Reward Punch Cards

I posted a little before when I talked about tickets but I'm really loving the reward punch cards right now! I had some I made for my reading group and have now extended them to my social skills groups! I made three different colors and let them choose their cards.

I also found a pocket chart so I could display them. I lined them up by grade levels and came up with the idea also if flipping the cards. If they aren't following directions I turn their card around and it it's backwards at the end of their time they can't earn a punch. BUT if they turn their behavior around then I can turn their card back around!

Tickets

I started an SRA reading group with two... Difficult... 5th graders and I needed a way to help get them motivated and on task. This was my initial idea. I like and, and I'm using them, but I need to alter the rewards. We changed to them earning computer time daily but I still want to keep them motivated to earn treasure box as well. It's a work in progress, as is everything I am doing it seems!

I also needed some different ways to help teachers monitor certain classroom behaviors, especially since I'm not in the classrooms with my students the majority of the day. So I created some different tickets for them to use. The teachers provide the student with the number of tickets they are able to use for a day for a task they want. The example below show a bathroom ticket, break pass, and a Lego talk ticket. The student must turn in a ticket to do the desires task and once they run out for the day they cannot do it anymore. They receive the tickets back again the following day and start over. So far these are working really well, even for one of my most difficult students, he is routinely using his break ticket and even waiting IN CLASS for me to come take him for his break!

Brag board

Ok, this could probably jus have been added into my class tour but I'm loving my idea and decided it needed it's own post! I like the idea of students having some ownership in the classroom but since my students won't really be in my class working much I decided to create a space for them to share things they have done and are proud of. Maybe they got a good grade on a spelling test, or maybe they just created and amazing picture no matter what it is they can bring it and put in on our BRAG BOARD! 

I threw it up today and just decided I want to add clips to make it easy to change out frequently. This also goes into a form or positive reinforcement so they are being recognized when they do well! 

I am all about doing whatever I can to promote the positive to try and diminish the negative. 

Class Tour

Wow! I can't even imagine putting together a general education classroom and figuring out where to place things. In a way, I suppose, I'm lucky that I have such a small room. I don't have to think much about where to put thing, there is really only one or two places that everything could go. I still really need a few more things but I think some of it will have to wait until I know how many students I'll have and what types of learning groups I will be working with. So... here is a little tour of my first classroom!

my door - YOU FIT RIGHT IN

Calendar - behind the sign in table

my "did you know?" board - I will post a new interesting fact every week!

I don't even have a title for this one... i just LOVE it though! Kind of a Social Skills board

the CHILL ZONE - a soft corner to just calm down if they need to

 

I'm not entirely sure how I will utilize this yet. Either have 3-4 activities listed and they choose one and put a clip on it or list the activities and they will do them in the order I posted.

I still need to situate my sign in table. I need to find a clock (for some reason my room doesn't have one) and make up my sign in sheets. I feel like I am missing so much right now but I am sure it will come to me!

So, what do you think of my redirection classroom? 

Pencil holders

I am slowly trying to get some simple things together for my classroom. This would be easier if I was in my classroom to start putting things in, but at least in am pretty sure of the classroom I will have so I can try to visualize. One thing I have seen several times on Pinterest and wanted to make is the pencil holders. I have seen many different times but I am poor so I went with the cheap "stuff I have around the house" route!

A few years ago I found these adorable little buckets for $1 at Target and never have really found a use for them. I dug them out and tossed some super cute letter stickers I've had for a couple years as well on to them and VOILA! My super cute sharp and not sharp pencil buckets!

Activity Boxes & Calm Down Kit

When I found out I was going to be teaching in the redirection classroom I knew right away I needed to have simple yet educational activities on hand for my students. I want them to be able to come to my classroom to redirect themselves but to continue to learn as well. I plan to have games, file folders, writing prompts, and many other things available but I also wanted to create simple and fun activity boxes. I picked up a couple of school boxes for $0.47 to use as these boxes. I found ideas on interest to inspire my activities. One activity I found was alphabet spoons look HERE for the original post. While I made these spoons for my personal activity boxes I realized I could do the same for numbers as well so I set to work making those too! I used blue spoons with dots and then clear spoons with the numbers to match.

I also will keep some puzzles in the boxes and I have found some other ideas on Pinterest like popsicle stick shapes, Easter egg word families, Easter egg number matching, and flash card math books, just to name a few! Where would I be with out Pinterest?!

I also found a Calm Down Kit that I thought was a great idea! I made one already and I will probably keep a couple on hand. I may even leave them with the general education teacher so they can give it to the students when they can see that they are starting to get upset. That way they can avoid having to call me or removing the student from the classroom.

The start of my collection of boxes!

I am probably going to keep one of my cabinets filled with these and take a few down to student level so they can choose a box to work on when they come into my classroom. This is all just ideas and works in progress as I still have a few weeks before I even get into my class to set it up!

Welcome!

Welcome, and thank you for taking the time to join me as I embark on a new adventure as a special education teacher!

This year I was hired as an elementary school co-teacher and then was moved into a different special education position. My new position is a difficult one, and new in the world of special education. I am now a redirection connection teacher, most often referred to as "redirection" or "redirect". Without going into the confusing details of my job description, basically I am on call to help with students who are in need of specialized support and redirection. This can be due to behavior issues or struggling in their academics to the point of needing some one on one support.

I will be honest, when I got the call of my position change I was freaking out. The school I was hired at is the school in which I completed my student teaching so I saw what happens on a daily basis and I was friends with the previous redirect teacher and saw how he was all over the place. Non-stop would be a understatement of how much work goes into this position. Then I started to put more thought into it, assessed my skill set and decided that I could totally rock this job!

Now I am super excited and have tons of ideas flowing! I decided it would be fun and helpful to document some of my ideas. While I started researching other ideas from teachers I discovered that there is not a lot of help or information in this area of special education and I waned to set this blog in motion for help to others who may find themselves in the same or similar situation as I found myself.