Implementing the Time Management Resources
Time management and waiting are skills that not all learners have without being taught. In order to engage in large groups, small groups, and 1:1 learning opportunities, our learners will benefit from being taught how to wait and manage their time. When presenting...
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Planning Ahead for Next School Year
With the school year winding down, you must reflect on all those great things your students were able to accomplish this year and rethink that Pinterest fail that didn’t go like you hoped. Start planning for next school year to lighten your load when it comes time to...
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Ollie’s Year in Review
I figured it was time for a follow up on The Autism Helper’s star member and favorite doggo, Ollie! For those of you that missed my first blog post, Ollie is my loyal pup who I was lucky enough to get therapy certified. This school year was his first year as a working...
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My Sensory Life: Touch
I often find it interesting to think about the complexity and design of the human body. Each of your fingertips has over 3,000 tactile receptors that send a message to our brain almost instantaneously to help us interpret the texture of a surface, temperature, and...
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Practice Life Centers
Community-based instruction is an awesome opportunity for students ready to leave their school site and practice their independent skills in a variety of real-life settings. But, what about your students who need more than the typical classroom environment but are not...
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How To Teach Rule Following
Rules and routines are a large part of classroom functioning. Management of the classroom and instructional control come from clear and concise definitions of rules. Creating rules as a group or individually does not always have to be a lecturing style. Teaching and...
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Focus on Five: Giving Students Feedback
Sometimes, towards the end of the school year, student behaviors can increase. Maybe bad habits have formed, students know the end of the year is close or maybe even they are just developing age-appropriate rebellious behaviors as they are getting older. Whatever the...
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Preparing for ESY
The hustle and bustle of preparing for the end of the school year can be overwhelming. Now, add in planning and prepping for the extended school year, and you just added another item to your to-do list. Preparing for the extended school year can be simple and easy...
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ESY Tips and Tricks
First thing’s first, congrats on making it to the month of May! I can’t tell if this school year has gone in the blink of an eye or has taken all of eternity; regardless, take a moment to commend yourself for getting here. Being a teacher is hard and you deserve to...
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Keeping Up With End of Year Activities
It's Crunch Time There's nothing like the end of year crunch. Starting around mid-April, I start to feel the pressure of the end of the year creep up on me. Between balancing 3 different grade levels, field trips, special activities, parents coming in for special...
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The Benefits of Social Skills Groups
Social skills groups are important for all children. Social skills groups can create learning opportunities for children to practice what they have learned in real life situations. These groups help children make friends with the support of their teachers or...
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Focus on Five: Teaching Conversation Skills
Teaching conversation skills is an important life skill that helps students learn to communicate and build social relationships. We often forget that we indirectly learned conversation skills growing up, however, our students need direct instruction on initiating and...
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Teaching at the Farmer’s Market
Spring has sprung which hopefully means somewhere near you is a blossoming Farmer’s Market! I love going to the Farmer’s Market – fresh produce, flowers, local meat, and fresh squeezed lemonade – it’s my favorite place to spend a Saturday morning. But what I love most...
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The Art of Planned Ignoring
Planned ignoring is defined as deliberately withholding your attention from a specific target behavior. You may be thinking, Aha! I do this with my own children/significant other/grandpa, and indeed you may. We do this in an educational setting to ensure that we are...
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Spring Prep
Let's Talk Spring Prep Who's team prep early? I am! I didn't used to be. In fact, when I taught general education, I didn't prep anything in the spring for the following school year. Now that I'm in Special Ed. I take every opportunity I can to get ready for the next...
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My Sensory Life: Smell
Here we are in Spring where April showers bring May flowers. I have heard that saying many times in my life and just figured that it was referring to the Mayflower that the pilgrims came on and the “April showers'' part just placed a picture of a calendar on the month...
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Making Transitions Successful
Transitioning from early childhood to elementary school, elementary school to middle school, middle school to high school, and high school to postsecondary can bring on many emotions. Not only are emotions high for students with not knowing what will come with...
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How To Start A Learner With An Object Schedule
Object schedules don’t have to be fancy! When creating them, I often need to remind myself to stop overthinking. When I started using object schedules, I tried to find objects that matched the area of the classroom exactly. After failing to find enough objects for a...
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Ways to Color Code
I am so excited to talk about ways to color code in a special education/autism classroom! This is a topic I am super passionate about because I know how well it works. This super amazing visual aid is supportive of not only the students in my classroom but the...
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Using Playground Equipment to Meet Sensory Needs
When you think about meeting the sensory needs of your students, it can initially seem overwhelming. You may feel like you need to purchase a lot of really expensive things or request a special sensory room. The good news is, that is not necessarily the case! There...
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