Switch Painting

Here is one of my students using a toy car to do some painting.  This is one of my favorite ways to paint with my switch users, as it creates a great cause/effect activity and makes some really neat artwork.  This car was purchased last year at Target, and you have to push down the back of the car to get it to run.  I adapted it with a battery interrupter, and taped the car top down with some black tape.  My student uses a toggle switch that we have mounted to a plastic picture frame (you can kind of see this in the picture), as this is the best way for him to access his switch.  The toggle switch is plugged into the switch interrupter.  When painting, we let my students pick out which type of paint they want using eye gaze, then we run the wheels of the car into a paper plate of paint.  We set it down on the paper, and let him go to town!   I love the effect of the painted tracks on paper.  We were actually painting this page as part of a turkey activity.  All of my students have been working in art on painting pages with a combination of red, orange, and yellow.  When we are finished, we will be cutting the full pages into feathers and attaching a turkey to the front.  We use many other paint methods, such as marble/ping pong ball painting, attaching paintbrushes to a switch activated cow, fingerpainting, etc., but I would definitely say this is one of the class favorites!

Math Curriculum

This is my first year teaching a pull-out math class, and I started the year just working on the student's IEP goals and very functional math: money, time, measurement.  This was going well, but after a month or two I started to feel like we were just working on the same things every week, and I wasn't actually teaching them new concepts or terms.  I started to look into some different math programs to see what was available.  I found a program I like at Ablenet, but it was way too expensive for my budget.  I found lots of different programs based around just money or just time, but we were already working on that and I wanted something that covered more concepts.  I came across a program from Attainment Company called Teaching to Standards: MATH.  This program caught my eye for a few reasons:
1.  I've gone to a training by one of the authors a few years ago (Diane Browder), and really liked her viewpoint of standards based instruction for students at a lower level.
2.  It teaches advanced concepts that other middle schoolers are learning (geometry, algebra, data analysis)
3.  It teaches using story problems with picture support (similar to News-2-You).
4.  It uses lifeskills based situations to teach complex skills.

I ordered the program and finally received it last week.  So far, it is a hit in my classroom.  My kids are currently learning about points, line segments, and planes by using a map of a grocery store, drawing points for each aisle we need to stop in, line segments to draw our route, and the entire route forms a plane.  My only complaint so far is that my math students like homework, so I'm having to create my own to send home every night because there is nothing that comes with the program I could send.

Is anyone else using a program for their math class, or are you just coming up with things from scratch?

Extension Activities

Have you checked out the News-2-You extension activities that are posted every week?  I feel that these are a hidden gem on some on the website.  In the past, they only posted activities once every few weeks, but lately they have been getting better about posting them weekly and right at the beginning of the week. 
Most of the activities are science labs, which is great for my class because we love to experiment! What I love about the science activites are the handouts that come with them.  My readers will read the hypothesis for the lab, and will then circle whether the hypothesis came true or not, make comments on the lab, etc.  My non-readers/writers will use eye gaze to look at a picture symbol for whether or not the hypothesis was true, and then will mark it using a bingo marker.  I urge you to check out these activities if you haven't yet; some of them are a lot of fun!

P.S. sorry for my absence lately, between school, lesson planning, and some commitees I'm on, I'm having trouble keeping up with my posts!  More to come soon!

News-2-You: College Mascots

The News-2-You topic for this week is college mascots, which is really fun for my class considering we live in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, home of The Ohio State University and Brutus Buckeye.  Here are the activities and plans we have for the week:

As we are big Buckeye fans in my room, we will be reading the book "Hello, Brutus!" By Aimee Aryal.    The company that makes this books has also made other mascot books, so keep an eye out for one about a team near you.

For cooking this week, we plan on making "Otto's Orange Freeze", which was included in the N2Y article, but we also plan on making buckeyes.  If you've never had buckeyes, before, they are a delicious chocolate and peanut butter confection that is especially popular in Ohio!  For the Orange Freeze drink, we plan on using a blender hooked up to our Powerlink Control Unit.  We also plan to use our switch-adapted pourer to pour ingredients into the blender.  In my class, we have added a new part to our weekly cooking group-- we complete the recipe review that is found in the worksheet section of N2Y.  I have some students who complete the recipe review and sense matrix using the worksheets, and for my other students I have created enlarged picture symbols with the choices like/don't like, yummy/yucky, and healthy/not healthy.  At the end of the activity, we go around the group and answer each question to survey how everyone liked the activity.

On Friday at the end of the day, we will be watching the movie Hatching Pete.  This is actually a very cute movie that premiered on the Disney Channel over the summer about a school mascot, and includes many popular disney stars from shows like Hannah Montana and Sonny with a Chance.  I've never been a big fan of watching movies in class, partially because I know when some of my students were in elementary school, they were wheeled up to a big screen tv with children's shows on it for long periods of time, which I feel is not very educational.  However, I've been giving my students weekly homework to read the N2Y with a family member (recorded on a switch for students who are non-verbal), and if they all do it we watch a movie on Friday during last period.  We don't usually get through the entire movie, but they look forward to it, it always ties to our topic (and are sometime more educational, like Bill Nye), and also gives my staff and I some planning time.

