Crafts aren’t just cute — they’re secret life-skills lessons in disguise! In this post, you’ll learn how fun, seasonal, low-prep crafts can help your students with special needs build independence, follow directions, make choices, solve problems, and gain confidence… all while having a blast. Why Crafts Are the Perfect Way to Teach Life Skills If […]
Reindeer Story Writing for Special Ed: A Writing Process Activity
The writing process can be so much fun when kids get to use creative writing during the holidays! In this Reindeer Story Writing activity, students of all abilities can get creative and participate in the writing process. CLICK HERE to check out this resource in my TPT Shop! Let’s get started! Step 1: Pre-Writing Every […]
A Positional Word Game: Where is the Elf?
Spatial concepts are typically a struggle all my students have in common. Understanding positional words (such as on, in, under, between, behind, and next to) enhance a child’s ability to give and follow directions within activities of their everyday life. A few years ago, I wanted to incorporate practicing positional concepts into my classroom’s daily […]
Increase Comprehension for Special Ed Students Using Doodle Notes
I’m always looking for creative ways to increase comprehension for my students with special needs. I love reading aloud to my students, but often struggle to find age-appropriate books at a reading level all my students can comprehend. I decided to shift the focus of my read-aloud time to increase engagement and foster a love […]
5 Winter Lesson Ideas for the Special Ed Resource Room
Winter is a fun time of the year to add some fun to your lesson plans. After Winter break, we all need a little excitement to get us motivated to learn again. Check out these 5 Winter lesson ideas that are great for elementary and special ed resource rooms. Warm up with Hot Cocoa! Your […]
Summer IEP Preparation for Special Education Teachers
No matter when you work on IEP preparation throughout the school year, it is ALWAYS a stressful time. There are ALWAYS 1,000 other things to do when you have an IEP coming due, and finding time to sit down and focus is difficult. If this sounds like you, try something new this year, and do some IEP preparation in […]
5 Story Retelling Activities for Students with Special Needs
Deciding how to teach retelling to students with special needs can be difficult. Being able to retell information is an important life skill and goes hand in hand with comprehension. Recalling and summarizing information can be difficult for students with cognitive delays. Repetitive story retelling practice will help increase comprehension skills and improve student’s ability […]
7 Fun Back to School Resources for Special Ed
Back to School season is here! Time to set up your classroom, prepare your resources, and get organized. Getting your special ed classroom prepared for the school year can be a challenge. Whether you teach a self-contained resource room or you are an inclusion teacher, there are many resources and activities you can prep before […]
6 Quick and Easy Alphabet Games and Activities Using Alphabet Posters
You can incorporate these easy alphabet games into your daily schedule using Alphabet Posters! Turning letter recognition practice into a game is fun for students, engaging, and a great time filler! Alphabet games are a great way to target letter recognition, letter matching, and beginning sounds. Here are 6 quick and easy alphabet games to […]
Responsibility Lesson Plans for Elementary
Looking for a lesson on responsibility for your elementary students, but can’t seem to find one that meets all your student’s needs? You might see other teachers doing fun character lessons and want to do those too, but the activities don’t quite fit with your student’s abilities. Maybe you need just a little bit of […]
Kindness Activities for the Special Ed Classroom
There are so many fun ways to promote kindness in the classroom! I created this unit for my classroom so I could reach my students of all ability levels, and promote a positive classroom culture. The lessons in this unit can be used in any sequence, individually, or as part of the whole unit. The […]
Penguin Activities for Elementary and Special Ed
The month of January is a great time to learn about Arctic Animals and this week we are learning about Penguins! Check out what we are doing! Penguin Books: Here is a list of the 5 books I am using for daily read alouds. All of these were checked out from my local library! Little […]