Special Education Students Love Excellent Literature! Gold Rush Time~

By the Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleischman is a fabulous piece of literature. Humor, history, adventure, fine writing.....my special education students can really get caught up in this book! In my group of 15 4-6th graders, we have the range of special ed eligibilities you will find in a resource class: learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, and autism. I can truly say that each kid loves this book. It is timeless. Of course, we are Californians, and some of the geography is very familiar to us! If you are not familiar with the story, here's some info: By the Great Horn Spoon! takes place during the gold rush in California in 1849. Jack and his butler Praiseworthy stowaway on the Lady Wilma a ship. They meet many interesting characters on their adventure to find gold in California. They must make money to pay for Jack’s house back home, so that Aunt Arabella and his sisters can keep the family home. I've got reading levels from 1st to 6th in this group, and behaviors that require some creativity on the teacher's part. We break up into groups and I use my incredible senior citizen volunteers to read to partner read with kids. Yes, there are some who we read to! I have discovered that my interactive journals are a fun way to get the students writing and thinking, along with a journal which they value and re-read at the end of the year. I have actually had the students ask me to create these interactive journals for other books! Here's a sample:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Special-Education-and-Intervention-Interactive-Writing-By-the-Great-Horn-Spoon-1841969

Literature and Road Agents! By the Great Horn Spoon!

We are reading a classic piece about California history in our resource room. 16 kids, 4th through 6th grade are digging in to this piece of literature by Sid Fleischman. I am creating a unit that is adapted for students with learning disabilities, autism, and emotional issues, as is the make-up of my class. We read from 1st to about 5th grade level. Did I mention that I have a slew of senior citizen volunteers who read aloud, and one-on-one with our children? I am also having a sale in my TPT sale this weekend! Sorry, I have not finished this unit.....coming soon! By the way, the road agent pictured above, did not really rob the stage coach in which Cut-Eye Higgins, Praiseworthy, and Jack were headed to Sacramento City on! Happy Saturday, Laura

Common Core needs to be Engaging and Accessible

I don't have a problem with Common Core, but I am concerned about how it is delivered. I am seeing too many children, K-6, who are not able to access it because it is not at their instrucional level, or it is delivered in a non-engaging manner. The standards need to be broken down into reachable components. I am not an expert, but if you are teaching 5th graders Standard 9- Compare/Contrast, it needs to be meaningful. What are they going to compare and contrast in real life? How are they going to integrate two pieces of writing and dig deeper? Or perhaps with our special education students we need to "unwrap" the standards by reading text to the students, and finding different ways for them to display their learning, maybe a poster instead of an essay. Younger kids who cannot access language-heavy lessons--------- Work with numbers 11-19 to gain foundations for place value. CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.NBT.A.1 Compose and decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each composition or decomposition by a drawing or equation (such as 18 = 10 + 8); understand that these numbers are composed of ten ones and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine ones. ******************************************************************************** Older kids learn to fake it because they make not be at the point developmentally of learning the skills---------- Apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication and division to divide fractions by fractions. CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.NS.A.1 Interpret and compute quotients of fractions, and solve word problems involving division of fractions by fractions, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem. For example, create a story context for (2/3) ÷ (3/4) and use a visual fraction model to show the quotient; use the relationship between multiplication and division to explain that (2/3) ÷ (3/4) = 8/9 because 3/4 of 8/9 is 2/3. (In general, (a/b) ÷ (c/d) = ad/bc.) How much chocolate will each person get if 3 people share 1/2 lb of chocolate equally? How many 3/4-cup servings are in 2/3 of a cup of yogurt? How wide is a rectangular strip of land with length 3/4 mi and area 1/2 square mi?. ********************************************************************************* Sorry, you've lost me! I think I will offer my Keep the Lights Burning Abbie! lesson free for a week. I want new teachers to have units that teach kids that reading is a lifelong treasure! Enjoy! Laura

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/2nd-Grade-Literature-Keep-the-Lights-Burning-Abbie-Writing-and-Reading-and-Art-571699

Special Education Teacher Burnout

Not that I never had really hard days, and stayed awake at night worrying about IEP issues, but I never burned out. I started out a loooooong time ago, and gradually worked into the dream job of a special education resource specialist at a small diverse neighborhood school. I feel like I can be creative, and make a difference. But, burnout is a real thing among all teachers, and special education is a tricky and difficult field to be in at times. I have mostly worked with mild to moderate disablities, and all ranges of socio-economics. The hard things for me have been mental illness and behavior disorders, endless paperwork(IEP documention, reporting, testing), and an occasional difficult adult to deal with. Notice I did not say parent. All kinds of adults! So my advice to you youngsters is: set boundaries(no, I am not always good at this), take care of your family and yourself first, and find ways to be passionate about your job. I have attached a page from my Resource Specialist Manual that addresses this! The "First, Then" chart is a useful goody too!

Boys and Little House, Gingerbread, and Math~ Happy 2015!

My 4th, 5th, 6th resource group just read Little House in the Big Woods. 15 boys and 2 girls. Guess who loved it? The boys! Santa brought each of them their own color copy(they had been racing to get my one color copy when reading class started each day!), and each kid seemed delighted! Laura Ingalls Wilder was a brilliant writer. Not only did she write about adventures with bears, hunting, and butchering pigs, but she wrote simply and descriptively. She painted a picture with not too many words, so my struggling readings could really dig in! They are now asking to read either Farmer Boy or Little House on the Prairie.....I put together an interactive notebook that is expecially for struggling writers, and they are pleased with their finished products!

My primary students did Gingerbread Boy activities, and finished with decorating their own. It's cool how a child who can barely get words on paper with a pencil can meticulously decorate a gingerbread guy! Then we write "How to" story on how to make and decorate a gingerbread person.

and.....I joke about this envelope that one of my students addressed to me. I am not known for my math teaching skills! But actually it is quite a compliment because I do try to make it stress-free and fun(and common core aligned!) for this child with autism who not enjoyed math in the past!

Happy 2015! Laura

Back to School Sale- Revised Resource Manual is 0n Sale!

I have revised my manual, and it will be on sale Wed. Aug. 20 for 28% off! Enter the code BOOST to get the discount!

Here We Go!

I love my classroom! Our resource room is situated in the middle of the school, where teachers and kids come and go- just the way I want it! Looking over my caseload, I have an assortment of students K-6 with an assortment of needs. I really love this time of year, the quiet before the storm! We are going to have some fun in 2014-15 learning to read and write, counting and computing, getting social, and finding our way! Have a great beginning of the year~ Laura