In our sensory bin, I plan on putting in items related to Ohio State, such as buckeye necklaces, foam toys, small foam fingers, etc.

This should be a fun week- I've been looking forward to this topic for a while!

Pictures of Organization...

At the request of a poster (Cathy), I am posting a few pictures of some of my classroom organization.  Now I wanted to pretty things up and make them look perfect before I took pictures, but considering my last post was about my lack of organization, I figured I should just take some pictures on a regular day without making things look pretty.  Since taking the pics, I have already started some new organization systems in my room, so I'll have to take more pictures soon.

This is a picture of the bookshelf in my room.  We used to just have large bins filled with books, and last year I worked on organizing them into themes for students to choose from.  I don't have tons of books as these are all books I've bought with my own money, but the categories include: fiction, seasons/weather, history, character fiction, science, school, animals, holidays, homemade books, and books on tape.  Right above the bookshelf is my wall mounted tv and vcr/dvd player, so the top of the bookshelf often serves as a holder for dvd games, movies, etc.

My smartboard is on my main wall, so this board is adjacent to it.  I usually have our topic and cooking activity posted for the week, as well as a book sitting on the board that relates to the topic and a switch recorded with the book on it (that day it was in use when I took the picture).  My math students fill in the calendar info during their class.

I used to have a lot more dry erase board space, but since my smartboard was mounted on top of it, this is the only space I have to post our schedule for the week.  On this schedule I usually post OT, PT, Vision, Speech, lunch club, field trips, assemblies, etc.

This is my set of cubbies for smaller items.  I need to reorganize and relabel them a little, but for the most part they make it pretty easy for anyone to walk in and find a glue stick, a switch, or batteries.  We usually keep our larger switch toys on top of it, but the day I took this pic it looks like a few things got piled up there.

This is our 'pantry'.  I have two cabinets above my kitchen area, but one of them holds all our meds because it is our only locked cabinet in the room.  The other one usually housed all our food, but it was too small and was always crammed with things.  So this year I added this bookshelf, which helps separate the kitchen area (the door to my classroom is right behind it), and gives us much more space to grow into.  The only problem I'm having is one student who likes to take food from the shelves, but it has turned into a positive situation of sorts: we are working on spontaneous communication, and he will just walk to the pantry and point to or touch what he wants.  We just keep doing what we are doing or prompt him with 'use your words' until he states what he wants.  And if he doesn't ask, he doesn't get anything.  This is really helping him increase his spontaneous requests, as food is a big motivator for him.

Side view of the pantry-- to the left is the kitchen, to the right is the door to my classroom.  This area is beginning to serve as a 'postings for staff' area.  This is the first year I've had a box to keep 'to do' items for staff, such as laminating, cutting, etc.  In the past I've just done it myself or asked someone to do it, but this year I've gone from two paras and myself in my room all day to 5 paras in and out of my room as well as myself in and out.  This is making my life a lot easier, and they know to look in it when they need something to do.  This wall also has a list of specific prompts for a student who has some inappropriate behavior, some student schedules, etc.  I'm working on organizing this area right now, so I think it will improve.  On the back of the bookshelf, I have made labels with each of my student's names, and below each name is a magnetic clipboard with their data sheets attached.  This is really convenient for staff to grab a student's data sheets while they are walking out the door.

My bathroom.  This is the changing table, and below each student has a fabric drawer that contains their personal care items.  Next to the table is a bookshelf which holds student's wipes containers, boxes of gloves, clorox wipes, lysol, paper towel rolls, and chux.

So this is a brief overview of the organization I do have going for me, but I've got a ways to go this year.  Thanks for those who posted their organization ideas-- I've already borrowed some of them!

P.S. did I mention that the coolest thing about my room (and building) is that all the walls are magnetic?  I just think that is the coolest thing, and especially convenient in my room where I'm always posting things everywhere!  My favorite are those heavy duty magnetic wreath holder hooks people use on their front door at Christmas; they are very strong and I have them hanging everywhere to hang bins, cords, bags, etc.

Organization!

I'll admit it...   I have a tough time staying organized in my classroom.  I love organization;  file systems, bins, shelves, little baskets.  I've bought them all.  But it seems that my classroom still lacks some organization.  Now don't get me wrong, my classroom does not look like a tornado went off; I think it looks pretty good compared to what I've seen in other classrooms.  I just feel like I have some things working against me, some of them particularly because of the population I teach, people I work with, or responsibilities I have, including the following:

• When my students leave at the end of the day, my parapros leave with them, and it feels like a whirlwind at the end of each day when I walk back into the classroom and see everything we used still sitting out, things left on the table that we should have packed up in the student's bags, staff items sitting out, etc.
• I don't have a great filing system.  I have now acquired two tall filing cabinets in my room, only to realize that neither of them have the built in holders on the side to actually hold the hanging files in place.  I've bought the adjustable metal frames before, and have them regularly break on me, so I currently only have them in two out of my 8 file drawers.
• Five out of my six students cannot clean up on their own.  One of those five would be able to but she is in a manual chair that she cannot control (can't reach breaks, can't move wheels), but we are working on her telling the peer or adult what she wants them to do when her things need to be put away.
• I have at least 6 adult staff in and out of my room throughout the day, and regardless of how neat they are or how much they clean, in the rush of our day things get left out regularly.
• I am not the most organized person!  At home or at school, I love to organize things, but I also tend to put on my 'blinders' at times and just not notice that huge pile of papers that has been sitting on my desk for a week.  

