The Help

Sometimes my students can be very self-deprecating, and they will speak about themselves in negative terms.  I want them to remember that we all make mistakes, and it’s OK to remember that even through struggles and slip-ups, they are just as important as anyone else.  I came up with the following solution to help them remember that they are kind, smart, and important!

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I showed my students the following clip of the movie “The Help.”

Following the clip, I showed them the positive encouragement slips I had made.  The slip (pictured below) features the movie quote “You is kind, You is smart, You is important” and a space for a note from me or my teaching assistant.

When my students talk negatively about themselves, or feel down about their abilities, I (or my teaching assistant) give them a slip.  I make them look me in the eyes, and remind them that they ARE kind, smart, and SO VERY important, and then I hand over the slip.

I feel that Asperger’s and Autism can cause so much confusion, angst, and depression in the people it affects, especially teens.  My experience is that they can see the difference between themselves and other teens/adults around them.  When they notice that something is harder for them, takes them longer, is confusing, etc., they begin to feel negative about themselves.  I’ve found this slip to be a fantastic way to put a smile on the faces of my students, and to show them that we are all different, as well as smart, kind, and important in our own ways.

The most important part of that quote to me, and for my students, is that they know how VERY important that they are.  Autism, Asperger’s and disabilities in general hold a special place in my heart, and it is my hope that the individuals I work with or encounter are reminded that they are special and equally important, and that they take that knowledge with them wherever they go!

I hope that this post gives all of my readers an idea for how to incorporate positive encouragement in their classrooms, clinics, and even homes.  Please feel free to use this idea and card as a launching pad for your own positive encouragement method!

Happy Saturday! 🙂

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Disclaimer:  I am not affiliated with, nor do I own, The Help, mettacrawler @ YouTube, or Everything Emily.  I appreciate the ability to use their property and content for the education of individuals with special needs, as well as my readers.

Take A Walk In My Aspergers

I’ve just started a literacy/social skills unit with my students using the book “The Asperkid’s (Secret) Book of Social Rules.”   It is an AMAZING book!  My students agree.  One even called it “hallelujah,” expressing that he’d been waiting for a book like this all of his lofe.

As we progress through the book, I’m sure that MANY posts will revolve around the discoveries WE (the kids AND myself) make.  Until then, I wanted to share the pre-book project that I had them do.

Before we began reading I really wanted to work on some self-awareness and self-acceptance.  I think Asperger’s (and ASD) is awesome!  I am completely obsessed with learning about it and finding new ways to educate that kind of thinker, however my students do not share the same passion about their disability.  I would love for them to though, so we do LOTS of celebrating differences, self-acceptance, and talking about loving themselves for who they are (as they also learn to navigate a world that doesn’t always understand them).

A sweet little interjection: While I was introducing this project I stated that fact that my title was “Special Ed. Teacher.”  This caused many to cringe, and express their feelings that “special” is negative.  I started to explain that it wasn’t, but I noticed a whole lot of annoyed faces, so I switched gears.  I told them that I picked “Special Ed.” because I specifically wanted to work with children who had ASD and I LOVED everything about it.  I told them that because I felt it was “awesome,” I wasn’t going to say “Special Ed.” anymore…I was going to call it “awesome education.”  So from here on out, I’m known as an “awesome education teacher.”

Anyway!  This project was a fantastic turn out.  I challenged the students to be very self-aware and “real” about their disability   I wanted them to approach the project with ALL of their personality.  I asked that they infuse each page with color, pictures (either drawings or printed), humor, and lots of personality.  The projects that I received today were wonderful!  They were incredibly honest and each of them were so different.  If no one had written their names on the project, I would have known who’s belonged to who because each of them emit every bit of their personality and sense of humor.

Below I am attaching a .pdf of the rubric I gave them and above is the cover page of my sample book.  I also would like to mention two things that I would have tweaked about the project now that I have seen it through:

1) I would have said that they couldn’t swear.  This is entirely dependent on the students you have, however mine need to have the same direction given more than once.  I often tell them to put passion into assignments but to leave out swears, however, I felt that I must be a broken record by now, so I didn’t say it this time.  Needless to say, I had to return some pages for censoring!

