Picture Storage

How do you store ALL.OF.THE.PICTURES?? Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of pictures you have to laminate, cut, Velcro and then sort and store? When I first returned to teaching in a self-contained autism classroom, this felt like such a monumental task for me and the paraprofessional working in the classroom. How were we going to store so many pictures? Well, after some trial and error we were able to come up with a plan and it was good! At least to us it was.

Enter the tall filing cabinet. Yep, that’s right…a file cabinet. And file folders. Don’t forget the file folders.

Here was our plan- we were going to make any and every picture we could think of and store the majority of those pictures in file folders. Now this required some extra prepping as we wanted to make our storage system last for years to come. We started by taking plain file folders and measuring out how many 1″, 2″ and 3″ pictures we could fit in a file folder. Once we had a guesstimate, we added marks on the folder for where the Velcro would go

Once the folders were marked we laminated them and began putting Velcro on. After that it was time to put away the pictures! We were so excited for the progress on our picture storage!

We decided at the time that we were going to sort the pictures into categories as our way of keeping track of specific pictures. That system has since been updated to strictly being alphabetized regardless of the category. This makes it so much easier compared to before when staff found themselves needing let’s say a ‘plate’ picture for an upcoming project or because a student was missing his or her ‘plate.’ Was it under Dishes or Plate?? Too much time was spent looking to find exactly what we were looking for. Nobody has that kind of time!

Today this is what our mega storage system looks like. It’s super convenient for EVERYONE. Even some of our students help themselves to pictures from the file cabinet if they need a picture.

Our tall filing cabinet full of pictures!

Now, what about a quick and easy system for storing pictures? Stay tuned for an update on that soon!

**NOTE** The students in my room begin learning functional communication using PECS (the Picture Exchange Communication System) before transitioning to speech or a speech generating device.

Adapted Books

April 27, 2019Leave a comment

Adapted books have become one of my favorite resources! What exactly is an adapted book? An adapted book is any book that has been modified in any way to enable it to be more easily accessible to students. This means you can adapt a book to add braille, simplify the text, add visual supports or tactile elements. You could even add a tool to make it easier for students to turn pages!

So why use adapted books? If you have ever tried doing a shared reading lesson or any read aloud and struggled to get your students engaged, an adapted book might be an excellent way to increase student engagement. My students love read alouds and each of them do an excellent job of being attentive during our story time. But as their teacher, I want more than just attentive listeners; I want my students to demonstrate what they are taking away from the story which is why I love adapted books. Since my students benefit from the use of visual supports, I prefer to use adapted books that offer visual supports or add them to a story myself. This allows me to assess what my students know while increasing their vocabulary knowledge and increase opportunities for communication!! Who doesn’t love that?!

I’ve actually started to use more and more adapted books as there are so many resources available now. There are some free templates online so you can make your own or you can purchase them, too. I recently started making my own which are available on my Teachers Pay Teachers store to go with our content topics or seasonal theme. I like to add follow up comprehension questions to my books so I have examples of student work to share with families and data samples.

When choosing adapted books for your students, consider what types of supports they need and how they can benefit from the adapted book. What are some IEP goals that can be addressed through an adapted book? Are there any physical limitations to consider or language barriers? A post by Practical AAC has some wonderful links on various types adapted books and creating them. Be sure to head on over and check them out!

Happy reading!

-Rhiannon

Fairy Tales

February 19, 2017Leave a comment

For my student’s next literacy unit, we will be studying fairy tales. I admit, this is my first real attempt at teaching such a unit and it’s long overdue! For some reason I’ve been intimidated by such a topic. Perhaps it is the forever question of: How do I know what my students know? Does anyone else struggle with this? Also, it’s on the report card and I’d be remiss if I didn’t address it in some capacity that was meaningful and relevant to my students. So what’s an autism teacher to do? Create some file folder activities, of course! Which is precisely what I’ve been working on for the last few days (while also making sure to enjoy some unseasonably warm temps here in the Midwest!). You can find the file folder activity here. I’m super excited to see my student progress with these! I’ll be sure to post pictures and updates soon! And don’t forget to let me know how your students enjoy them! I love hearing from other teachers out there!

Teachers Pay Teachers

August 15, 2016August 15, 20161 Comment

Well, I did it. I opened my very own Teachers Pay Teachers store! This has been a goal of mine for a number of years, just like starting this blog. I’m incredibly nervous about my TpT store as any new adventure can be, but I’m also incredibly excited. You can visit my store, Piecefully Learning, here. I only have one product uploaded now, but have been busy working on others to add. The sheet below is a cutting practice sheet. The beginning of the school year our group will be studying apples as part of our literacy unit.

Apple Cutting Practice_Sheet 1

What are some resources and materials you would like to see?

-Rhiannon

Dollar Section Stock-up

August 15, 2016August 15, 2016Leave a comment

What teacher doesn’t love some ready-made activities, especially those that can be used in task boxes?! What teacher doesn’t love the dollar section at Target?! This teacher is all about easy set-up AND the dollar section! I recently ran to Target to pick up some household supplies and BAM! right in the dollar section were all of these beautifully packaged materials I could use with my incoming students! I thought about purchasing just one of each but then realized that I might want some kids to work on the same skill or thought about pieces going missing and figured two of each was sufficient (and another complete set for my daughter). Since I needed multiple sets, I found myself on my knees searching through the bins to secure three of each.

These quick activities can target matching skills, time-on-task skills, foundational skills, number recognition, letter recognition, etc. Since the concepts are discrete lessons by nature, it will be easy enough for me to pair them with a sweet discrete data collection sheet. I’m also super pumped that my paraprofessionals and university students will be able to assist with these activities without too much oversight on my part.

So if you haven’t made a Target run lately, I encourage you to go quickly! Depending on your time zone, you might be able to make it there before they close tonight!

-Rhiannon

My very first post…

May 11, 2016May 14, 2016Leave a comment

Why not start a blog? Why not??? It’s been a goal, nay a dream of mine to have a blog dedicated to special education, particularly about teaching students with autism. There are so many ideas floating around, topics to discuss but I wonder if I’ll have the time. I sure know the technology piece is brand new to me! However, I won’t know how this goes until I try, so here it goes…

About me: My name is Rhiannon. I’m a elementary special education teacher in a self-contained classroom for students with autism. Currently in the midst of wrapping up my third year in this position and preparing for summer school. I’ve been teaching now for 16 years! Some of that time has been in self-contained classrooms or pull-out cross-categorical special education classrooms. I also spent some time as a special education consultant.

That said, welcome to Piecefully Learning!