Building Character: Encouraging Problem Solving

My focus this school year will be building character with my students. The recent tragic events that have happened in our country have made me even more certain that building character and working on problem solving skills in my classroom are more important than ever. 

As I reflected on last year's students and class, I realize that I should have been more explicit in teaching and modeling how to solve problems between students. I have already been planning for next school year, and I will be heavily focusing on building our classroom's community. One of my main focuses at the beginning of the year will be teaching my students how to solve conflicts between each other.

We will be doing a lot of modeling and role playing  how we can solve the problems that might come up in the classroom. Some of the problems that came up often in last year's class were:

*He's talking too loud!

*He's too close to me!

*He's cutting in line!

*He's not my friend!

And yes, I had a class of boys last year! This year will be discussing these issues, and I will be giving my students specific strategies that they can use to solve these problems themselves (and not coming to me for every little thing!). 

In one of my teacher Facebook groups (collaborating and talking to other teachers is my favorite) another teacher suggested a Solution Wheel. What a brilliant idea! I made one for my classroom, because I loved the concept.

You can download one for your classroom by clicking the picture above.

We will spend time discussing the difference between small problems and big problems. I also loved the suggestion from the other teacher that she encouraged her students to try 3 solutions before coming to the teacher for help.

I absolutely love using mentor texts with my students. Mentor texts are so useful for so many things, and I have spent my summer researching and collecting high quality mentor texts for my classroom. Here are some of the mentor texts I will be reading to my students as we discuss problem solving and handling conflicts.

One by Kathryn Otoshi

The Boy Who Wouldn't Shareby Mike Reiss

When Sophia's Feelings Are Really, Really Hurt by Molly Bang

Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns We Can All Get Along by Howard Binkow

The Juice Box Bully by Bob Sornson and Maria Dismondy

The Selfish Crocodile by Faustin Charles and Michael Terry

If you are interested in more mentor texts, I have created a new Instagram page where I will be focusing only on mentor texts. You can follow me at @extraspecialbooks or use #extraspecialbooks if you have some great mentor texts that you would like reposted.

If you're interested in joining the Facebook group I mentioned earlier, click the picture below.

Do you have any great strategies for teaching problem solving in your classroom?

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Encouraging Quality Student Work

Some of my students really struggle with completing acceptable, quality work. We do a lot of do-overs and erasing in my room! Since we're coming back from Christmas break, I wanted us to start off reviewing the expectations of quality work by providing some visuals to help us out.

We also filled out this reflection sheet as a way to really think about whether or work is considered quality work or not.

I'll be adding these reflection sheets to my students' individual Student Data Notebooks as a reminder of what they will need to do in order to complete quality work.

For some of my students that need a more consistent visual reminder, I taped these Quality Work strips to their desks.

If these can be useful in your classroom, you can download them {here} as a freebie.

2 for Tuesday - Alphabet Charts and Fluency Task Cards

While in Vegas, I was super lucky to meet Cyndie from Chalk One Up for the Teacher. She is seriously one of the sweetest ladies ever. If you haven't checked out, her blog you should! She shares fabulous ideas there.

This summer, Cyndie is hosting a 2 for Tuesday link-up. It's a great way for you to score some great products for only $2!

Today, my Clip Chart in Bright Colors is only $2. I used this in my classroom a few years ago. You can click {here} to see all the classroom pictures from that year.

You can purchase this clip chart for $2 {here} or by clicking on the picture below.

I also love using my Short Vowel Phonics Fluency Task Cards with my students. My students think they are so fun and don't even realize they are practicing reading. During small group, I usually have my students read a few cards as a warm-up. They will read the cards to themselves, turn and read to their partner, and then switch.

These are also only $2 today and can be found {here} or by clicking on the picture below.

Don't forget to stop by the link-up and see what other great products are out available for 2 for Tuesday.

An InLinkz Link-up

First Week of School Activities (freebies)

Last Friday was actually the first day of school here in Hawaii.  But I'm a special education teacher and don't start pulling kids until Monday.  Even though I'm only teaching core academics to my pull-out students, I have most of them the majority of the day.  The first few weeks of school are so important for setting the ton for the rest of the year, and I will be working hard on behavior and community building this year.

I just love these beginning of the year activities by A Year of Many Firsties and can't wait to use them with my students.

As part of our community building, we'll be using these Find Someone Who activity that I made.  I'll be doing a lot of modeling how to approach our classmates and ask them a question.  And I'll be modeling how to use the pictures to help us if we can't read the words.  You can download it {here}.

I bought this Take a Break unit from Teaching in Progress and can't wait to use it with my students.  I'll be doing a lot of practicing and teaching my kiddos how to take a break, hopefully before they need a break.

