How to Lesson Plan Without a Teacher's Manual

In an ideal world, all teachers would start the school year with all of the supplies they need. This is not Utopia though, this is the real world! Thanks to a little debacle with the publishing company, my teachers manual to the completely new and different version of our math book didn't arrive. It's coming next week (theoretically), but I have plans to do for THIS week. That leaves the big question, how do I do that?!

This is definitely not the 1st (or even the 2nd!) time this has happened to me in the last 8 school years! I've learned some great tricks to this little problem!

Option 1:
Plan your lessons based on the student edition. This was my original plan, but then there was a bit of a snafu. There are 2 volumes of the student book and the ONLY difference in a teeny tiny "1" or "2" in the bottom corner of the book. Silly me grabbed the "2" on my way out the door. So this student copy was of no use to me.

Option 2:
Get an online copy of the book! Many books allow teachers full online access to the curriculum manuals and student editions online! Now for some programs this is a "paid only" option that may not have been purchased by your school/district. SSSSHHHH! I HAVE A SECRET....There is a trick around this problem!

Look up the website used to purchase the curriculum and then find the link for a "virtual sample." Most publishing companies let you enter your school email, the school name, and the address/zip code, and then you get instant access to at least some of the curriculum! Lucky for me, my curriculum gave me access to see everything for 120 days! I can't print from it or anything, but I can look at everything I need to write up my lesson plans! Also, I've learned sometimes you find online materials that correspond to your curriculum that you never even knew about.

My math book starts with decomposing numbers, so I think I may go make a fun little activity to go with this! The curriculum has a boring one, so I figure I can make a cute version and use the same vocabulary when I teach it. I already have a great idea for how to do this! Now to determine if I'm motivated enough to draw the clip art to go with it, or just be lazy and use some of the adorable stuff out there!

We're off to a great start!

Have I mentioned how much I'm LOVING my new school?! My teammate and I have jumped right in together and it's going great. I feel like we compliment each other really well. It's like we already have this cohesive mesh where we don't even have to talk about who is going to do what, we just seem to know what needs to be done and do it while helping each other out in the process. She is full of energy and I feed off of it. It's so much fun in our room!

We take turns teaching lessons and playing interventionist for the kids with the behavioral and academic struggles. It takes sooo much of the stress off of the way I was used to teaching for the last couple of years. Plus we have a super sweet ABA therapist who is with us too. I'm so used to doing it all on my own that it's crazy having so much help all the time! It's amazing!

I'm loving our kids too! They are so quirky in their own little way. I really like that my co-teacher worked with most of them last year because the kids are being very much themselves instead of doing that shy, reserved thing kids do that first week while they figure out what is going on. I can see who struggles in different areas and I've started planning interventions and implementing them with my co-teacher. It's working out well that we completely agree on what the kids needs and are willing to jump right in and start working on these things now before they become a bigger challenge later.

We're off to a great start and now I'm off to bed! It's been a busy week. Sorry there isn't much to take pictures of this week because it's mainly been review activities and centers. Hopefully we'll have something new and exciting for you to see next week!

Identifying Student Needs and Causes of Behaviors

With a new class and a new school, I find myself jumping in and hitting the ground running. I want to know "what's the deal with this kid?" for pretty much every kid in my class. I have 10 kids this year with various disabilities. They each have their quirks, but there is an important question to ask. WHY??

This can be answered with the following questions:
What is causing certain behaviors? 
What is the purpose of the behavior?
What happens if I push their limits?
How can I help them?

So some teacher love the "honeymoon period" as the kids are extra sweet getting to know their new teachers. My partner and I have a different philosophy. We push their limits from the get go! We want to see what happens when we push their buttons during this calm 1st week of summer school before we jump into the more challenging academics next week. This way we can create a plan and start working on interventions immediately!

A Few Examples!

Asking for help

"Miss Parnello, Can you help me spell ____?" My answer, "Nope! You're smarter than you think you are. I won't help you until you try!" (this is a phrase I use A LOT in SPED thanks to far too much learned helplessness!). Now why didn't I just help him? I looked at his paper, I saw he hadn't written a single letter, and I determined he just didn't think he could do it! The purpose of the behavior was to avoid the challenge of doing it on his own because of a lack of confidence. The outcome: he spelled all but one letter of the word correctly! Plus, we chatted when he finished the word and I asked him why I didn't help. His response, "I'm smart and I can do it myself." Look, he just gained some confidence! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Making Noise