2) I gave anyone willing to present their project to the class 5 extra credit points.  I was amazed to have over half of my class volunteer!  I made no rules to their presentation other than:

1) no swearing (I had learned my lesson!)

2) They could skip parts they didn’t want to share, but they could state (out loud) that they were skipping.

My hope is that at least ONE of my readers will implement this project and level of disability awareness and acceptance in their classroom!  Disability is really just DIFFERENT ABILITY!  We are ALL a little different and we need to accept those who have disabilities the same way we accept anyone else!  Those that I know who have ASD are AMAZING people and I hope that many get to feel the joy that I feel having them (students and others) in my life!

Enjoy the assignment!  Please share!  🙂

Click below to see the .pdf file of the rubric I created for my students!

The Rubric for Grading

Extreme Blog Makeover

I apologize for the extended vacation I have taken from my blog.  I have been busy cooking up great new ideas to post!  Over the next few days I’m going to bring my blog down and put it under construction.  I’ll be back by the start of next week with a new look and LOTS to share!

 

Glad to be back!  🙂

Space Invaders

This year we moved to a new classroom and the set up for staff desks is much different. I’ve been toying with ideas of how to keep the students from coming into the staff area (too many confidential documents) for weeks now. I frequently have kids come to my desk with questions, to tell me little stories, for needed help on an assignment, etc. I don’t mind the kids coming to me at all! My desk is in an awkward position, the front of it is against a wall, so when kids approach they “space invade” something terrible…bumping into the desk, almost whacking me in the face, leaning on my desk, and the list goes on. I want them to learn personal space and since there is no desk as a barrier between us they are struggling. I also don’t want accidental peeks at documents around my desk (I try to keep them in closed binders or filing cabinets but sometimes a to-do list or post-it gets someone curious). To remedy this situation I came up with this…

I put them just at the edge of my desk corner. They can get close enough to have their needs met, but not close enough to invade my personal space or peek around. As anyone who follows my blog would have probably guessed I LOVE visuals and anything tactile. This is just another one of my visual methods! I think it’s truly the best way to reach my students, and highly likely, the best way to reach any of the students we have with ASD.

Hope this helps someone else too! 🙂

Making Predictions

This is my latest journal assignment for the kids…

Making Predictions

I have this sitting on the stool in front of my room…

Instructions:

1) Touch, feel, lift, etc. the bag
2) Make mental notes about what you feel and form a prediction about what’s inside.
3) Return to your seat and take out your journal or a loose-leaf paper
4) Write a 5 sentence (or more) paragraph in your journal about your predictions. Be specific. Explain what you think the item(s) are and WHY you think that. Tell which senses you used to make your predictions.
5) Turn in your journal.
6) At 9:20 we will open the bag and see if you we’re right.

Mystery Motivators

Hello!

Today I’d like to share an idea that I’ve actually been using for quite a while now.  It’s something that is SO successful since it’s been in place for quite a bit.  It can be tweaked and edited in so many different ways, and for multiple age groups so I think many of you will find it helpful.

On Tuesday’s I take my students to “work.”  They go to two different locations, and depending on age, some are paid in money and some are not.  In order to motivate everyone, especially my unpaid students, I created the mystery motivator system that I use.

How it works:

I predetermine a motivator before we leave for work and I slip the card into an envelope.  (I have several motivators that I rotate between.  I have them printed on laminated cards and I will include a slide show sample of a few of my motivator cards.)  I reuse the same envelope each week until it’s too destroyed to use.  I like to decorate the outside with the words “Mystery Motivator” and usually question marks in different colors.

After the students have finished their day of work and we are all in the van, I hand out the envelope to a student (I rotate between them each week) and they will open the envelope and announce the motivator to their peers.  There are usually cheers following the presentation, especially if it’s the favorite, pizza lunch!  My class knows that they must earn all of their behavior management “bucks” for the three 30-minute blocks that they are at work in order to earn the reward.  Generally, they are so eager to earn the reward that just one reminder that they are about to lose the motivator is enough to get them back on track at work.

