Community Helpers Unit

Candlelit (led candle)
restaurant with waiter and
customer play scripts. 

Fire engine: made with red tri-fold display
board and a large cardboard box.

Community Helpers hats and coats

Doctor's/Vet's Office: X-rays from
an animal book, vision chart, play script,
telephone, and play medical instruments.

We began the unit with a puppet show for the kids! I made sure to include several community helpers in the script (see below), but no more than two characters were needed at once, so myself and one of the Educational Assistants performed the show together. I also created a slide show with backgrounds that went with each scene and asked students to play different parts of the script. Kids took turns coming up to the board, acting and saying their lines.

Puppet Show Script:

Built-in Literacy Opportunities

Sentence Strips: Students are able to easily manipulate these sentences by moving the words and pictures around. They enjoyed practicing reading using a pointer. The strip chart was conveniently located in play area where kids feel most comfortable.

WH- Questions Flip Chart: I assigned different students to the Read with Teacher area where we practiced answering Who, What, and Where questions. For example: Who fights fires? What vehicle do policemen drive? and Where do  teachers work? etc. 

Word Wall: We tried to include photos of community helpers of different genders and ethnicities (except for the teacher, I used my photo for that one) 

Writing: Students used pretend registration sheets at the doctor's/vet office, they wrote patient names, their symptoms and other information. I modeled writing during circle and made sure to remind students that writing can look like squiggling or random letters, and not everyone is able to write like a "big kid. 

Lakes and Ponds Unit

Here in beautiful Western Washington, we are surrounded by a lot of wetlands and the wildlife that resides there. This is why we (myself and the other teacher, AKA my partner in crime) decided to teach a unit that focuses specifically on ponds and lakes. 

Each of the four weeks of the unit was dedicated to a different animal. These included frog, duck, turtle and beaver. We read different books about these animals and ponds, created crafts which represent them, and sang songs about ponds. Plants like lily pads and cattails were also discussed.  As part of the unit, we visited a local lake park where students participated in a scavenger hunt. We had some real life cattail plants and lily pads for students to look at and feel. 

Literacy for the Unit

Writing Center: pond word tracing,
frog to lily pad tracing and cutting, frog and turtle coloring. 

Circle: Word Wall

Play Area: Students have the opportunity
to practice sight words during free play .

1-to-1 word correspondence: Students learn that
each spoken words corresponds to a written word.
Kids also practiced listening for beginning
sounds in order to figure out which sentence
 each animal went with.

Creating opportunities for social interaction

Mix puzzle pieces from 2-3 puzzles in one container.
Prompt students to say: "here you go" as they hand
 the "wrong" puzzle pieces to their friends.

The majority of students on my caseload have significant delays in social skills. Which means that a big part of the school day is spend on teaching age-appropriate social interaction. Depending on the child's current level of social skills, I use different strategies to help him or her. For example, some students with autism first need to be taught to "notice" their peers. The point of the activities below is to help students understand that they need their peers in order to complete the activity or play the game. Some of these activities include:
- puzzle or matching game
Take all of the puzzle pieces out of the puzzle or game and give it to one of the students.
Give the puzzle pieces or matching game pieces to the other student. The first student is then prompted to ask for the pieces for his puzzle or game in order to completed. Having a written script often helps, for example: "David, can I have the square please?" The second student is required to pay attention and hand the correct piece to his peer.

Plastic egg surprise

- puzzle mix-up
Mix puzzle pieces from 2 different puzzles (ex: shapes puzzle and colors puzzle) in one container. Prompt students to say: "Here you go" or "Here is your piece" as they hand the puzzle pieces from the other puzzle to their friends.
- plastic egg surprise
Hide small toys or stickers in plastic "Easter" eggs and put them into a sack or a box. Have students take turns drawing eggs out of the container and open them to see the surprise hidden inside. Prompt students to show their surprise to their peer: "Look!" (written scripts help). Then prompt the peer to make a comment about the surprise: "Wow!" or "Cool!"
- bingo
One of the students gets to call out the cards (numbers, colors, or letters depending on the type of the bingo game) and the other student get the bingo card. Prompt students to play the game cooperatively.
- dramatic play toys (create sets of toys by setting the toys into two separate containers)

Garage playset with a visual play script

Student can play doctor or vet together. One of the kids could have the box with all of the medical instruments, while the other has the "patients". Restaurant, store, cars, and many other pretend play games can be played in this manner. It is helpful to have play scripts available for these activities. Many of my high-functioning students with autism are more inclined to play pretend games with peers when they have visual step-by-step directions available to them.
-Bear Buddies
Research shows that children are more likely to interact and play cooperatively when they play in close proximity to one another. In order to encourage more cooperative play in my classroom, I created an activity called Bear Buddies. I made many pairs of necklaces shaped like bears (laminated construction paper and yarn) in different colors. Students who are assigned the same color are required to: stay together, play together, and talk together. Depending on the number of students in the class, I sometimes assign a particular activity or play area to individual pairs of students. For example, Johnny and Rosie have to play in the kitchen, while Sammy and Becky have to complete a puzzle together.