Yesterday a kiddo kept making noises and silly faces excessively. I was stuck trying to decide if it was "stimming" or attention seeking, although I was pretty convinced it was negative attention seeking. None of our negative consequences seemed to help at all. Nor did praise for stopping the behaviors. How did I figure out a motivator? I took his paper from our morning writing prompt that said "I love to ___" and the kids said the things they liked. I discovered an iPhone/iPad game that he loved and was school appropriate. Today he had a chart of 10 images from the game taped on his desk (thanks to my awesome partner!). He got an "X" on one image every time he did a negative behavior. By the end of the day he still had 9 pictures and earned 9 minutes of his game. What did we learn? He can control the behaviors, but needs an appropriate motivator. Also, I have gum as a backup plan in case it really is a sensory need and he needs to fulfill! Today he had a GREAT day!

Off Topic Conversations

A kid asks questions about things from 5 minutes ago...repeatedly throughout the day. Plus he is constantly distracted while you are talking to him, and keeps turning around a lot to see what is happening around him. What's the problem? This is something newbie teachers would just get annoyed by and think the kid was being difficult. After a bit more experience, you learn this is a sign of a sensory processing disorder! NONE of these behaviors are in his control! How can you help? Sound reducing headphones for things he doesn't need to listen to, and a speaker with a microphone on the teacher for when he does need to listen. Complications: kids who don't like headphones, and speakers that can be very distraction for other students who are bothered by sound. I know, it's not an easy solution, but you can see the behaviors have a cause. 

Impulsive & Physical Behaviors

Kid is constantly calling out, grabs others when he needs/wants something and gets overly emotional to minor problems. The cause? Impulse control and inability to self-regulate! He can't help himself! The solution? Teach him how to catch himself! Teach him how to find that moment where he is about to lose it and what to do to stop it! How? Push the limits! We made our little guy lose on purpose when we know this is a HUGE trigger. I saw him get upset and start to get mad and cry and I gave him minimal prompts. I simply said, "This is a game for fun. It doesn't matter who wins or loses. Right now your goal is to figure out how to turn your mood around and figure out how to calm down" and I walked away. The outcome? He cried for about 30 seconds, said "good game" to the other team, and moved on. SUCCESS!! We praised him like CRAZY!!! We made him feel like a million bucks so he knows how great it feels to turn those emotions positive instead of blowing up!. We know he won't always react like this, but it's a start! We know what kind of prompts he needs to be successful.

Off Task
A couple years ago I had a kid who was always off task during writing despite his reading and spelling abilities. It was driving me crazy prompting him to get back to work all the time! Finally I had enough and asked why he wouldn't ever finish his work even when he knew what to do and how to do it. His response, "It makes my hand hurt! My hand gets so tired trying to write on the lines." It turns out because of his fine motor delays he got physically fatigued long before he was mentally tired of the assignment. The solution: He was allowed to type his writing assignments whenever possible. He instantly started writing stories that were twice as long as they were before!

Always remember: KIDS ALWAYS DO THINGS FOR A REASON! The trick is to find out what it is and how to fix it! Sometimes it's a really simple solution!

A Great First Day!

I can't imagine today going better! My partner and I had very little time together to plan for today thanks to me getting sick and her leaving the country on a family trip during planning week. She did a bunch during her days of planning week, then I did a lot of work prepping the room when she was gone. We totally meshed as we were teaching together today! Without much discussion we were able to ebb and flow in our teaching. Not one talking over the other. We were really a team. It was perfect! We both have such a great feeling about this year!

We have some quirky kids in our group, but they responded really well to us! One kiddo I was warned could have terrible days, but I made a huge point of setting limits as well as making a personal connection with him. And it worked! He had a great day!

Case and point...these sparkle crayons. Yep that was my connection! My moment where I got him to really connect. How? I GAVE HIM A PAPERCLIP! Yep, that's it.

I was given a set of rainbow paperclips as a small part of my present from the Head of School for the first day of school. My little kiddo saw them, came up with a great idea of how he could use one green paperclip for part of a project at home. Suddenly I had a reward! I told him if he kept it together and made good choices, he could have one of my green paperclips. He worked very hard for it! Someone even stomped on his hand (by accident while doing a puzzle on the floor) and he didn't freak out! Yay!

So I gave the paperclip to him when it was time to go home. He was THRILLED! In return he gave me a big hug and gave me 2 of his sparkle crayons that were in his special pencil case. So cute! They are of course saved in my desk in case he misses them tomorrow. The gesture was just so great! It's the connection I needed to make sure we get him off to a great start and fix his struggles we know he has.