I especially like to use motivators that incorporate us stopping at a community location on our way back to school, such as the dollar store or a local fast food restaurant.  It’s a fantastic way to slip in community practice, as well as social skills lessons, all while they think they are just getting an awesome treat.

This is one of the students favorite behavior management techniques!  Several asked me at the beginning of this school year if I’d be doing mystery motivator again, announcing they really liked it.  I hope you can find it just as useful as we do!

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***Disclaimer:  I do not own or have authority over any of the company logos used.  These images have been found on Google Images and are NOT my property.  The sole purpose of these images is to allow students to readily identify local establishments through photo identification.***

“Mature” Reactions

Disclaimer: “Expected” and “Unexpected” language has been adapted from materials found at www.socialthinking.com

Mature has recently become a buzz word in my classroom.

• “I want to be mature like Tommy.”
  
• “Oh please don’t make us do that.  It’s not mature.”
• “I just want to have a mature lunch.”

However, as happy as I am that the students want to be mature, and don’t want to be caught doing anything immature, their definition of mature was pretty off.  For example, I’ve had students refuse to use the pink rubber erasers because they perceived it as not “mature” or some were cowering and covering their eyes when the group voted on an old episode of Spongebob as their rainy day 30 min filler activity.  One was even telling me that you are only “mature” if you don’t show any emotions at all!  What?  I decided we needed to un-teach all of these crazy definitions of mature that were floating around and THEN teach the reactions that society IS expecting from them when they think of “mature.”

I started by using my Smartboard to write up the dictionary definition of mature.  We discussed what mature people do in their lives, ages people are generally considered mature and what society expects mature people to be doing during the teens years, and also adulthood.  Following this discussion, I created a Smart Notebook file to go through several emotions that we feel at different times.  I wanted them to come up with a situation where you would feel the emotion…then what reactions would be Socially Expected in that situation.  We also listed reactions that would be social unexpected.  We labeled those reactions hot or cold.  Hot reactions were ones that were too extreme for the situations.  The cold reactions were those that are an under-reaction, or not strong enough for the situation.  I came up with this category to specifically speak to the students who felt like “stoic” was the only reaction or emotion they should ever display when acting “mature.”  I added a slide show of the Smart Notebook file below.

This was a FANTASTIC lesson and we are going to be revisiting it soon!  There was so much learned from each slide and we discussed it for 5 weeks, spending much detail on the reactions.  I also had them role play different reactions so they could see how “immature” or “odd” some of the unexpected reactions were.  I even role played with them!  We had a great time, and because the lesson was serious, yet fun, they absorbed SO much more from it!  I really hope others can benefit from this lesson too.  It’s been one of the best so far, and one of my favorites I’ve developed!

Please feel free to give me feedback if you try it or tweak it!  I’d love to hear how it works for you!

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Summer Break

Hello Everyone!!

Since we’re currently on summer break, I took a little unannounced hiatus from blogging, but I’m back!  I just wanted to wish everyone well and let you all take a peak at a few things I’ve done to my classroom as we get read to go back to school on August 20th!  I went shopping today and picked up some things to help organize my room and get it ready for the Fall.  I’ll be posting pictures later on how I utilized my new shoe rack, fabric and baskets!

Here’s what I was up to today:

Art Supply Center

You can’t see the tiny sign below the one that says “Art Supplies” but it tells my students to grab one of those gray baskets to put the supplies they need in.  I’m hoping this will cut down on the scattering of supplies that we would end up with last year!  The kids in my room LOVE art, in many of it’s forms, so this is a major expansion from the one overflowing box we had the last two years.

 

Small Group or One-to-One Teaching Area

I have this wonderful room off of the back of my new classroom that I can’t wait to put to so many uses.  Small groups and individual teaching will take place most often here.  I will also be using the back room as a break area, but I haven’t quite decided how I will do that yet.