Now, in my defense, I do have some things going for me:

• I have a wooden shelf on wheels with 50 cubbies, where I keep small items.  I have bins for Step by steps, jelly bean switches, batteries, switch accessories, different types of tapes (duct, painters, etc.), sensory items, etc.
• I have a bookshelf with my books organized into colorful baskets labeled with themes like Sports, School, character fiction, holidays, etc.
• In our bathroom, each of my students has a fabric bin with all of their personal care items: diapers, chux, wipes, deodorant, brush, anything else they need.
• Each of my students also has a shelf in one of my built in cabinets that has items like a pillow, a blanket, full change of clothes, med supplies (but not meds) like Jevity, tubing.
• They also have a hook with their name on it for their coats and book bags on my wall.
• I've tried to institute a system of 'a place for everything, and everything in it's place' by telling staff when I am making a place for something, labeling everything I can, and encouraging students and staff to put items back where they first found them.

One area I'm still running into major problems is the piles on my desk.  I was motivated today, and bought a file holder from target that I plan to keep on my desk.  I was inspired by another teacher in my building, who I noticed had hanging files on her wall labeled with things like 'to copy', 'to file', 'to do today', etc.  I'm currently trying to come up with what to label these files I will keep at my desk, and I'm looking online for inspiration.

My question to you is:  what is your best organization tool for your room?  Is there anything that works like a charm to keep you organized, or do you struggle too?  I would love to hear some great ideas or suggestions you have, so please share your wisdom!

Alternate Assessment

What type of testing are you required to do with your students yearly?  In Ohio, my students have to do the Ohio Alternate Assessment for Students with Disabilities (AASWD).  Although AASWD paperwork is not due until around February/March, I've already started getting emails about timelines for the year, and looking at signing up for a training to find out changes for the assessment this year.  Our Alternate Assessment consists of the following:

• Students are to be assessed on academics in four categories, relating to the state standards for their grade level
• 6th grade: Reading: Literary Text, Reading: Acquisition of Vocabulary, Math: Number and Number Sense, and Math: Patterns, Functions, Algebra.
• 7th grade: Reading: Informational Text, Writing: Writing Applications, Math: Data Analysis and Probability, and Math: Measurment
• 8th grade: Reading: Reading Process, Math: Geometry and Spatial Sense, Science: Earth and Space Sciences, and Social Studies: History.
• Each category requires 2-3 pieces of evidence that the student can successfully meet that standard, and these can consist of captioned photos, work samples, data taken, observations written by teachers/related service providers, peer observations, interviews with parents, teachers.  There are a few other options, but these are the main ones that I use.
• Each piece of evidence must be paired with an entry sheet that contains all the information about that student, the standard, the tasks they will complete and how they relate to the standard, least restrictive environment, setting, peer interactions, and how they did on the task.  
• There is also an entry sheet for each standard category that you have to fill out, to state which tasks you chose to meet that standard.  

As anyone who works in this field knows, Alternate Assessments are A  LOT of paperwork, and cause a lot of complaining by teachers and staff (sometimes even students).  Just an email stating we need to start looking at the AASWD timeline can lead to groans and complaints, dreading all the work that is ahead.

I've always tried to have a different perspective and more positive view of Alternate Assessment.  Yes, it is a whole lot of work on the teachers part, and no I do not get compensated any extra for all the extra time and work that goes into these.  And I agree, it is a TON of paperwork and I tend to have a lot less patience around that time of the year.  However, I think it is still important that the state is holding these students to a standard, and expecting accountability from teachers.  If we weren't expected to do this, I don't know that all Special Ed. teachers I work with would make nearly the effort to align with state standards and get their students interacting in the regular classroom on these goals.  I try to look at it as even more opportunities for my students to interact with their peers and community members, more ways to get them involved with the typical curriculum, and a chance for them to show off what they can do!  I can't tell you how many times I've head a staff member from the office, or a person in the community say something like "wow, I wondered what kind of schoolwork these guys do, that's pretty cool" or "that's neat how John can use a switch to have a conversation with me".  It's another way to get these students out in their buildings, out in the community, and expose others to what these guys are working on.

With Alternate Assessment, you also choose which tasks are appropriate for your student.  I think the tasks suggested often give me new ideas of activities I can do with my students.  One document, that has always been a lifesaver for me in coming up with new ideas, is Linking students with the Most Significant Disabilities to Meaningful Standards-Based Tasks.  Even if you don't work in Ohio, I recommend checking this out.  It was written by Kathy Staugler, whose name you might recognize as she has played a big part in developing the Unique curriculum created by News-2-You.

The point I wanted to make in this post is to not let these assessments get you down; try to keep a positive attitude, and start as early as you can!  It definitely helps avoid that panic when you are scrambling to get data sheets filled out at the last minute.