Connections are your best tool in making your tough kids love you and not be so tough!

Our sweet little present included more than paperclips! My favorite part... I already have a chocolate stash in my desk thanks to her! Oh and other things: a notepad, sharpie, nice writing pen, pencil, and tic-tacs. All the silly little things teachers love.

PS- This is my new social skill curriculum that arrived today! Have any of you used it?

It's the first day of school tomorrow!

Yep, you read that right...school starts in 13 hours!! I will soon be meeting my brand new class at my brand new school! For those of you who are new, I'm teaching at a school with extended school year for all students. The kids go to school for all of July before a 3 week break in August.

This is the my 8th "First Day of School" as a teacher! I can't believe how fast time has flown by! I can't believe how far I've come in my career! I started in Phoenix, Arizona 8 years ago with the most amazing mentor teachers in the world! One of which is a large part of why I switched from general to special education 4 years ago.

I have learned sooo much since I started teaching. I remember my first year read A LOT of story books because I was terrible at judging how long activities would take and I would end up with an extra 10 minutes to fill here and there. Then of course I went the opposite direction as the years went on and somehow there is never enough time in the day to get every little morsel of information into their heads that I want to!

Today I posted a great list of tips for first year special education teachers over on A Special Sparkle. Be sure to check it out my clicking the image below!

Sorry to for such a short post but I have something VERY important to do... GO PICK MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL OUTFIT! Did I mention that I still go "back to school clothes shopping" every year??? You should see my house right now! It's an explosion of freshly washed, brand new school clothes!

Oh, and I should probably re-paint my nails. They are currently bright blue thanks to my festive 4th of July theme I was going for last week. Time for a respectable color as I meet parents for the first time!

5 Days until School Starts! 4th of July Sale!!

Happy 4th of July!! It's hard to believe it's the 4th of July and the first day of school at my new job is MONDAY!! EEK!! I'm super excited to meet the rest of the kiddos (I met 2 last week)!! I also can't wait to show my teaching partner what I did to the room! She was on a family trip out of the country, so that left the whole room design and organization up to me. I emailed her pics of our monster themed classroom, but it's just not the same as seeing it in person!

I'm secretly LOVING tutoring one of my kiddos from my old school! I swear, I don't even need the cash (although it's nice), I just really like working with him! We have a happy little routine. In fact, it's working so well that we get about 4 pages of work done in an hour, even when I made it harder! Truth is, we have a deal... we get to read a book together! Yep, that's it...the whole deal. If he works hard, we get to pick any book in the children's section of the city library and I read it to him while we sit on adorable puzzle piece shaped couches. He loves it and so do I! Plus I give him the tiniest of fruit snacks (the healthy kind) when he finishes a page. I mean these things are smaller than an M&M and he thinks they're amazing. I do too actually, they're delicious!

The puzzle couch is made of these. Aren't they COOL?!

Today I was wondering around Target and honestly got downright GIDDY when I saw the worker bees setting up the Back to School section!! I know it's my 8th school year as a teacher, you'd think I'd stop getting excited, but I still do! I LOVE brand new crayons! I love the look of a freshly decorated classroom before the kids have had a chance to fiddle with things and make them look less than perfect. I love seeing the kids excited to walk into their new room!

Here's my "To Do List" before Monday:

• Make the kids name tags for our behavior chart (with monster clip art of course!)
• Laminate and cut out the monster heads that will go above their displayed work...eventually
• Decide on the next couple boxes that get the pleasure of leaving the hallway of my house for their new home in my classroom
• Figure out which box has my ocean theme unit binder so we can start our first theme unit for the year. I figure if we have to be at school instead of the beach, we should at least be able to think about the beach and the ocean!
• Dig up my Monster Goes to School lesson and behavior cards. Don't think I didn't notice how PERFECT this is since we have a monster theme classroom! Luckily coincidence!

It's Sale Time!!!

I just realized it's been....well too long...since I had a sale! July 4th-7th everything in my store will be 20% off. Go pick up those things you've wishlisted! Click the image to go directly to my TPT store :)

Special thanks to Tammy Farhit & Christy Button for the image!
 
Here is a peek at a couple of my newest creations! Don't forget, you can always email me if you have a clip art request! teacherlisasclass@gmail.com

I'm at A Special Sparkle Today!

 Hey! I wrote a great post about easy accommodations to implement in the general education classroom. You can find it over at A Special Sparkle!