Back to school self contained

Are you a new teacher? I thought that my teacher prep program had prepared me for anything that would come my way….and I wrong!

The first two weeks in a special ed classroom are more than academics. Ideas on what to teach, what to practice, and what you should be doing.

Being a new special education teacher can be overwhelming and stressful. Check out The FIRST thing to do as a new special ed teacher.

Prepare for the school year by organizing your curriculum for your self-contained special education classroom.

Are you gearing up for back to school? Don't worry! I'm going to walk you through 4 must dos for the first day of school.

Listen to this Special Ed Podcast with 15 great ideas for Functional Centers for students with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism in High School. Read more and subscribe today!

Resource Downloads & Teaching Advice

Teaching rules, expectations and procedures are a MUST, regardless of what kind of classroom you are in. I always start my first few weeks by teaching, reviewing, practicing, and practicing some more. For students to understand each rule, we need to give them specific examples. Visual supports are a must-have for teaching classroom rules in a special education setting. Here's a great way to introduce classroom rules to your students.

It's almost time for back to school and I am sure you are thinking about how you will setup your special education high school classroom. In this post, I am giving you a tour of my self-contained classroom. We have sensory areas for movement breaks and each student has a file folder Velcroed to their desk with daily work. We have a finished work areas and independent work area which has task boxes and file folder games. You will also find a word wall and visual schedules for each student.

Setting up a schedule in a self-contained classroom is one of the hardest parts of our job. I remember my first year of teaching thinking, “why did no one teach me how to do this in college?” After years and years of tweaking my daily schedule, I finally settled on the same master schedule every […]