Thursday, February 21, 2013

Morning Messages


 My students write a brief morning message every morning as they arrive.  It goes like this:  Good morning _____. Today is _____. Today we will _____ and ______.  Tomorrow - ___________.  Most of my students finish this within about 10 minutes and than they move on to their morning folders.  The other day searching around on Pinterest, I saw this cute idea of kids writing with paint and a Qtip.  So yesterday morning before the kids arrived, I set them up with the materials they would need to try this.  They really did love it.  It took such huge concentration and they were sooooo quiet, lol.  I guess it's good to change things up every once in awhile.  Might have to think of some other new ideas!

Monday, February 18, 2013

Grocery Shopping Scavenger Hunt

Every Tuesday my class goes on a community outing.  Tomorrow we are heading to the grocery store!  I try to come up with some sort of activity for the students to do while we are at our outings.  We will have a whole hour at the store,  and I don't want anybody getting bored! The kids will be in groups of 3 with an aide or me.  Each group will have this worksheet on their clipboard ready to write down the price and to see if it is on sale.  I cheated a little and checked out the sales ad before making the worksheet. I know that about half of these items are going to be on sale tomorrow when we go.  This worksheet is very basic, but I think it will be fun for them to find the items on their own.
FREE --->  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Grocery-Scavenger-Hunt

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Social Skills - Friends

Here are some social skills worksheets I put together for my class.  These are some of the issues we deal with on a daily basis.  I bought some cute social skills books that I read prior to writing each lesson.  "My Mouth is a Volcano"  "How to be a Friend" and "How to lose all your Friends".  To be honest, I had a particular student in mind when I bought each one of these books (you do not need the books to use the worksheets). I wrote the worksheets to represent some of their actual issues.  I have more books on the way "I Want to do it My Way", "The Bad Case of Tattle Tongue" and "Sorry I Forgot to Ask".  Check back for worksheets soon!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Friends-Social-Skills-Worksheets

Monday, February 11, 2013

Money Skills


 I do money skills weekly in my classroom. My students can so easily be taken advantage of when it comes to making purchases.  Here is an 18 page packet that starts very basic with counting pennies.  I have included pages on counting change and dollar bills.  There are also three pages on making purchases using the dollar up method. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Life-Skills-Money

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

School Lockdown Book

Here is a small 7 page information booklet on school lockdowns.  My class will have their first practice lockdown on Friday.  We have talked a little each day about the practice drill.  I plan to do the booklets with them on Friday morning before the drill.  I tried not to make the book "scary".  I hope this will be useful in your classroom too.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Menu Math Mexican Style

On a roll today getting ready for the big sale tomorrow on TPT! Everything in my store will be 20 percent off!  TPT will be adding an additional percentage off if you use the code SUPER! Here is another addition to my Menu Math unit your class might enjoy.  I do menu math at least twice a month in our morning folders and the kids love them.  I laminate the menus so I can use them over and over again.  Happy shopping tomorrow!!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Taco-Restaurant-Menu-Math

A Visit to the Dr. & Dentist

Here is a little look at my classrooms afternoon schedule. I teach an afternoon class each day from 1 - 1:30.  Here is the schedule I follow most weeks.

Monday - Social Skills
Tuesday - Computer Lab
Wednesday - Life Skills
Thursday - $ Skills
Friday - Fun Work

I am still in the process of putting together a full years worth of curriculum!  This is my 3rd year working in the program I am in and I really hope by the end of this summer to have everything in order and ready to go for future years.  My fingers are crossed!  Here is a couple worksheets I put together this week to go in my life skills folder.  Fortunately I am a talker and can make any one page worksheet last at least a half hour.  I love getting the kids involved in in the curriculum.  They love telling stories and they love role play.  Again, they are mostly non readers, so I use these worksheets more as a guideline.  I do have them copy from the board, the answers.  Hope you can use this.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Visiting-the-Doctor-and-Dentist

Thanks!