned off with book shelves, teacher table center is at the very back, and independent reading center is in the tent on the right, along with technology center beside that.

Here I have our writing wall, our treasure tree, and our scientific process posters displayed. I have used a treasure tree for the last 5 years rather than a treasure box. I love it! It provides a visual incentive for students and I no longer have to worry about students spending way too much time digging through a box, and breaking toys in the process. I'll explain my Treasure Tree system later in this post.

I also have my Scientific Process Posters displayed in this area. I wish I had gotten a better photo of the posters. You can get the Science posters from Oriental Trading here. We do ALOT of science in my classroom! It is my students' favorite part of their day! I have compiled all of our experiments into a Science Kit that you can find here. We just did 3 more experiments this week, that I will be adding to this kit next week.

This is our writing wall! We write a "Super Star Sentence" together every other day after reviewing what a "Super Star Sentence" is. I choose a student to choose a topic card from the yellow pocket chart and they get to verbally generate a sentence about their topic. I write their sentence on the board, purposely placing mistakes all throughout and my students have to try to find the mistakes. Once we have a perfect super star sentence, they copy the sentence into their writing journals.

This is our whole group morning meeting area. We focus on communication, number sense, calendar, weather, time, and money in this area. My IEP tubs you may have seen all over FB are on the shelf to the left and my pocket chart to the right now has vocabulary words in it that my kids have learned. You can find my vocabulary words here and read more about my IEP Tubs here. I have my rules posted above the board and we recite them together daily. I love that they are real photos. My kids have shown a much greater response and increase in understanding since I began using real life photos in my classroom a couple of years ago! You can find the rule posters from Kristen Smith here. 

This is one of my math centers! As you can see, I have a pink, green, and blue basket placed in each center. These represent my 3 groups. I have an aide at these centers and what I want them to do with each group is placed in the basket that represents their group color. You can read more about my centers here. 

This is one of my reading centers! Again, I have the color coded baskets where I will place what I want my aides to do with each group in their group basket. I change the basket activities up every Monday. The baskets are from Really Good Stuff.

 This is also a reading center....my independent reading nook. My students just love the tent and here they can stretch out, relax, and read a book. The tent is from here.

I just love the book banner hanging above our reading tent. The pennants are book covers of childhood favorites we actually have in our classroom library. You can get them from Danielle Knight on TpT here.

This is my "Teacher Table" small group center. 

When students come to this center, they grab their workbooks/materials that are in their color-coded group center basket and take a seat at the table.

This is my computer technology center. I am very lucky to have 6 student computers and 3 of them are touch screens.

I store my iPads beside the computers like this. I purchased this from Really Good Stuff here.

Here is our center rotation chart that students can easily follow to see what center they go to next. This editable center rotation chart is available here. 

I use this "Timed Timer" to rotate through my centers. I love it as it shows a visual  to students and teachers as to when each rotations is coming to an end. You can purchase it from Lakeshore, but I was able to get it from my Assistive Technology Department for nothing. Be sure to check out your assisstive technology dept. in your district first!  I had no idea the things I could get from them for my classroom. I also got the battery operated name selector from my AT dept. you see on the left of the timer. I use this to select students to perform random tasks in my classroom.   

 

Here is my teacher desk area!

This is the view from the back door and my desk.

This is my timeout, cool down area!

This is my break area! Students that don't feel good or are tired, can use this area to lie down for a bit!

This is at the front door when students arrive. Students place their HW, daily logs, and agenda in the appropriate place. One of my aides then checks them while we do our morning work. 

 Each student has a daily log that hangs in student view and is monitored throughout the day.

The daily log matches and coincides with the faces on my classroom clip chart, so it is very comprehensive and cohesive for my students. This picture also shows my job chart featuring real life photos, which you can get here. You can check out my clip charts and daily take home charts here.

These are my incentive Treasure Tree charts. Each student has 2 incentive charts. One for homework and one for classroom behavior that coincides with the clip chart. Homework is given 4 times a week. When students have filled in 16 days of turning in HW, they get to choose something from the Treasure Tree and they start a new HW chart.
On the other chart, students get stickers depending on where they ended each day on the clip chart.

If they end their day on:
SUPER - purple sticker
GOOD - green sticker
WARNING - yellow sticker
SAD - red sticker

Then, on Friday, students that ended each day that week on good or super, get to choose something from the Treasure Tree.

How I store my printable resource masters, assessments tools, and magazines that I order from. I have no more files in file cabinets! I store 1 master of each file in these binders.

How I store my themed activities we do throughout the year!

Some other favorites in my room this year!

 I love my new GOALS WALL Display this year!
My students recite their goals each day following our classroom rules. These are just simple classroom behaviors that they need to improve on. Examples include: chair legs on floor, keeping lids on markers, no blurting out, etc. You can find an editable file to use this goal wall in your classroom here.

 I also LOVE my Life Skills Word Wall, which you can find from Simply Special Ed here.

 I LOVE my Building Character Emoji Board! It brings some excitement to the classroom. You can find it here.

And lastly, I LOVE my new alphabet chart with real life photos from Sarah Gardner. 

Hope you enjoyed my classroom reveal and are geared up for #thebestyearever. Have a great year!