For more ideas please refer to Tasks Galore Let's Play!

Gingerbread Man Unit

The Gingerbread Man unit was one of the my favorite ones to teach! There are so many ideas and materials which can be printed or used as inspiration. First, I wanted to create the Gingerbread Man atmosphere in the classroom, so I made the bulletin board for the play area:

You can see the Gingerbread Man doll I sewed for the kids to play pretend with. On the left side of the bulletin board are recipe cards for making gingerbread cookies. My students really enjoyed baking them pretend in the play kitchen. 

Story sequencing skills were a major focus of this unit. We practiced retelling the Gingerbread story at circle time using visuals and puppets, in small groups using the WH-question flip book, and during unstructured play time using puppets and pretend play.  At the end of the unit, students completed a sequencing project which required them to cut out sequencing cards, glue them in order of occurrence and color them.

Another activity which students enjoyed tremendously was the Where is Gingerbread Man? Power Point. I put this together by taking photos of my classroom and pasting a clip-art image of the Gingerbread Man in different locations throughout the classroom. This served as an opportunity to practice prepositions! Everyone's favorite slide was the silliest one of the Gingerbread Man on the potty  :-)

Data, data, data, I cannot make bricks without clay

It's progress report time again! How do you take data?

Sometimes it seems that there are nearly as many ways to take data as there are teachers. I have settled on a system that works for me. Each area of my classroom has data collection sheets on clipboards with my students' goals and objectives listed on them. I like to organize the goals by activity, so if a student has social/emotional goals like conflict resolution skills, data is most likely to be collected during leisure/recess time, not during daily living activities (there are always exceptions to the rule however). This system allows me to take data on any student during a particular activity.
When a student completes the task exactly as it is written in the objective, we mark it with a plus, if not then with a minus. My EAs understand that when the objective requires students to complete the task independently, it means that he or she must perform the task without any prompts (initial cues don't count as prompts). When prompts are used, we record it by writing a G for gestural prompt, V for verbal prompt, P for partial physical, and F for full physical prompt. This detailed data helps me assess student progress and adjust the program.

Some teachers create individual data sheets for each student and take data on 2-3 individual students per day. I find that my system works for me because there are less papers to keep track of and manage and none of the students get "forgotten". What works for you?

Finished early? You can....

 Every classroom has students who finish their work early, and ECE is not an exception! This is something I posted in an area of my classroom specifically for a student who often finished tasks early.

We practiced these yoga poses during circle time. Kids who maintain a quiet body, thinking brain, looking eyes, and a kind heart (see post on Whole Body Listening) throughout circle time got to pick out three yoga poses, which we did as a class. The kids definitely had their favorites including butterfly and airplane poses :-)

Whole Body Listening stategies

Last year my district sent me and other Early Childhood Education teachers to the Social Thinking Conference. It was a great experience, I learned a lot and acquired some goodies! One of them was this Whole Body Listening poster. It is posted in my classroom and I often refer to it in order to remind students of behavior expectation at circle.
We go over all of the "body parts" during the first weeks of school and talk about what it looks like to have "looking eyes" or "thinking brain". Since many of my students struggle with receptive communication skills, I try to use as many visuals as possible. We look at photos of people and talk about their body position, their gaze, etc. We also play a game where I look at something or someone and ask the kids to tell me who or what I am "thinking" about.

At the end of circle time, I ask one of my Educational Assistants to tell me who they think demonstrated best whole body listening skills. As a reward the child gets to pick out a song, or depending on the month, yoga poses, or animal moves which we do as a group.I got this idea from one of the Tasks Galore books.

Song menu

Morning greeting activities

How do you start your circle time routine?
I have used "get-to-know-me" songs like: "My name is Ms. Dina, Ms. Dina, Ms. Dina, my name is Ms. Dina, and who are you?"
Last year, students had laminated cards with their photos (with Velcro on the back) on their seats when they came to circle and when they saw their name displayed, they would come up and stick their name under it.
During the snowman unit, I had each student draw a part of the snowman as I called their names.
This year, I have been using Questions of the Day as a greeting activity. Kids "vote" for the answer using their name cards.

