What to Teach in August in the Elementary Special Education Classroom

Having a plan when heading into a new school year in the elementary special education classroom is essential to setting your year up for success. It reduces anxiety, establishes routines, and provides guidance for paraprofessionals. 

Let's face it... in August the days are LONG! Especially without related services pulling students yet. And your students have a lot to learn about being at school… especially your Kindergarten students and students transitioning to a new building or classroom. 

Don't worry! I have gathered some great ideas and resources to save you time and get you started off on the right foot this August! Click on an image or caption to find the resource in my TPT store! 

Classroom Expectations: 

Establish classroom rules and illustrate expectations using social stories, role-playing, and picture books. No, David! and David Goes to School by David Shannon are two of my favorite books for introducing the idea of rules and why they are important. Plus they are a ton of fun to read with students! 

David Goes to School Picture Book Communication and Comprehension Supports

No, David Picture Book Communication and Comprehension Supports

David Goes to School Choice Sorting Cut & Paste Activity
Back to School Thematic Unit

Schedules: 

Too often in the special education transitions can be overwhelming for staff and students with so many bodies moving at once so if you can increase independence using a location-based schedule this is win-win for everyone! Plus it has the added bonus of reducing overstimulating auditory clutter for auditorily sensitive students. 

Interactive Location-Based Schedules 

Group Routines

Establish routines that you will use during group times all year long such as read-alouds, art, cooking or snack, shared writing, and calendar/morning meeting.

Differentiated Morning Meeting Worksheet

Interactive Morning Message

Visual Recipes
Back to School Thematic Unit

Stained Glass Apple Art Activity

Vocabulary

Introduce key vocabulary words related to school routines and subjects. These will be words that your students need to know all year long. I have also introduced staff and student names during group games and activities. 

Back to School Vocabulary
Back to School Thematic Unit

Centers

Introduce centers time with fun, hands-on activities to keep students engaged such as crafts, sensory activities, games, preferred activities such as playdoh or potato head, or snack time. 

Back to School Vocabulary Games

Back to School Thematic Unit

Apple Painting Art Activity

Group Yoga Sequence
Classroom Yoga

Class Mission Statement

Set the tone for the year with a positive and inclusive mission statement. Each year my students created a joint mission statement that we all signed and hung in the classroom for easy reference throughout the school year. We also did personal mission statements as an introduction to goal setting at the start of my 1:1 IEP time with students. 

Classroom Mission Statement
Back to School Thematic Unit

If you are interested in several of these activities, I do offer a number of BUNDLES which will save you 20% in my store! 

Back to School Bundle

Morning Meeting Bundle

Teaching About Feelings in the Special Education Classroom

After all the talk about what students love during Valentine's Day activities, I always found a natural next step in my thematic units was to focus on feelings and emotions. 

Check out some of my favorite Emotions activities:

ELA Ideas

• I first introduce feelings vocabulary. We use a variety of visuals including photos, icons, and even emojis. 

• Next, we practice sorting emotions based on the vocabulary we've learned. These cut and paste worksheets are also included in my Feelings Thematic Unit. 

• Then, we read stories to discuss each emotion in context. I love The Way I Feel by Janan Cain because it covers so many robust feeling words. I use the communication board from my Feelings Thematic Unit for students to participate.

• Another favorite feelings story is When Sophie Gets Angry-- Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang. I love this story for introducing the concept of coping strategies to my students. 

I love this story so much that I created an entire Picture Book Communication and Comprehension Supports resource which you can check out in my TPT store. It includes vocabulary, sentence building boards, AAC, comprehension questions, sequencing, and fill-in-the blank activities. Plus IEP goal ideas and progress monitoring sheets!

 

Social Group Ideas

• We practice our feelings vocabulary words by playing a game of charades where each student makes a silly emoji face and sees if their friends can guess them 😜😉😁😋🤨😱

😡😡😡

☹️☹️☹️

😁😁😁

• We also practice our vocabulary with a variety of games including BINGO and this great board game board. 

I use this universal game board from my Feeling Thematic Unit to practice a variety of skills depending on the needs of my students including: number, letter, or sound ID, reading sight words, answering math facts, or practicing other IEP goal skills in addition to our emotions vocabulary!

 

• We also follow up our unit on When Sophie Gets Angry by talking about our own emotions, what causes them, and coping strategies for what we call BIG emotions. I created a book template for my students to use as a resource when they are having big feelings. It aligns loosely with The Zones of Regulation. This template is included as one of the 12 cross-curricular activities in my Feelings Thematic Unit.