 

I hope everyone is enjoying their last few days or weeks before school starts!  I will be having my gallbladder removed next week so that may mean you wont hear from me for a while or you will hear from me a lot…We’ll just have to see!  I hope to be fully recovered before the kids return to school on the 23rd!

Have a wonderful rest of your break!

Flash

Ok, does anyone remember this thing from Men In Black??

Most of my students have seen this movie, so my latest idea came from their background knowledge of the film.  I was working on a lesson with a student and he was really struggling to put aside the splinter skills, or partial concepts he knows, in order to learn a new concept.  I jokingly told him that he needed to pretend that I had the MIB flash pen and we needed to start from scratch.  He chuckled, but couldn’t imagine well enough.  I gave him a break to decompress, and quickly whipped up this latest idea.

I came back from my desk with this:

 

The visual aid helped him do two things:

1) use his imagination with the help of a visual aid

2) relax, and chuckle…clearing his head!

I held it up, asked him to look at my pen (while he was giggling and enjoying it), and I said “Click!” and pretending to flash the pen.  I immediately followed my “flash” up with a cheesy introduction of “Hi I’m Miss F.  It’s nice to meet you!  I’m going to teach you _________________ today!”  After that, he was ready to learn, calm and clear headed.  This may be a lesson that’s specific to my class, but I think it’s great the way it worked.  I think the overall lesson to be learned it that a little imaginative play and humor can help relax a learning situation for a student and help you build rapport!

*Disclaimer:  I do not own anything associated with the Men In Black series or the youtube video above.

Music Box

In my classroom I’ve found that my students are calmed by music, and not necessarily calming music, but their favorite tunes too. I made an iTunes account on the classroom computer and I asked the kids what they wanted to listen to. I used their initial requests to generate a starter play list. Then I made the Room 302 request box for new tunes that they wanted. I keep the box in the front of the room at all times. To teach a life/rec leisure skill about out community I made the new tune or new playlist introduction schedule be on Tuesday’s. To get songs I downloaded from iTunes or ripped songs off CDs from fellow co workers and the library. It’s been such a hit! [insert cheesy cymbal for my wonderful pun 😉 ] we play the music in the background everyday! It’s a great addition to our room and I really hope is is an idea that people borrow!

Have a great week!

Thinking Outside The Box (revisited)

This simple illustration was used to help kids understand how to things outside the box, or go beyond their preferred interests. I created this lesson for my Smartboard, so we could work on thinking outside the box as a group. However, this lesson would work individually or on a white board too! I printed images/slides 4-6 and stapled them together to make a worksheet packet to complete the activities on. See below for slide images.

Some ways to use the “outside the box” topics:
-Help them expand their conversations by writing questions/scripts with them
-Role play conversation about those items
-Assign a journal free write and require them to select one of their “outside the box” ideas as the topic
-Pair students and have them tell each other about some of their favorite “outside the box” things, and have them explain why they are their favorite (as shown in lesson)

Enjoy!!
Ps I finally posted on time! Yay!

Teaching Respectful Titles (Mr, Mrs, etc)

I have students who struggles with understanding with why we use titles and at what age/relationship is it appropriate to use first names versus titles and last name.

The particular situation I designed this for was for what to call friends’ parents when you are first meeting them. They were concerned about “cool” factor more than respect so this visual was born. It could also be modified for anyone; teachers, doctors, ect. Feel free to share, but please give me credit. 🙂

Also enjoy my stick figure on the right. I’ve added a bit more detail than I usually do! Haha!

 

Step Up

I’m running in this fun run for autism and I need donations to raise $1000 toward autism services for adults and children with ASD. Please consider helping me out and follow the link! Thank you in advance!

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1020655&supId=324718533

The Impression Tree

In order to teach one of my students how we impress people, what to use to impress people and how not to over use certain ways, I created a tree metaphor/drawing to illustrate the concept. It worked beautifully and we’re now working on expanding the ways he uses to impress others. For this particular “lesson” I just explained what is written on the bottom left of each photo and then I let him generate the discussion with his questions.

