Writing and Communication Go Together

I found a great writing prompt lesson at Teachers Pay Teachers on this link: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Weekend-Reports-for-Special-Education-Students

This lesson has differentiated writing prompts that could accommodate elementary grades as well as contained ESE classes in latter elementary, middle or high school.  The lesson plan contains writing prompts at differentiated levels asking “What did you do over the weekend?”  There are a variety of worksheets to choose from depending on the level of your students.  There are also worksheets with more spacing to accommodate students who have difficulty with fine motor.  Some of the sheets ask the “W” questions and others ask for descriptions.  According to the plan, first the students write about their weekend, and then they present it verbally. 

This is a great lesson that I plan on incorporating into my classroom activities on Monday mornings.  This lesson is especially good for special education classes because it asks the students remember events, which they have to process into writing, then again process it orally to present.  This lesson is beneficial to students with autism by helping them draw mental pictures of what they did.  An educator might want to make available visual prompts in the writing center to assist in generating ideas. 

The presenting part of the lesson is also a wonderful way to incorporate social skills and communication into the lesson.  By asking the students to come forward and discuss what they did over the weekend, they are forced to recall and retell the events of the weekend.  This is good for memory and processing.  I will also encourage my students to ask questions to other classmates to further work on social and communication skills. 

This lesson will work well if the teacher and paraprofessionals in the class also participate by modeling and showing examples of their writing and presenting.  Having sound examples will assist the students and help them feel comfortable with their presentations.  Incorporating this into student’s weekly schedule will benefit students with autism because they will start making mental pictures of their weekend activities.  Educators can also ask parents to assist with this activity by asking them to write one or two words of their weekend activities in the parent-to-teacher planner. 

Food and Technology Make Math Fun!

http://polkadotfirsties.blogspot.com/2013/02/manic-monday-freebie-math.html 

On my most recent field experience in a first grade class, I was fortunate enough to work with a very creative teacher who had fabulous lesson plans.  One of my favorite activities she did with the kids was a particular math lesson that taught place value of tens and ones.  She created her own mats, but I was able to find a copy of a similar tens and ones mat that can be used for the activity by just clicking on the link above. 

For the activity you will need pretzels (sticks, not rods) for the tens and cereal, M & M’s, Skittles, raisins, or anything small to represent ones.  The teacher I worked with used pretzels and Skittles.  You will also need to download the tens and ones mat or you can very easily make one yourself using construction paper.  My cooperating teacher used two different colors, red for tens, green for ones to make a bigger contrast.  At the top left, she wrote tens and on the top right she wrote ones, then laminated and gave each student one. The students were also given some pretzels and Skittles, as well as dry erase markers. 

The students were asked to look at the ELMO where the teacher wrote a problem down on her tens and ones mat.  For example:

  23

+21

The 2 was lined up in the Tens red side and the 3 on the green ones and the same for 21 with the 2 on the red and the 1 on the green.

Then for manipulatives, the students placed 3 skittles next to the 3 on the green side and 1 Skittle next to the 1 below on the green.  On the red, two pretzel sticks were placed on the mat next to the 2 on the red tens place and the 2 more below.  The students counted the ones and wrote the answer, then counted the tens and wrote the answer below. 

Then they erased their problem and a new one was placed on the ELMO for them to follow.  This was gradually built up until they had to regroup by replacing the ones with a pretzel stick because there were more than 9. 

If the students worked hard and showed good cooperation, they were allowed to eat the Skittles and pretzel sticks (a good incentive to work hard).  Needless to say, the students remained  completely engaged throughout this lesson.  Utilizing both technology and food were excellent strategies for motivation.  I loved this lesson and will plan on using it in a variety of ways when I have my own class.   

http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/2816.html

In a special education setting, it is crucial that students master their communication goals according to their IEP.  Meeting once or twice a week with a speech pathologist is not enough, so as a future special education teacher, I feel it is important to incorporate speech and language into curriculum.  Fortunately, speech and language benchmarks usually can be integrated with other academic benchmarks in one lesson. Teachers Net (located on the link above) provided an excellent example of an integrated lesson plan with speech and language. 

This lesson plan is a fun scavenger hunt, created to promote social skills, speech and language, as well as reading skills.  The lesson starts with a word list or picture list, depending on the student’s reading level.  The student should review the words and be on the “look out” for them.  Scatter the words throughout the classroom or school.  The student must locate the words.  Once located, the student will see a picture of someone else who works at the school.  Then they must approach that person and ask appropriately for the word.  For example if one of the words on the list is “pencil,” the student will find the word on an index card, pronounce it correctly to the teacher, and then look on the back.  The picture might be the office secretary.  When there is time, the student should then approach the secretary and ask “may I have the pencil please?”  If the child is able to pronounce the word correctly in a full sentence while making eye contact, he or she is awarded that pencil.  I would perhaps do one or two words a day throughout the week until the scavenger hunt is complete. 

This activity is a fun and motivating way to assist students not only with speech and language skills, but also reading and social skills. Of course this lesson may not be appropriate for all school settings, as it clearly depends on the culture of your school.  However, I often find that people are willing to assist as long as it is not disruptive.  This lesson is one that can build up to meet other important benchmarks in high school settings such as job skills or life skills in an ESE setting. 

http://specialed.about.com/od/characterbuilding/a/Cartoon-Strip-Social-Interactions.htm

I came across a lesson plan that can be either used for an early elementary level or in a Special Education Class in any grade to aide in building social skills.  This lesson is also beneficial for reading fluency, speech, and writing skills as well.  One of the things I most liked about this lesson is the integration of several different benchmarks. The lesson starts with a cartoon scenario of a boy who wants to join a group of other boys.  Why does he want to join the group?  What can he say that would be appropriate?  With his cartoon projected on an ELMO some discussion can take place.  Right and wrong answers can be used for the students to pick from.  I would use vocabulary from a previous word wall to assist with answers and reinforce a previous lesson. After the discussion, role play is then done on appropriate answers to different scenarios.  The teacher acts as one of the students, and can assist some of the children with more complex levels of autism who might need verbal prompting to appropriate questions and answers.  Finally, students are paired up with scenario prompts that can be done on sentence strips, in which the students finish the sentence by writing the appropriate answers.  For instance “I want to join that group to play soccer.”  “I should ask a question.”  “Can I play………?” This short cartoon strip designed to assist with social skills has also integrated three other benchmarks of speech, fluency, and writing into a simple lesson for an early education or ESE classroom.  I feel this is an especially appropriate lesson for an ESE classroom, particularly students who carry the diagnosis of autism or autism spectrum disorder who might have problems initiating conversation.  This lesson can be changed to meet a lot of challenges that might come up during the year, such as correcting behaviors, creating possible scenarios for community based interests, and supporting communication for job skills.