Back to the Basics – Seven Steps for Setting up a Stellar Autism Room

This week I have kind been taking a few steps back to reassess. The madness of Halloween is over. The schedule setting, routine beginning September is (thankfully) over. We are settled. Things are flowing. I think this is really a great point in the year. You have plenty of time to make changes, additions, and do a little rearranging. You can see holes in the schedule – which students have too much to do and who doesn’t have enough. Which IEP goals or standards do you just never seem to get to? It’s time to fill in the cracks so the rest of your year can be amazing. Ahhh – I kinda love it!

So in the spirit of the revamping and refreshing nature of the month of November I thought I would dust off some of my posts about classroom setup. These are the areas that I go back to when revising my schedules.

1: Organization and Planning

2. Classroom Structure

3. Schedules

4. Visuals

5. Data

6. Work Tasks, Academic Work, and IEP Goals

7. Communication

 I freshened up these posts a bit to include links to some newer posts. These are the foundational concepts that I always come back to. I got a new student this week so I was really back to the basics. I had to make him a new schedule, make sure his visuals were ready to go, and make work relevant to his IEP goals. While I was adding him into my life, I was able to fix up some of my other guys schedules as well. A few of my students had some awkward down time – that does not fly with me. My kids need to be b.u.s.y. No rest for the weary in our room. I was able to rearrange a few things to maximize every minute!

Anyone feeling like this lately? Like they need to do a little mid-fall rearranging?

 

 

5 Comments

  1. I just finished attending a conference about autism and I must admit I am feeling overwhelmed about all the things I need to change, incorporate, and just introduce to my students. My class dynamic has changed a lot this past year compared to the previous years! This could not have come at a better time! Thanks for all your suggestions and help!
    Kate

    Reply
  2. I’m definitely in that place right now (rearranging) We just shifted some students around and it’s time for rearranging for me. I enjoy your blog and just recently started following it. I have some students that are autistic and find your information helpful.

    Reply
  3. Thanks for reading! Happy to know I’m not the only crazy one out there rearranging this late in the year 🙂

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  4. You’re welcome! Thanks for reading! I totally understand the overwhelmed feeling! One step at a time is how I dealt with it 🙂

    Reply
  5. This will be my first year as the lead teacher. I am so excited but feel overwhelmed by all that I need to do. Thank you for this blog it has me so excited and wanting to go to school and work at 11:30 p.m. LOL

    Reply

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