First Week of School Virtually or in Person
My motto this year is to simplify and scale down. This doesn’t mean that my expectations for myself or my students have been lowered, I just want to focus on what is essential and most important. Whether you’re in person or virtual, here are three quick tips to get...
Scheduling Preschoolers and Keeping IEP Data During Remote Learning
The start of the school year has been off to a wonderful and crazy ride! Zoom meetings have been taking over my whole day as we get ready to teach our students in a remote setting. As we start teaching, it is important that I stay as focused as possible, especially...
Focus on Five: G Suite Tools You May Not Have Known Existed
In case it wasn't obvious by now, my school is a “Google School”. We use the G Suite tools and programs for everything. I recently learned about some other tools and programs that Google has available that I didn't know about or wasn't very familiar with, while I was...
Supporting Learners Remotely and In-Person During COVID
Pivot is quickly becoming part of my everyday vocabulary. This year our K-5 special ed team had to quickly pivot as we learned we are teaching the remote learners on our caseloads in addition to teaching our full-day in-person learners. This idea of teaching both...
Early Childhood Classroom Furniture!
Raise your hand if the months of March through June crawled and July and August seemed to have flown by! I cannot believe it is almost back to school time. As of now our district is beginning fully online and then assessing closer to September 28th with a possible...
Pre-K Classrooms and COVID
As I write this post, I am (like many of you) awaiting on our state superintendent of schools to speak about the latest update on schools and COVID. As teachers we like to be super prepared and a pandemic just does not lend itself to normal planning. By now I would...
Focus on Five: Back-to-School 2020
We are definitely living in unprecedented times and some of us are waiting on what exactly Back-to-School 2020 will look like for our school. While some teachers might be going back into the school building, starting the year with remote learning or doing a hybrid of...
Focus on Five: My Day Teaching ESY
While some states are slowly reopening, online learning is still the reality for almost all Extended School Year programs (ESY) this summer. Like Heather, I am teaching virtual ESY this summer (check out her post for planning a virtual ESY). Since virtual classrooms...
Focus on Five: Creating A Unit Plan
This is the perfect time to plan while you still have some momentum from the school year. While we don’t know what next year may bring, as teachers, we know we always have to do planning and paperwork. My school is requiring teachers to create unit plans for next...
Focus on Five: Tour of My Google Classroom
The more I use Google Classroom, the more ideas I get to make it accessible for families. I have posted a lot about Google Classroom, but I wanted to share how my Google Classroom has evolved in order to give other cluster program teachers ideas on how to organize...
Focus on Five: Adapting Math Meeting for Remote Learning
There are so many great ideas and resources out there for remote learning, but as many teachers have found, sometimes using a familiar resource is best for your students. Math Meeting is a resource I have used in my classroom with all groups of students and I figured...
Focus on Five: Teaching Parents and Students to Use Online Programs
There are a huge variety of online, remote learning resources. While this is great, it can be overwhelming for parents, students and teachers (including this one!). Right now, I have a lot of families who are still working during this pandemic, either as essential...
Focus on Five: Setting Up Google Classroom for Students in a Cluster Program
It's hard to believe that just a month ago, we were in our classrooms and everything was business as usual. Now, parents are taking on the role of teacher; and teachers are teaching students and their parents how to do remote learning. Our school utilizes Google...
Focus on Five: Tips for Parents for Home Learning
In these unprecedented times, parents now also have the task of homeschooling their children. You may have gotten a packet of work from your child’s teacher or some sort of instructions for distance or e-learning, but may need some guidance on how to structure the...
Inclusion for the Self-Contained Teacher/Classroom
Inclusion. By simple words, it is defined as: “the action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure.” In terms of education, the word captures an all-embracing societal ideology. Inclusion creates an environment for students with...
A Deeper Look into Centers Time in an Early Childhood Classroom
What Exactly is in Centers? Centers. So beneficial, yet they can be so tricky to run. For me, they have looked differently each year depending on the students I have. Our school is also going through Maryland State Accreditation where we enter an incredibly...
IEP Goals in an Early Childhood Classroom
To say that there are common IEP goals I use often in Early Childhood seems a bit taboo because well, IEP goals are to be individualized, hence the name. However, if we think about what is needed to function in school there are some goals that most young children do...
New Students in an Early Childhood Classroom
As an Early Childhood Special Education teacher, I am responsible for child find referrals and students transitioning from an IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan) to an IEP (Individualized Education Plan). Thankfully, we have an amazing Birth to...
Setting Up a Structured Work Area in an Inclusion Classroom
Last week during my takeover I received many questions on inclusion practices and co teaching. Before my new pre-k3 program began, I specifically co taught in second grade for six years and then had a comprehensive classroom that serviced students in...
Focus on Five: How To Start Using Choice Boards for Academics
We all know that special educators know about choice boards-they have been an integral part of positive behavior support plans in cluster classrooms for years. Our school is starting to take on the Personalized Learning imitative, and choice is a main component of...