April is Quickly Approaching.

I’m big on autism awareness all year long, but as a special education teacher, April is our month to shout it from the rooftops! World Autism Day falls on Friday, April 2nd this year, and like most things, COVID is changing up how we can share about autism with our school community. Now is a great time to start planning and brainstorming ways to share about autism in your school community. Here are four ways you can share about autism awareness virtually.

Create Digital Bulletin Boards

Open up Google Slides and create a digital bulletin board. Post your own info or use information from The Autism Helper’s Autism Awareness Unit. Then share the link with fellow teachers to post in their google classrooms, SeeSaw, DoJo, or share in their physical classrooms. 

Set Up a Bitmoji Classroom on Autism Awareness

Bitmoji classrooms have been all the rage in this season of COVID. Why not jump on board and set one up with autism awareness resources? I’ve got one ready to go and to share with our school staff. My hope is that teachers will share it on SeeSaw (our school’s digital platform) with students and parents, so our school community can learn and discover all about autism. Looking for ideas to add to your bitmoji classroom? Check out my blogpost on Autism Awareness Resources.

Host a Game!

Kahoot is a quick, free way to host a game you can share with the whole school! I took the true/false interactive bulletin board pieces from The Autism Awareness Unit and turned them into an interactive true/false quiz. You can easily share the quiz on SeeSaw, Google Classroom, or whatever platform your district uses. Students can even compete against each other for the highest score!

Share Digital Books

Normally this time of year I’d share all of my books with teachers in my building. Rather than tossing that idea all together, I’m trying to change things up and share digital books with fellow staff members. Organization For Autism Research has their book, “What’s Up With Nick” available for free on their website. Their video “What’s Up With Nick” is also great!

Epic! also another free resource that has a ton of books for children on Autism. Here are a few of my favorites. 

Don’t Let This Opportunity Pass

We are all stressed, overworked, and exhausted from this school year. I promise I understand – I’m right there with you all! Between teaching in-person and virtually, I’m ready for this school year to be over. However, not everything from this year has been bad. In fact, I have the opportunity to reach even more students and families in my school community because I’ll be sharing about autism awareness virtually. It would be an easy year to choose to do nothing, but I’d encourage you to take the opportunity to share in whatever way you can with the students and staff at your school. Together we can raise awareness of just how great our students are!