Literal Thinking

I apologize this is a day behind.  This whole broken computer thing is really cramping my posts!  Donations for a new one will gladly be accepted, hehe!  🙂

So a student recently asked what it means when we say they are “literal thinkers” so of course I used and handy-dandy doodle to help clarify the concept.

I explained the thinking as two steps:

1st: You see a picture of what I just said (“teacup” = visualize a tea cup)

2nd: If you know what I really meant, then you think of the words/meaning

It didn’t require many more words than that.  The following step was to draw what their brains see when we say things.  We stuck to idioms because those are particularly tricky for the kids.  Below is the picture of how I helped the student visualize literal thinking.

Enjoy!  🙂

 

Anger

Hello readers,
I apologize for the lengthy delay in my postings! I’ve had some family things pop up and a broken laptop holding me up, but I’m back! I’m going to try to start keeping a weekly schedule of posting on every Monday evening. So check back each Tuesday morning for a new tip, story or strategy.

Thanks for reading!

Onto the post for the week:

I have a student who expressed that he was struggling with when to know if a person was really angry and if it was because of him. He resorts to the thinking that he did something wrong and repeatedly drills those around him with the question “are you mad at me?” Together, we developed the following flow chart for him to use. I even copied a tiny one for his pocket and told him he can check it anytime. It was a great method for him and easy to follow. After creating the chart we role played a variety of situations so he could practice the different responses.

I highly suggest using flow charts with kids who are functioning at a level where they can understand them. They are so simple and concrete and can be made into little pocket guides with a regular copy machine!

 

Life Rule

I just had to share this idea I came up with today while working with a student.  Maybe it will work for someone else’s kiddos!

The back story:  A student was working one-on-one with me today on some academic work, when he started into a lengthy story/explanation.  I stopped him and summed up what he was trying to say.  He asked me how come I can “read the his mind.”  I explained that I do not “read minds” but I can predict what he is probably going to say by paying attention to things he usually discusses.  In frustration, he expressed that he is trying to be more “mysterious” but just doesn’t know what to do.  He felt like his classmates were more “mysterious” than him.  (Some are just better at varying conversation topics.)  So here is how I explained to him how I can predict what the students are going to do and say and why I stop them before they go too far at times.

Visual:

I’m not really even sure why I called this “life rule” but it was the first thing I thought of in the moment, but I suppose it was developed from the fact that we can apply this “rule” to most situations in life that require a little prediction.

I explained to him this situation while filling out the visual/list below:

“It’s Monday morning and I get up in front of the classroom.  Before starting CNN student news, I do a cartwheel.”  (And I wrote “Monday: cartwheel”)

“Now it’s Tuesday morning and I get up in front of the classroom and do the same thing.”  (And I wrote “Tuesday: cartwheel” …and you get the idea of how the list came along)

“It’s Wednesday and I get up in front of the class and do another cartwheel.”  (Writing)

“Ok, it’s Thursday.  I stand up in front of the class.  What do you think I’m going to do?” (Writing)

Student: “A cartwheel.”

“Exactly, but I don’t.   I do a summersault!” (Writing)

Student: “I thought you were going to say cartwheel again because that’s what you said 3 times.”

“And that makes sense.  I could have done one but I wanted to be a little mysterious.  But doing the same thing over and over will usually make people guess what you are going to say or do next.  And unlike my story, they are usually right.  That is how I guess what you are going to say or do.  It’s not mind reading, it’s prediction.  I pay attention to what you normally do.”

 

The conversation continued as he went through a scenario with one of his (limited) interests and I showed him how I predict what he is likely to talk about in a conversation.  It totally clicked!  He got how being mysterious really means varying conversation!  Now, do I think this is the last time we will talk about this, or he will be speaking about a wide variety of topics at school tomorrow?  Absolutely not!  But do I think we’ve made fabulous progress in him understanding why he needs to work on varying conversation?  Absolutely!  Plus, I have a great little visual/word phrase to use with him to redirect him when he gets repetitive.

Have a fantastic Tuesday!  I hope this is useful to some of you!

