Each morning, I set aside individual time to work on IEP objectives. Usually in the morning we have various therapy pull-outs, so it works out nicely that some students are in therapy while a couple are in the classroom as well. Since writing my IEP's, I made sure that I could write a really good data sheet for the objective before I wrote the objective. This did simplify the writing of objectives! I made sure I based them off the extended common core standards, the ones that I thought were most essential for each individual.
Once I had all my students IEP's written and data sheets made, I tried to set up a schedule to make sure that each week, I am taking data on every academic and behavioral objective on every student's IEP. This was not such a small task. A bit easier because I have 4 students, but still difficult because of pull-outs and also I have a student who does inclusion for 1/2 day. So, on Mondays I focus on reading objectives, on Tuesdays I focus on Math, on Wednesdays I do a "make-up" day for anything missed and/or DIBELS, on Thursdays I do behavioral goals and try to get my one student that does inclusion on all his goals, and Friday I do DIBELS and anything I didn't get to throughout the week and we also do our handwriting goals on Friday first thing in the morning.
I am working with the student on different tasks that I can take data on the IEP objective on so the big question...what are the other students doing??? This is always a challenging task as every special educator knows you have to be flexible. Students are going to be absent. Therapy pull-outs won't always be regular (they have so much to do and I truly think my therapists are amazing).
So, first, with the students I try (and I am still not there yet) to set up boundaries at the beginning of the year and keep them consistent throughout the year. If you are working or earning on the carpet or at the table, you stay with that activity until you are told to transition or unless you clean up, raise your hand, and ask for something different. So, some students are able to participate in an individual task in one of these areas while I take data on another student. My instructional assistant is awesome and we have one student on a routine with her because he responds well to that, where she works on the same thing every morning with him while I take data on another student, then we switch.
The SMARTboard has been a great resource in my room because students can work on that independently (simple cause and effect reward games, starfall, etc). And finally, work bags.
I have created these bags and they do wonders when trying to occupy a student (my instructional assistant can do them easily), they work when you have a substitute teacher in the room, they work with simple tasks if you have a student observer/teacher that wants to try a task with a student. They focus on academic as well as fine motor skills. It helps the students make choices of what they want to work on. They are simple, easily contained and hands-on. These work wonders while I am taking data on a student and need the other students to be engaged.
Here are some pictures!
This is pretty self explanatory but...cookie sheets are $1.00 at the Dollar Tree, and perfect size for these double gallon (I think) Hefty bags (purchased at Target).
Here are a couple of them sitting out, as you can see, cookie sheet fits in great.
This was the most time consuming one. I printed these off a website in color, laminated every letter, attached a magnet to every pom-pom in every color, and in this work bin there is also a cookie sheet so the poms stick when the child is working.
This one is a hit...little bath mats with mini suction cups hold the marbles perfectly. I colored in the dots black so they can see it better. We also work on counting the marbles as we put them on or take them off. Sometimes you get marbles all over the floor so be careful walking into Room 5 ;-)
This was a fun one, shapes, using foam colored popsicle sticks and velcro with foam cut outs in the middle.
These are just some examples, I also have a lacing one with lacing cards and beads, one with unifix cube pattern cards I printed out and unifix cubes, and one with clothespins and paper plates that you put the clothespin with the corresponding cue on the paper plate such as colors and numbers. I plan on creating a few more, vocab and picture match, a pringles can that I cut little holes in and your put pipe cleaners into the holes, and a sorting one. A lot of ideas you can find under "toddler bags" or "busy bags" on Pinterest.
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