• This is also a good time to introduce our classroom Big Feelings Tools. I use the A Little Peaceful Spot book from the A Little Spot of Emotion by Diane Alber. After reading the story, I use a slide deck to introduce our Big Feeling Tools and model each tool and we discuss the expectations. 

Our big feelings tools for moving our bodies include a Color Match Station which is a velcro board poster where students get vestibular input from bending down to get an Ellison cutout and then match it to the poster and a Heavy Work Station in which students match covered textbooks to corresponding colored Xs in the hallway.

Our big feelings tools for resting our bodies include a Picture Reading Poster from S'cool Moves, a Calming Kit with small fidgets, and my Special Interest Deep Breathing Posters.

Math Ideas

• With so many different emotion icons, it can be a great opportunity to practice graphing. I have done this in a variety of ways. When we have more time, I have students sort and graph emoji erasers like these from Amazon:

 

One year, my OT pushed in for a group and we actually had students make a collage with emoji stickers and then count and graph each emoji they used. These stickers were another great Amazon find. 

For both the erasers and stickers, Amazon has a TON of options so you can certainly choose what variety works best for your students. 

Admittedly, there have been years where I have needed to simplify the assignment so I pre-made a worksheet with various emotions for students to create. Of course you can find this in my Feelings Thematic Unit 😉!

• These erasers and stickers are also a great way to practice basic counting for students who aren't quite ready for graphing yet. I also made a fun emoji counting worksheet.

Cooking Ideas

• During our cooking time, my students loved making cooking activities with different faces such as waffles, rice cakes, or english muffin pizzas. 

Interested in these activities and more? Why not bundle and save! 

What is your favorite activity to teach feelings in your classroom? Which of these activities are you excited to try? 

Celebrating Thanksgiving in the Special Education Classroom

The holiday season is my absolute favorite time of year outside and inside of the classroom! My students and I always have so much fun celebrating the holidays. And the first holiday to kick things off will be here before we know it! Keep reading to learn more about how I celebrate Thanksgiving in my special education classroom.

ELA Ideas

• Each November, I introduce our Thanksgiving vocabulary words which we will use throughout the month during various activities and stories. 

• A big vocabulary concept we focus on at this time is the idea of past and present we typically do the accompanying unit from Unique Learning System and supplement with other fun stories and activities including this sorting activity.

• We also read I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie by Alison Jackson. I use picture-supported communication boards to make the story accessible to all my learners. 

After we read the story together several times throughout the week, we like to watch it on YouTube as well. This can be a great independent activity for students during centers time. I will set them up on their Chromebook (or an iPad with guided access 😉) and also provide the picture-based communication board from when we read as a group. 

Social Group Ideas

• The absolute highlight of our Thanksgiving unit is our classroom Thanksgiving Feast. It is such a fun tradition and we love to invite staff throughout the school to stop by during their lunch period to join the fun. 

• During the Thanksgiving feast, each student practices asking peers or staff to pass the different foods using this picture-supported script. 

• After the feast, all of the students fill out a taste test rating each of the foods they tried. We send it home that evening and my parents have really appreciated having this little "cheatsheet" for their family Thanksgiving dinner, especially for our picky eaters who sometimes surprise us by trying new things after participating in the preparation and getting excited about their peers trying new things too. 

Math Ideas

• Before the feast, we talk a lot about buying the foods we will need. Some years we have checked ads and on one rare occasion we actually took a class field trip to the grocery store to buy our feast foods! It was kinda stressful but kind of great at the same time... as many things can be in our classroom!

• To go along with the idea of shopping for our feast foods, I have a fun menu math activity that I made for students. 

• What better tool for teaching fractions than a pie?! I admit it can be messy but messy is memorable! Some years we baked a pie during cooking and then used it to talk about fractions. In other years we bought mini-pies. And one year a VERY sweet para baked mini-pies for every student so they could each have their own. 

• I created another follow-up activity to assess their fraction knowledge.

Cooking & Craft Ideas

• We try to make as much of our Thanksgiving feast as possible at school. Aside from the turkey. We tend to outsource for that! 

• The kids have a blast making these turkey cupcakes for dessert!

• They also have so much fun when we make "Pilgrim ink" with charcoal during our concept study about the past. They think writing with feathers is the funniest thing ever. 

These recipes can be found in my Thanksgiving Thematic Unit or my Visual Recipes for the Entire Year resource. 

Interested in these activities and more? Grab my Thanksgiving Thematic Unit in my TPT store!

In addition to cross-curricular, interactive lesson materials, each of my thematic units include:

• Set-Up Instructions

• Implementation Tips for Whole/Small Group, 1:1, and independent work times for each activity

• Differentiation Tips for Accommodating and Extending each activity to meet student needs