5 Pinterest Collaborative Boards: Teaching & Education


I must confess that I am now an official Pinterest addict and I have spent more than an hour of my waking day to devote to building content of my awesome Pinterest teacher boards since its inception in November. The great news is that I'm now opening them up for collaboration!
 
What are Pinterest Collaborative Boards? They are actually boards on Pinterest that allow other pinners to pin content on the board. Yes, it's that plain and simple! I believe that I have great colleagues who are also Pinterest users (like YOU!) who would want to share pins centered around teaching and special education. Collaborative boards on Pinterest are a great way to share your information to other teachers and networkers, while also generating great back links to your blog or website.
 
My Pinterest boards are now open, please leave a comment on the latest post and I will certainly add you. Let's start sharing!
 
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#1. Books and Reading Resources. This is all about the written word. Please leave me a comment on the most recent pin if you are interested in sharing your books and everything about books on this board.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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#2 Great Ideas From Teachers. Need ideas for the kiddos? Get authentic teacher-made classroom resources, fun kid-friendly games, craftivities and more from our amazing teachers. If you want to share your awesome classroom pins, please leave me a comment on the most recent pin! We currently have 75 teachers collaborating on this board, join us!





 
#3 Social Media and Technology in Education. For social media savvy teachers, this board is for you! Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google + tips and tricks to make all of them grow and glow...follow this board! Let me know if you want to be a pinner to this board by leaving a comment on the most recent pin.
 
 
 
 
 
 

#4 100+ Education Quotes. Get your education quotes from the most political edreform sayings to the most inspirational wisdom laden and famous proverbs from this board! Same process, share your pins by leaving a comment on the most recent pin and I will add you as a collaborator.
#5 National Board Certification and Teacherpreneurship. When the going gets tough, what do you do? Here are some resources that you might need if you are going through the process of National Board Certification or are just looking for teaching standards and best practices for effective teacher leaders. If you have something to share about NBC or Teacherpreneurship, please leave a comment on the most recent post.









HAPPY PINNING!
 
 

Freebies

FREE SPECIAL EDUCATION CHARTS/ FORMS:
 
 

 
Special Education Daily Behavior Tracker. Here's something that's ready to go! Use this chart that will help you track any type of behavior on a daily basis. This is an editable word document which you can modify to suit the needs of your student, or align it to his BIP goals.
 
 

 
SPED Inclusion Accomodations Weekly Monitoring Form. Easy checklist and ready to go! Use this to track the accomodations and modifications for a special needs student in the inclusion class. This word document is editable so you may align it to his IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) Accomodations.
 
 
Special Education IEP Snapshot. Do you share the IEP goals and accomodations with general education teachers? Here is a form that you can use to help you inform the regular education teacher(s) of those students in the regular education classroom who have IEP’s and may need adaptations.

Make your inputs in this IEP At-A-Glance Form brief but include enough information to assure that the IEP is being followed. This is an editable word document that you can modify based from the needs of your student. You may copy the goals and adaptations from the IEP and staple it to this if you wish. You may hand carry it to the regular education teacher and explain to her the purpose of this document.

When I share this document with a regular education teacher, I explain to him/ her that:

- this is a confidential document. This is not to be left in the desk; it must be kept in a safe, confidential location.
- if he/ she needs more information to get in touch with me.
- it is very important that IEP’s are followed for every student who has one.
 
 
SPED Inclusion Specialized Instruction Service Hours Chart. Need help in remembering the services needed for each student in your caseload? Use this editable chart to record the specialized instruction number of hours and keep track of your special needs students in the following environment:

1. Cotaught classes are taught by both a general educator and a special educator. The student with an IEP is receiving instruction in the general education environment. Hours can be appropriately documented as special education service hours on the IEP given the consistent direct instruction and support provided by special education staff.

2. Supported classes are taught by a general educator with support from a special education paraeducator. The student with an IEP is receiving instruction in the general education environment and hours can be appropriately documented as special education service hours on the IEP given the consistent direct instruction and support provided by special education staff.
 
 
Reading6 CCSS Data Tracker. Data crunchers, that's who we are! Here are simple strategies & graphic organizer to make sense of your special needs student achievement data. Use this to:

•Analyze data in a series of simple steps
•Use student work for strategic or intensive instruction
•Explicitly decide when to “"re-do","review", or "re-teach"
•Facilitate grade level or subject area group discussions of data
•Make the ongoing use of data part of the school’s culture

FREE MNEMONICS FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION:


Printable Mnemonics: Coordinating Conjunctions
Do you know of an easy way to help our students remember these coordinating conjunctions? You can use the acronym FANBOYS to help them remember the coordinating conjunctions. Print this and post on Literacy Center for visual aid after explaining to them how this is used.

FREE SPECIAL EDUCATION DIFFERENTIATED LESSONS and OTHER RESOURCES:

Statue of Liberty: Practice Writing RACE Strategy
FREEBIE! This is a writing practice for daily warm up/ journal reflection activity which encourages the student to write opinion pieces on topic or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

It focuses on the first writing Common Core State Standard which helps the student introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer's purpose. With the use of RACE strategy, it also helps to provide reasons that are supported by facts and details and provide a strong concluding statement.

Modifications for exceptional needs students in a self-contained or inclusive setting:
- Enlarged text
- Modified (shortened/simplified) text
- Graphic organizer
- Bolded/highlighted key words

 Grab it now!!

