Color Wheel

Love this idea for color matching! Go to the following link to find out how you can make your own matching color wheels. http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2010/08/color-wheel-match.html

Teaching Life Skills

The article at the following link is a very good example of what teaching life skill students is all about. They need to learn skills to function in the real word and learn more independence. http://www.howtodothings.com/education/a4393-how-to-teach-life-skills-in-special-education.html

Food Tray Vocational Task

This is a great vocational food service task. There are many other vocational tasks as well as functional daily living tasks in Table Top Tasks. http://classroomtasksforspecialneeds.com/

Safety Kit Assembly

Great vocational task to learn about safety as well as assembly and following directions. Task found in Table Top Tasks http://www.amazon.com/Table-Top-Tasks-Dianne-Matthews/dp/1105279111

Structured Strategies

These work very effectively with our students with autism. The linked site has many wonderful teaching strategies...a must read!! http://www.specialed.us/autism/structure/str10.htm

Compliment Day

I found this idea on the linked blog site that I think will work well in our life skills classroom. Compliments are very important to our students as well as teaching them how to give them out. Just yesterday we had a student that wanted to give up on his worksheet and one of his fellow classmates said "You can do this...I believe in you" It was very touching and also made that student feel like he could do anything. I believe we will keep the bulletin board up the entire school year!!
http://mrsnielson-2ndgrade.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-classroom.html

PVC Task

Just wanted to share one our students favorite tasks that is adaptable for specific needs. This task can be used to match patterns, sorting, fine motor, etc... To make this box, I went to our local lumber store and told them what the supplies were for, and they were given FREE! After our students used them the first time, they wrote a nice card thanking the lumber store for giving us the supplies. The card is hanging to this day in the managers office. Many times if you ask and tell people what the supplies are for they are willing to help and either give for free, or offer a great discount! This is just one of the tasks in my book, Table Top Tasks at Amazon.com

19 Ways to increase verbal interaction

I wanted to share this idea because verbal interaction helps aid in the success of completing certain tasks.
"Here are some easy suggestions to contrive the environment to help your child practice using their verbal skills. They are designed to help the child use/increase requesting, verbal interaction and naming as well as improve speech intelligibility, expand utterances and build associations.
Make sure the child wants or needs the item (looks at, reaches for, points to, tries to get it) or the action. The child has to request it before receiving it, using the target level of skill he/she is working at by pointing, signing or using verbal approximations, words, phrases, sentences, questions, etc.  (e.g., for example #1: child points to milk or signs or says “mmm,” ”milk,” “want milk,” “Mom, give me more milk” or ”Where’s the milk?” ). Modify the activity according to your child’s age and interests.
1.  Pour a small amount of milk/pop in the cup.
2.  Give a bowl of pudding with no spoon.
3.  Give cereal bowl with nothing in it or with cereal and no milk.
4.  Give child a cup to drink with, with nothing inside.
5.  Give child sandwich, hotdog, etc. to eat, with no bun, bread, hotdog or filling.
6.  Stand at the door without opening it.  Wait.
7.  Give toothbrush with no toothpaste on it.  Toothpaste is hidden from sight.
8.  Tell child to brush teeth, but toothbrush is gone.
9.  Put needed items or desired toys out of reach in bedroom or bath.
10.  Put desired item in a closed clear container that is hard to open.
11.  Put desired toy on any high surface, make sure child can see it.
12. Put child in the tub/shower with no water.
13.  Turn water off periodically while tub is filling.
14.  Hold wand for bubbles as though about to blow, but don’t…wait.
15.  Give child bubbles jar with no wand.
16.  Hold child in swing without pushing forward.
17.  Give child a treat in a bag or container that he/she cannot open.
18.  When getting dressed, give your child another sibling’s clothes to put on that are too big or too small.
19.  Give your child crayons that are broken or too small to use, or a marker that is dried out, a pen that does not work or a pencil without a point.
Based on suggestion list from Esch Behavior Consultants, Inc."

PVC pattern matching is just one of several vocational tasks ideas from Table Top Tasks @ Amazon.com

I just wanted to share this great idea that worked out well in our classroom today...an alphabet maze. I made copies of the pages created at the following blog and used the pom poms with magnets attached. This worked well for letter recognition as well as color matching and sensory. This idea comes from http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2011/11/alphabet-mazes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FXQbU+%281%2B1%2B1%3D1%29

Magnetic Craft Sticks

What a great idea for color sorting! The nice thing about the magnetic sticks is that the paper clips will stay in place and you can use them to not only sort, but count. This great idea comes from http://teachbesideme.blogspot.com