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? 

Picture Book Communication and Comprehension Supports in the Special Education Classroom

In my classroom, I used Unique Learning System for a majority of my curriculum. However, I found that I often wanted to supplement the stories with rich, authentic picture books. So my Picture Book Communication and Comprehension Supports units were born! 

Not familiar with my picture book supports? They include:

Communication Supports

• Vocabulary Cards: to teach and assess targeted vocabulary (can also be used to create interactive games!)

• Communication Board: to generate sentences about the story verbally or through velcro manipulatives

• GoTalk 9+ AAC Board: formatted for use with GoTalk 9+

Comprehension Supports

• Differentiated Wh-Question Assessments: 3 leveled assessments (multiple choice pictures, multiple choice words/phrases, fill-in) for answering who, what, where, when, and why questions about the story.

• Fill-in-the-Blank Sentences Worksheet: Cut-and-paste cloze sentences with picture choice options

• Sequencing Worksheet: Picture-based cut-and-paste sequencing of story events

IEP Supports

• IEP Goal Ideas
• Communication IEP Goal Ideas: for vocabulary and sentence-building goals
• Comprehension Goal Ideas: for wh-questions, writing, sequencing, and higher-order thinking

• Progress Monitoring:
• Higher-Order Thinking Progress Monitoring: for recalling story elements (characters, setting, and events) and answering inferential and evaluative questions about the story 
• Vocabulary Progress Monitoring Sheet: for receptive and expressive identification of story vocabulary and generalization
• Sentence Building Progress Monitoring Sheet: for assessing sentence generation
• Unit Report Card: Convenient data collection sheet for all unit activities to be used for grading and sharing with families

• Implementation and Differentiation Tips: Do you have a diverse group of students this year? Don't worry! I have that covered too. Every activity in each of my picture book units includes ideas for accommodating and extending to meet your students' needs.

Interested in implementing these Picture Book Communication and Comprehension Supports in your preschool, elementary, or special education classroom? Grab my BUNDLE and save 20%!

The bundle includes 14 popular classroom favorites which integrate perfectly into thematic instruction. Don't have all of these books? No worries! You can use versions on YouTube, check them out from your school library, or head to your local library to see if they have a teacher program. In some locations the librarians will even gather the books for you! 

The bundle also includes lesson plans that map out the year at a glance and provide guidance on monthly and/or weekly implementation of each unit. 

What is your favorite picture book to read in your classroom? Don't see it on this list? Send me an email and I can add it to my list of future units!

What to Teach in December in the Elementary 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. 

 

Check out some of my favorite December activities:

ELA Ideas

• Read The Gingerbread Man. I love this version retold by Mary Sandel from the Fountas and Pinnell intervention collection because it is predictable for making picture-supported sentences and easy enough for my emerging readers to read the text. 

• My favorite Christmas books are:
• Clifford’s Christmas by Norman Bridwell
• The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell by Lucille Colandro
• In addition to using picture-supported sentence boards, I also have an old lady doll that I have students take turns feeding throughout the story. I just print an extra copy of the sentence board at a larger scale, laminate and cut out the pieces, and then pass them out to each of the students as the story starts. It is a great interactive activity and really builds joint attention and engagement during the read aloud! 

• My favorite Holiday Traditions books are:
• Kevin’s Kwanzaa by Lisa Bullard
• The Night Before Hanukkah by Natasha Wing

Math Ideas

• One of my favorite math activity for the holidays is a tree decorating craft incorporating money. I print out tree outlines on green cardstock. Next, I gather decorations for the students to glue on their trees. Then, I give each student a buying menu so that they can purchase the decorations they want. I differentiated this activity three ways by having one buying menu with coin icons for matching the coin to the picture to make the purchase, another option with prices to work on single coin values, and finally an option with prices in multiples of 5 so students can count out nickels or easily use TouchMoney. 

Cooking & Craft Ideas

• I love making special gifts with my students for their families. We always have so much fun creating, wrapping, and sending special cards home. This Santa handprint mason jar is one of my favorites!

• When celebrating Christmas, we love making Christmas Cookies. Some years I make them from scratch with the kids and other years when we are feeling rushed for time I will get the pre-cut cookies so we can focus on the best part... DECORATING!

• When celebrating Holiday Traditions like Kwanzaa and Hannukkah, we make sweet potato pie and marshmallow dreidels. 

• For all of my favorite classroom visual recipes check out my Visual Recipes for the Whole Year on TPT. 

Social Group Ideas

• Each year we have a small celebration in my classroom where my paraprofessionals and I give gifts to the students and the kids have fun opening and playing with their new toys. Then we have treats, play games, and dance to some holiday music. Then, my students join their homeroom general education classrooms for their parties as well. 

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