Winter Holidays Tic Tac Toe
Love using Choice boards? Here's a FREEBIE that contains a variety of activities about the winter/ holidays. Students can choose one or several activities to complete as they learn a skill or develop a product. Choice boards can be edited (word document) so that you can tailor it based from your needs and of your students!

Okay, admit it. The winter holidays have some of the most fun and interesting words in the English language. You can hardly say them without a smile coming to your face. While in class we usually choose 3 activities in a row for spelling, I would encourage our students at home to do a “black out” for a reward!! I also included an easy grading rubric, have fun!!

Build a Connection
With this activity, students will surely have fun while connecting their reading to their life experiences, other books they have read or listened to, and events and issues around them. You can make copies of the reproducible on card stock to create task cards. Model each type of connection before assigning it as center work. Assign, or have students chose, one type of connection from the chart (text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world). Students choose a sentence
stem listed for that connection they've chosen and use it to help them write a connection. Please let me know how this is helpful to you!

Communism in Eastern Europe
Talking about rigor? Yep, this is a lesson presentation of Communism in Eastern Europe which was created for special needs students (below grade level learners) who are mainstreamed in the general education setting. By the end of the lesson; students will identify the 3 causes of the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe and explain the effects of communism to Eastern Europeans in 3 sentences by completing a graphic organizer. Compare & contrast Mao of China and Stalin of Eastern Europe. Graphic organizers, colorful visuals, seamless transitions...this lesson has it all!

Differentiated Project Menu
Target our students diverse interests! I created this Differentiated Project Menu to target the unique needs of my students in my self-contained class. The menus in this project rubric allow students to submit a free choice as a product. This free choice is a product of their choosing that addresses the content being studied and shows what the student has learned about the topic. Modify the Differentiated Project Menu, project description and student contract form based from your curriculum, this is an editable word document aligned to Common Core Standards!


 
Lesson on Writing Captions
This is a lesson presentation about Writing Captions which was created for special needs students (below grade level learners) who are mainstreamed in the general education setting. By the end of the lesson, students will select three landmarks in western Europe and write three captions explaining the significance of the landmark. Complete with vivid photos of great examples of captions, graphic organizers, seamless transitions, highlighted main points...students will get hooked to this lesson!

Retelling Cube for Stories
The purpose of this activity is for the students to retell the central elements of a story (story structure). Glue the cube options as shown in the activity sheet in a cube. Before asking students to work on the activity, model using the picture-cued prompts to use the six question cards to guide a narrative summary: - Who is the main character? - Where does the story take place? - What does the character want? What is his or her goal? - What is the problem? - What is the solution? - How does the story end?


Short Quiz on Genre
With a graphic organizer and highlighted words, students will not find this quiz gruesome! Given ten (10) questions, students will identify various genres of fiction from the word bank based on their given characteristics by writing the answer inside the box. I created & used this assessment with a rubric to monitor my students' (below grade level learners) progress based from the goals in the IEP and the CCSS.





Travel Brochure Lesson: Europe
With awesome visuals, this is a lesson presentation on Travel Brochures which I created for special needs students who are mainstreamed in the general education setting. By the end of the lesson, students will examine 2 commercial brochures and create a 5-slide European virtual travel powerpoint presentation that incorpo
rates research skills and detailed summaries. Have fun with the kids!


What is a Landmark?
This is a fun lesson presentation of different landmarks in Europe which was created for special needs students who are mainstreamed in the general education setting. By the end of the lesson; students will define a landmark; and explain how the geographical; historical; and cultural landmark of a countries inspire tourism by creating a postcard.




Washington Monument: Practice Writing RACE Strategy
FREEBIE! This is a writing practice for daily warm up/ journal reflection activity which encourages the student to write opinion pieces on topic or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

It focuses on the first writing Common Core State Standard which helps the student introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer's purpose. With the use of RACE strategy, it also helps to provide reasons that are supported by facts and details and provide a strong concluding statement.

Modifications for exceptional needs students in a self-contained or inclusive setting:
- Enlarged text
- Modified (shortened/simplified) text
- Graphic organizer
- Bolded/highlighted key words


Grab it now!!

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WELCOME SY 2014-2015!

Teachers & parents tell me that this blog is like a "One-Stop-Shop", here's why ---

There are tons of lesson plans, printables, activity sheets and other resources that special education teachers can find in this blog! It's all for you to get the lil ones engaged in their seats and lovin' what they're doin'!

This blog is also our class portal to communicate information about our class, to archive course materials, to publish the course curriculum, syllabus, class rules, lessons, homework assignments, rubrics, and presentations. Yes, everything is in this blog for our students to review our lessons at home!

Parents love the transparency and the ability to access class materials in this blog. It's easy for parents to follow along as my students post their work. This holds true for their psychologists, social workers, general education teachers, and other special ed providers. This is another way for us to collaborate with the Multi-Disciplinary Team members of our students!

This class blog also serves as our students' e-portfolio. Our students collect the work they want to consider highlighting and then publish those that represent their best work. They then reflect on their work as they share them to their parents and teachers for positive comments and feedback. It's very easy for them to look back over their work and see the growth they've accomplished!

We invite you to please leave a message to our students. Beside the tiny envelope just after each entry is the comments link. Your positive feedback will surely encourage our students to do their best in school.

Thank you for visiting our class portal!