Teaching Tips for ASD

In honor of National Autism Day, I’ve decided to give my tips on teaching students with ASD.  I just spoke about being a sibling teacher last week and I wish I could have shared this with each and every person that was in that classroom.  Hopefully some of them, and many more, will see this one day.

I have listed the seven things that have helped me, or I’ve learned, through teaching students with ASD.  They are absolutely wonderful children and teens to teach, and it’s truly my passion. But it can be difficult at times and I really hope this will help you breathe easier.

The following link will take you to a .pdf document that I have created called “High-Functioning Autism/Asperger’s in the Classroom: Teaching Tips”

ASD in the Classroom

Happy Autism Awareness Month!

The Classroom Elf

Several of my students have an extremely hard time remembering to clean up their desk areas throughout the day, and before leaving for the bus at the end of the day.  After a few times where things went missing and were never recovered, we began to joke that we had an elf taking things from their messes.  They began calling our imaginary elf “Buddy,” after the movie “Elf.”

This joke led me to have an idea for helping them keep their desk areas clean; introducing a “tangible” classroom elf!  I created a basket with a picture of “Buddy” on it.  Inside the basket, I listed simple guidelines for what “Buddy” might collect from our messes, and two simple ways to get their things back if “Buddy” found them lying around.

It has really helped my students contain their messes to the underside of their desks, instead of leaking their way into the rest of the classroom.  Now we just need to work on the messes underneath the desks!  🙂

Here of photos of the basket.

 

 

I DO NOT ANY OF THE RIGHTS TO “ELF” OR WILL FERRILL.  IMAGE FOUND ON GOOGLE IMAGES.

Purchase Passes with Points

In my classroom, I use a token economy to promote positive behaviors.  I have done several surveys to figure out what the students like and what I should have on hand, or do, to excite them about earning “money,” or points.  The top things they have desired were easily put into purchase-able passes.  To organize the passes and create a store-like experience when using their classroom money, I created this poster.  The passes are visually simple and easy to earn.  (They generally earn around $50 a week, depending on behavior.)

To create the passes I use Microsoft Word and Google images or Clip Art.  The pockets are great, and come from The Chalkboard for around $5.  I’ve stocked up and put them on the kids’ desks as holders for their “bonus bucks” or “money” they are saving for a special item.  (I also have $50 and $200 baskets with fun items/snacks and a treasure chest with individual pieces of candy for $10.)

Varying Conversation

I stumbled across this while cleaning out my teacher bag this week.  I was working with a student on how to vary conversation topics (many of my kiddos have trouble thinking/talking outside their scope of preferred interests).  I did this in two steps.

First, I took a blank piece of white paper and I just asked “What are things that you like?” and as the student listed I mentally separated them into two categories, “Things I’ve already talked about” and “New things I can talk about.”  Without writing any titles, I wrote the topics he had already talked about on the left side of the page and the new topics he hadn’t discussed yet on the right side.  It looked like this:

 

After I had a much longer list on the right (above is an example of the one he and I made together), I added titles to the tops of the lists and drew a line down the middle.  Our page now looked like this:

 

Once I added the titles, we were able to talk about how he had so many new things to discuss with his friends (pointing to the list on the right).  I was able to explain why he shouldn’t talk about the items on the left for a while (using this visual).  After this was done, we discussed typing the list and laminating it for him to keep as a cue card.  He chose not to have me do this, but it is an option if that would work for your student(s).

Pointing Fingers

Please just let me start by saying I am NO Picasso!  However, my ridiculously simple doodles seem to work for my students, so I’m going to share.

This doodle was created to help a student understand that he should not point fingers at people in order to get their attention.  The dialogue that went with the drawing was to explain that pointing a finger at someone is not polite, and you can get their attention in a polite manner by just saying their name.  My students are very visual, so stopping the lesson at the end of the conversation would not have solidified the concept.  I can now pull out this doodle as a non-verbal reminder.

I also explained how I may know what his point means, because I know him, but people who don’t know him could be offended.  I explained, “Imagine you are in a grocery store, and you need help finding something.  You walk up to the clerk and just point.  What do you think their reaction will be?”

Here is the visual: