Meet and Greet for Special Education Teachers (freebie)

My school just had our Meet and Greet before school started.  This is an opportunity for students to come in, meet their new teachers, see their new classrooms, and bring in supplies.  Does your school do something like this before the first day?  

I love this opportunity, but special education teachers (especially if you do pull-out/resource) are often waiting in their classrooms with little to no students showing up.  I realized that most parents probably just don't think about coming by to see the special education teacher or they don't even know where to go!

Every year, I place a card on my students' desks in their gen ed rooms.  

Then I got my room already for parents and students to come by!

And sure enough, it works!  Out of 10 students on my caseload (more will be added I'm sure), I had 7 come see me and all were holding their cards. 

Meet and Greet is a great opportunity to talk to your parents in a low-stress setting.  Oftentimes, IEPs can be really stressful.  I like to be able to talk to parents in other settings.  I really do feel like this helps build those relationships with parents that are so important and lets them know you care.

If you're interested in using these cards, I have an updated set here as a freebie.  You'll just need to print, fill in your room number, and add your name.  I've added 3 different versions that have slightly different wording to suit different situations.  Just click on the picture below to download yours!

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.

Starting the Year Off Right for Special Education Teachers

I can't believe my summer is over, and I'm back to work already!  

As a special education teacher, I've learned that there's so much collaboration we have to do!  We're often seeing students from several different general education classrooms (I have 6 gen ed teachers I work with so far), plus working with speech therapists, OT/PTs, behavior interventionists, etc.  So many people to work with and coordinate things!

And since there's so many people to work with, I've learned that your relationship with the gen ed teachers can make a HUGE difference.  You really want to start the year off on a positive note and start facilitating those relationships.

I know the first day you return back to work is stressful.  You need to set up your classroom, read IEPs, lesson plan, decorate bulletin boards, the list is never ending!  But I really think it's important to make contact with those gen ed teachers the 1st or 2nd day you're back to work.

I took time my first day back to work to quickly go through my IEPs and fill out these IEP SnapShots.

Then I printed off my IEP accommodation pages, Behavior Support Plans, and any other relevant information for the gen ed teachers.  

I had my list of students but I didn't have a list of which gen ed teacher they were assigned.

No big deal though, I just went class to class and asked which kids were on that teacher's classroom roster.  I gave the gen ed teacher the IEP Snapshot and other relevant papers and chatted for a quick minute about the students.  

I always try to make sure my gen ed teachers know that I'm also there to support THEM!  Sometimes it can be really intimidating for a gen ed teacher to have special education students in their classrooms.  Sometimes they've heard lots of scary things about students.  By making contact right away, I hope I can make them feel a little better and let them know that we're in this together!  

You can download this IEP Snapshot as a freebie from All that Chit by clicking on the picture below.

How do you start the year off with your gen ed teachers?