Freebie Clarification, TpT Sale, & What’s Your Teacher Story?

Categories: Resources

So – a LOT on the agenda this Monday morning 🙂

First things first – I think I did a horrible job explaining Freebie Friday. Sorry about that! Eek! The freebie download will only be available on Friday. So if you click on the link a few days later it won’t be free any more. I want to use this to let followers try some new activities and and see some of my ideas! I will still be including other free printables scattered throughout posts that will be available all the time. Because of this confusion – I will be posting the Making Inferences Game for free again this friday in addition to another new free download! So stay tuned!

Next up on the agenda… Teachers Pay Teachers Back to School Sale!! Woo hoo! If you haven’t shopped yet do it now – today is that last day! Most sellers have their items on sale and TpT is offering a coupon code for an additional %10 off. My WHOLE store is on sale – so stock up! I have everything from data sheets to reading centers to social stories to visuals to schedules and so on and so on… Happy shopping! Click here to go to my store 🙂

 

Last but not least – I’ve been kind of loving all these linky parties and thought this one was great so I decided to participate 🙂 It is hosted by Tales of Frogs and Cupcakes.

 

So here is my teacher story:

I didn’t always know I wanted to be a teacher much less work with children with autism. I feel like I somehow fell into it. I was not one of those little kids who played school or bossed around their siblings. I started having an idea about teaching when I was in high school. When I was in high school, I took a community service class where we left school 4 days a work and volunteered for an hour. I worked at a day care center and loved it. My favorite part of working there was taking care of this adorable little girl with down syndrome. I can still picture her cute little face. That made me start thinking about special eduction. When I went to freshman orientation at my undergrad university, I sat in the education school meeting and my dad said “maybe you should just declare and major now and then switch it later.” Seemed simple enough so I declared my major and never looked back. I spent my summers dedicated to working in the special education field. I worked in special recreation programs with both children and adults. I even took my passion around the world and taught in special education classrooms in both Lima, Peru and Arusha, Tanzania. These were such amazing experiences that embedded my love of working with people with disabilities.

After I graduated with my degree in special education from Miami University of Ohio, I started my job search with gusto. I interviewed everywhere! I had a very specific setting I was looking for. Since people aren’t always banging down doors to teach more in more contained special ed settings, I was lucky enough to be able to be a bit particular. I wanted to work in a self contained setting with children with autism or other disabilities. My other big criteria was that I did not want to be the only classroom of that type in the school. Many school districts place a self-contained classroom in a general education school – I think that is great but I just didn’t want to be the only classroom there. I wanted to have colleagues that teach in similar classrooms as mine.

I now work in an elementary school that has 4 classrooms of children with autism. I teach the upper level (grades 5-8) and I am lucky enough to work along side one of my best friends who teaches the primary/intermediate classroom. We co-teach part of our school day and are on constant collaboration mode. Being able to bounce ideas off of someone, get a different perspective on behaviors and students, and make materials together is one of the amazing parts of my job.

Two years ago I started pursuing my masters in Applied Behavior Analysis. I love working with individuals with autism – every child is like a puzzle to be solved. ABA is an essential tool in solving that puzzle. I now love the ABA field as much as I love teaching and am lucky enough to be able to integrate both into my current job!

 

Hope you enjoyed reading my story! I’m off to go read some other teacher stories!


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