Early childhood special education

Establishing a goodbye ritual in an early childhood special education classroom

Wondering how to setup your ECSE classroom? Today I am giving you my top teaching tips for creating a positive classroom environment for your special education students. I share my calm are, my teacher desk area, whole group lesson area and more. Find ECSE classroom setup tips including student schedules, word walls, dramatic play centers and more.

I cannot believe a new school year is right around the corner! I love the excitement that I new school year brings. I also love the planning and preparation that I new school year brings. I have slowly been easing myself back into "work mode," analyzing my class schedule, staff assignments, and rotation activities. Today, I will be sharing some of my ideas for rotations in early childhood special education (ECSE). With that said, while I teach ECSE and focused on ECSE when creating these…

Independent sitting is an important milestone! In this blog post, I’m sharing five effective ways to promote independent sitting in early childhood special education. I talk about adaptive seating and positioning, sensory integration activities, as well as functional play and games. I also talk about fine motor activities and how these promote independent sitting. Learn more now!

If a student is unable to play with toys during structured leisure time independently, play supports are a great strategy.

Special education prep work is daunting! Time spent laminating, velcroing, and organizing materials takes up way too much personal time for special education teachers, self-contained teachers, speech therapists, homeschool moms, parents, autism parents, preschool teachers. Reclaim your time and energy and alleviate stress with these 9 SPED prep hacks to help you streamline your prep and prioritize your to-do list.

Are you a new preschool special education teacher? Being a new special education teacher can be overwhelming but today I’m sharing how to implement IEPs in the preschool classroom. You must differentiate instructional strategies for your preschool students. Meeting their IEP goals might be working on sensory activities, fine motor skills, and social skills for special ed preschool students. Don’t forget to do data collection and progress monitoring too.

Visually Closing Centers in a Special Education Preschool Classroom

Discover the benefits of heavy work centers in your special education classroom. From muscle development to sensory integration, heavy work centers can be beneficial to all students in a special education classroom. On this post, you’ll learn everything you need to know about heavy work centers including what they are, how to set up a heavy work center, what to put in a heavy work center, and how they can benefit your special education students. Learn more here.

Setting up an IEP work bin system can feel overwhelming! Here are some easy ways to do it so that your students can quickly work on goals!

4 Must Do's on the First Day of Pre-K. Worried you missed something while lesson planning for the first day of school?

I believe that sensory play is VERY important for our students with autism and severe-needs. However, I also realize that academics are important and that there is a huge push for special ed teachers to be aligning all instruction to the common core. I started trying to implement more academic tasks into our sensory play and want to share some of my ideas. It's been really fun to give my students more rigor through hands-on play. Color sorting activities Hide a variety of manipulatives…

Special education, IEP, IEP Tubs, classroom management, classroom ideas, centers, sped centers

Preparing for an activity and getting the materials out that you need takes executive functioning skills that can be difficult for young children and students with special needs. By providing them with a visual support system to prepare for center and desk work students gain the life skills necessary to be responsible and independent! For example, at the art center, we have a box of supplies for each work area. In each box, we have the materials students need for art instruction: crayons…

tips and ideas for structured play and free time in special ed classrooms

Here are 20 center ideas that you can use for your self-contained classroom. I have it all listed out for you including pictures

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

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.