I have several students with behavior plans and we will be focusing a lot on how to handle our anger. We'll be talking about how we feel and what we can do to help us make smart choices by using some of the activities found in my Making Smart Choices unit.

We can't just focus on behavior though.  My school will be using Reading Wonders for the first time this year.  I made this Smart Start freebie to help us get started.

Best of all, there's a sale starting tomorrow!  You can get 28% off everything in my store by using code BTS14 when you check out.

Dealing with a Student in Crisis

Hi everyone!  Today I'm over at A Special Sparkle with some important tips for dealing with students in a crisis.

Come check out my post {here} so that you're prepared in case you ever have a student in crisis in your classroom.  And please leave any helpful hints you might have for others.

Making Smart Choices ~ Helping Students Deal with Frustration and Anger

I had mentioned on my Facebook page {follow me here} that last week was a ROUGH week for one of my behavior students.  There was hair pulling, climbing under desks, crying, hitting, scratching, and it wasn't even me doing it.  :/

My student's daily sticker chart that I send home looked like pretty rough this past Tuesday.  It was NOT a good day in my classroom.  The physically aggressive behaviors have been increasing a lot lately.  You can read about how I track behavior and provide positive reinforcement {here}.

We might only have 15 days of school left, but I knew I had to do something.  Often there are a lot of external factors that influence our students' behaviors that we can't control such as medications, problems at home, lack of sleep, etc.  But it's always best to be proactive.

Students that have behavior problems will often need to be explicitly taught how to handle their feelings of frustration and anger and what they can do instead of lashing out.

I created this Making Smart Choices unit for my student, so he can work on identifying his feelings before they get out of control.  This unit is meant to be a teaching tool to use before disruptive behaviors are happening.  You can click on the pictures to check them out in my TpT store.

We all know Teacher Appreciation Day is coming soon.  As a way to show our appreciation, there will be a big sale over at TpT on May 7th and 8th.

You'll be able to get up to 28% off everything in my store {here} if you use code TAD13.  This is a perfect time to clear our your wishlists and to stock up on things you'll need for the beginning of next school year.

Thanks to my friend at Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs for the awesome sale sign!

Needs & Wants

It feels like forever since my last blog post, but we have been CRAZY busy the last two weeks.  We finally got base housing, so I've been moving.  I cannot begin to tell how happy this has made me.  Seriously, the quality of life for my family has drastically improved by moving.  

I figured I would update you guys on a unit we just completed that I LOVED.  Seriously, this was so stinking cute.  We were learning about Needs & Wants, and I found two great resources.

First, I used this AMAZING Needs and Wants packet by Teach It With Class.

My students LOVE the Pigeon and this was a perfect way to talk about what the Pigeon really needed versus what the pigeon wanted.

My favorite part of the unit was a guided drawing lesson to teach them how to draw the Pigeon.  I used the guided drawing lesson from this unit but used the paper from Mrs. Miner's Draw It Now Guided Drawing unit.  

We also read this cute Needs and Wants Emergent Reader by Class of Kinders, but I forgot to take a picture of my kids reading.

We also did some writing at the end about our needs and wants.

I have one student with some pretty serious behavior issues.  Some days, I need a whole bunch of patience.  Since coming back from spring break, I've listened to a lot of tantrums, experienced a lot of defiance, and had may things thrown at me.  :(  However, his I Want writing was probably my proudest moment of the year.

My student came up with this all on his own!!!!  And he drew a picture about his personal sticker chart {which you can read about here}.  You can only imagine the amount of positive praise I gave him over this writing.  This student has come leaps and bounds since I started in January.  So the next time I have objects thrown at me, I'm going to try and remember this writing.  I must be doing at least something right.

Autism Awareness Blog Hop

I'm so happy to be posting as part of the Autism Awareness Blog Hop.  If you haven't had a chance to see the great posts so far, click on the picture below and go to the first post.

As a special education teacher, I've had the privilege of teaching several students with autism.  I can honestly say that these students have been some of my favorite students ever.  If you will be teaching a student with autism, the biggest advice I can give you is to take the time (and it may take awhile) to get to know the student.  Find out their likes and interests.  It may take longer to build a relationship with this student, and it may be different than the relationship you have with other students.  However, the time you invest into the relationship will be worthwhile in the end.

I alos want to emphasize that if you've taught one student with autism, you've taught ONE student with autism.  People with autism are so different from each other.  What worked with one student, may not work with another student.  However, there are some characteristics that many students with autism share and you may notice.

1.  Figurative language can be difficult for students with autism to understand.  One of my favorite girl students had autism and was just adorable.  But she didn't understand figurative language and was very literal.  I would tell the class that we would need to finish an activity so we could "move on".  She always thought we were actually moving.  LOL.

