Thankful for SPED Teachers - FREEBIE & Blog Hop

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for reading! In case you're new here, I teach high school special education to a multi-needs, low incidence population. My students' ability levels would fall in the preschool to second grade range, but they are freshman through age 22. We focus a lot on functional, life skills which can sometimes be hard to find material for, so I create a lot myself and share both those and resources I discover on this blog and on my TpT store.


I don't know about you, but it's been snowing here in Illinois the last couple of weeks...so I decided to make my simple adapted book, "It's Snowing! What do I wear?" free during this blog hop for you all in order to say THANKS! I love this book because it has repetitive language, which A) is great to put on a big mac switch for non-verbal students to read and B) easy for my emerging readers to catch on and be successful reading. Also, it comes with symbol support to help our emerging readers. Plus, it works on the life skill of knowing what you need to wear when it is snowing outside! (This freebie was only available during the hop, click the picture below to get it from my TpT store.)

Pssst, if you want more forever freebies, be sure to also check out my latest post about grocery shopping!

Anyway, I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and are out enjoying all the sales this weekend!!! The sale fun continues Monday and Tuesday in my TpT store where all of my products (including my bundles) will be discounted 20% plus you can get an additional 10% off with the coupon code provided by TpT. :) I've been filling my cart up already and can't wait to check out on Monday with all my new goodies!


Thanks for stopping by! Before you leave, be sure to follow me on Facebook for even more tips, tricks, and sales throughout the year. For more freebies and tips, continue the trip through the blog hop by checking out Autism Classroom News...just click the button below.
Autism Classroom News
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Grocery Shopping in the Classroom

Sometimes you have to practice grocery shopping without going to the store. Our official grocery store community trip won't be until January, but we will be practicing our grocery shopping skills, specifically shopping from a list, all year long!
One way we do this is through a simulated grocery shopping experiences. 

Bookshelf Grocery Store: I created a mini shopping experience on a bookshelf. We have a variety of empty food boxes and containers. My first thought was to make mini departments and have a "refrigerated' section...but I haven't had time to be that awesome yet. :)
I created two levels of shopping lists, one including pictures and the other with only words. Each list has 3-4 items on it. I taped a folder with the directions written on it and each level goes in one of the two pockets. 

Students will take a shopping bag, fill it up with items on their list, and then put the list in the bag and move to the next one. I have students complete it this way so that we can check to see if they got the correct items. If you can find the same items I used, feel free to download the lists I created for free.

Work Task Shopping Lists: Another way we practice this is during our work task boxes. This is very similar to the grocery shopping set up, just on a much smaller scale. Student look at a shopping list and fill the bag with those items. I have shopping lists with pictures or with words, ranging from 3 to 5 items. This task is available to download at my TpT store.

Online Tutorials: I've talked about how much I love the GFCLearnFree website before. Seriously, if you are looking for functional life skills, you will find an interactive tutorial in their Everyday Life section! The grocery list tutorial goes over finding the right aisle and then finding those items on your list. Did I mention its interactive? Awesome! :)

Grocery Store File Folders: And then there's my grocery store file folders that I've talked about in detail here. There are a total of 10 file folders, 2 which specifically deal with shopping from a list and the other cover a variety of grocery store topics.

Grocery Store Field Trip Prep: I created this grocery store community unit that is packed full of materials including Bingo games, social stories, vocabulary, coloring pages, worksheets, and more! We will start using that unit the month of our grocery store trip.


Honestly, I didn't realize I had so many grocery shopping resources when I started to type this post! What other things do you do to prepare your students for grocery shopping? I'd love to hear about them!
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3 Ways to Adapt Keyboards to Promote Typing Skills

I have quite a few alpha smart keyboards in my room and have personalized them for a few of my students in order to improve their emerging typing skills.

One finger peckers
How many of you have one-finger peckers when it comes to typing? It can be frustrating because I know go some they could be so much faster!

I cut apart some circle stickers so they would fit on keys and stuck them on the keyboard to distinguish between the right and left hand. Hopefully this will help promote my one finger peckers to at least two finger peckers! :)

Emerging Letter Recognition 
Last year I used four colors to help a student narrow down where to find the keys (very beginning typing/letter recognition skills). So I would say "find E purple E" to help him focus on a smaller area.

Little/No Letter Recoginition - Name
I also have another keyboard where I have highlighted the four letters in that students name so he can type his name. He can find the first letter of his name and I hope he get used to the sequence of the rest of it. We still have to work on putting them in order but it's a start!!!

Do you do anything similar? How are your students at keyboarding?
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November Currently

Happy November! I know we're all thinking it, but seriously, how is it already November?! Link up with this month's currently over at Oh Boy Fourth Grade!

Listening: Seriously, I am so sick of political commercials! So much negativity, it can really get you down! Sometimes I catch myself thinking, why even vote, if it's just one evil over another. But I will be out at the polls tomorrow! However, I feel like I need to do a little bit of research. I know who I want to vote for for governor, but there are so many other people...sigh. And then I think it doesn't really matter.

Loving: We got hardly any treat-or-treaters due to the nasty weather so I'm enjoying their candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Oh, and for snacks too :)

Thinking: See above in "listening"

Wanting: I'm at a point in the year when I am exhausted and just feel like I can't do anything. And everything's so difficult and nothing is going the way I want it to go. And my first IEP is coming up in 3 weeks. It was a nice break not having those for a while... Ugh. I'll get over it soon enough but I just want things to get easier again!!

Needing: See above to know why I need some energy and motivation! :)

Reading: I'm doing this book "One in a Million" by Priscilla Shirer with my Bible Study girls. I enjoy it, but would love to be reading a book just for fun!
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