Visual Schedules

Do you use visual schedules in your classroom?
I must admit, when I first began teaching I found teaching visual schedules to my students a very daunting task. Then, my mentor demonstrated teaching one of my students how to use his picture schedule by making it into a game. Ever since then, I've been hooked! I have found that some students, especially those who demonstrate behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorders, truly benefit from having access to a personal visual schedule. Knowing what comes next seems to reduce anxiety in students, and helps communicate your expectations using visuals as opposed to strictly verbal prompts. Depending on the individual needs of particular students, I create picture, photo or object schedules for them to use. Some students do well with more detail and task analysis than others, so instead of simply having a SNACK symbol on their schedule, they might have a sink (for washing hands), lunchbox, and clean-up symbols. I have also seen task analysis pictures positioned perpendicularly to the vertical schedule.

Visit my Pinterest board for more ideas.

Right now the majority of the visual schedules used in my room are attached to a classroom divider board:

Left to right: object schedule, two picture (Boardmaker symbol) schedules, and photo schedule.

This year I had one student who became fixated on his visual schedule and insisted on moving the pictures around while constantly reciting all of activities in sequence. It became a real issue, so instead of a schedule which he could manipulate, I created one which ONLY teacher could carry and touch. However, in this case it was much more than a schedule, it also became a data and reinforcement system. It was meant to address this student's behavior needs, so each of the picture also has expectations listed next to it. If student does 3 out of 4 things which are expected during each activity, he gets a penny on his penny board. When he earns 5 pennies, he gets whatever he is working for which can be a preferred activity, small snack, or sticker. I have found that this system has worked like magic for this particular child! His behavior improved dramatically and while initially I needed to constantly remind him of the expectations and review them after each activity, after about a month and a half, he began to do what was expected on his own.

Writing Centers

Each session of preschool (AM and PM) in my district are two and a half hours long, which makes it difficult for literacy instruction to take place on daily basis. However, during one of the district literacy training sessions with Vicki Rothstein this year a Four Blocks Approach to literacy was discussed and, despite having heard of it in the past, I was suddenly inspired to create literacy centers in my classroom incorporating all of the "blocks".

My centers include: Reading to self or Quiet Reading, Writing Center, Read with Teacher (I often use adapted book or activities with students at this center), and Phonemic Awareness activities including beginning sounds games, rhyming, syllable counting practice, etc. (on the rug). I taught my students to check which center they are assigned to by looking at this visual board:

Student names are written on clothing pins and their photos are attached with Velcro. AM session student names are on one side of the pin and PM session names are on the other.

Writing Center has a miniature word wall, unit related writing prompts or ideas, step-by-step directions (some of my students absolutely adore these!), and a little drawer box with labeled writing supplies.

I got the idea of organizing the centers visually from Developing Literacy in Preschool (Tools for Teaching Literacy) by Lesley Mandel Morrow. 

Have you found good strategies to teach literacy to ECE students? Please share!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears Unit

February has been so much fun! We are focusing on Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. Our district requires that we collect AEPS data on all our students at least once per year and has recently adopted the AEPSi (online scoring and data system). So I try to incorporate some of the key skills from the test into my monthly units. Goldilocks unit seemed like the perfect way to practice sequencing and especially WH- questions with the kids. I have been using the WH- question book to help my students practice answering questions.http://youtu.be/aTWY5TZuBnI

 

I got the template from Boardmakershare.com, here is a video of a teacher using the book:

Here are a couple of other activities I created for this unit:

Tracing pages

Goldilocks and the Three Bears color book
(Parent volunteers underline color words using color pencils)
I try to make a couple of little sight word readers like this for every unit. Students learn various skills with the help of these including word-to-word correspondence, sight words, reading left to right, and many more. In addition, it helps students who are learning to communicate  practice using more words in every utterance.

WORD WALLS! I create one for every unit that I teach. Below is the small version of the Goldilocks unit word wall which is meant for the writing center. Word wall has many uses in my classroom. We usually go over the vocabulary words at the beginning of the unit and often go back to review. We also sort the words by beginning sounds and number of syllables.

My new blog

Hello everyone,

I am an Early Childhood Special Education teacher at a preschool in Issaquah, Washington. I have been teaching for two years now and I love my job! My mentor recently suggested that I start blogging in order to share and exchange ideas about teaching young children with special needs. I am looking forward to connecting with other professionals in my field! :-)