2.  Eye contact can be difficult and uncomfortable for people with autism.  I have a student with autism now and he has a hard time even looking into the camera if I take a picture.  He's always looking off to the side in every single picture I've taken so far.

3.  They may insist on talking about a topic of interest to them even though no one else is interested in talking about this topic.  You might want to consider some social skills instruction and practice if this is an area of concern.

One thing that can be helpful as a teacher of students with autism is to learn what the students are and use those interests in your instruction.  My first student with autism LOVED Star Wars.  I was able to take this interest and make an academic game for him that he loved.  

The best part was he was engaged and interacting with his peers.  You can read that blog post {here}.

An easy way to learn your students interests is by getting parent input.  Really, they know their child best and can give you great information that you can then tailor to your classroom.  I use this Reinforcement Survey to help me learn about students' interests.  Click on the picture to download your free copy.

You'll also want to stop by The Corner on Character to see her blog post today about students with autism.

Make sure you check back tomorrow to go to the last post of the blog hop at Teaching Through Turbulence.  There's going to be a giveaway that you'll want to enter!

Teaching Social Skills

Hey blog readers! I'm Lisa from The Lower Elementary Cottage and I'm thrilled to be a guest blogger on Extra Special Teaching! Angelia's blog is always my favorite because we work we such similar students that I always know her ideas will work in my classroom. I'm here to share some activities and strategies for teaching social skills in the classroom.

Struggles with social skills are especially common in special education classes, but you often find average kids who struggle too such as an only child who doesn't have to share toys or games at home. Every kid can benefit from these simple activities!

Board Games and PuzzlesThis is by far the best way to help kids learn social skills in a controlled activity. My student have often resorted to tantrums from playing a board game because they struggle with winning and losing. I sit right next to the kids and prompt them with appropriate things to say and ways to react to winning (a smile and "good try" in a polite voice) and losing ("oh well, good game!"). 
This is also a good time to practice turn taking. Students need to learn how to keep track of who is next. I often encourage them to go "clockwise" or "counter clockwise." My kids also tend to "space out" and I prompt them to pay attention to the game and help the other student count spaces on the board. This gives them a reason to focus on the game.

LegosThese are the best toys I have ever added to my classroom! The kids are forced to talk to each other and ask each other for pieces when they need them. This helps them learn to ask appropriately instead of just grabbing for things. I also like to encourage team work by giving them a building project to do together. For example, I may tell a pair of kids to create a house together and they have to compromise to decide on how it should look. I know they can be expensive, but you can buy a small mixed bucket (like the one below) for under $30 at Target and they last forever. I've also gotten some from Freecycle. It's like craigslist but FREE! You can request or off to pick up items from people who don't want them, but don't want to throw good things away. I got a FULL SET of Mega Blocks for FREE! Just post that you are a teacher and looking for something and you may get just what you ask for.

Ball/Bubbles/ChalkGive a lonely student a fun outdoor toy and give them the task of asking a friend to play with them. It's a great way to let the student have an opportunity to play with a peer. A student who may otherwise not have people who want to play with him/her may suddenly be the best kid to play with because they have a cool toy to share. Practice ahead of time with the student so they know what to say when they approach a friend. Then stand near by to coach them on things they could do *together* with the toy such as one kid blows the bubbles while the other kid pops them, then switch roles.

Scripts!Some students are rigid and need explicit directions and scripts to follow in order to hold an appropriate conversation. I love to make social skills cartoon to meet specific student needs. I've found a couple of great programs to do this only FOR FREE! Can you tell I love freebies?! One is ToonDoo which has great colors and you can make all sorts of different facial expressions and backgrounds. Click here for a couple I've made. Another option is Make Beliefs Comix. This one is super easy and older kids could even write their own. Here is a link to how you can use them in special education.


Now I wouldn't be a great guest blogger if I didn't give you a great *FREEBIE* printable! You get a brand new social skills prompting chart! A mom of one of my students is very concerned about her child's conversation skills, so I told her I could make a reward chart with conversation prompts on it. My plan is to give the kid tally marks for every step he uses on the chart. Then he'll get a reward for every 5 times he makes it all the way to the bottom (5 tallies on the last section). I use these by cutting them in half (save paper & desk space) and laminating them. Next I tape it to their desk and use an overhead marker to give tally marks. They don't wipe off as easily as a whiteboard marker, but wipe super easy with a wet paper towel so the chart can be reused! If you don't want to use it as a reward chart, I also made a version without the tally mark column. Click here to download your freebie.

I'm so glad I had this opportunity to be a guest blogger on Extra Special Teaching! Stop by my blog The Lower Elementary Cottage for more ideas, freebies, and tips for working with special education students!

What's your favorite way to work on social skills?