Monday Made It- August 10th

Ahhh.  My last week of summer vacation has arrived. *Insert solemn music here* I am getting my classroom ready as well as all of my curriculum for the school year this week. Fun! But for now, I'll show you what I made this past week!

I'm very excited about my pretty new student mailbox. I was pretty sick of the ugly green hanging files, so I covered them with scrapbook paper and added pretty new labels. Each side of the hanging file took one half sheet of black 12x12 paper on the bottom, and one sheet of patterned 12x12 paper on the top. I wasn't sure how much it would take to do the job, and could have made things a lot easier by getting enough patterned paper. But I didn't.... so I improvised. I added some white vinyl letters to the front of the file box using the silhouette, and done. Love, love, love the way it turned out.

This little stool sits at my writing area. The spray paint keeps chipping off, so I added some vinyl polka-dots and dressed it up. I seriously need my own Silhouette Cameo. Are you listening Santa? Or I could even partner with Silhouette America. I'm not picky. =)

Thanks to hosting #SPEDChatSaturday, I was able to get my mainstream notebooks ready for the school year. If you're a special ed teacher and want to see how I use these at the start of the school year, check out Saturday's post. 

 

This year I'm going to be coming up with 101 ways to use Post-it notes since I have a *slight* surplus in the classroom. (Due to my inability to check my whole cabinet before deciding I didn't have enough when I ordered supplies. I now have 1000's of them. No joke!) So I made these fun little IEP reminder sticky notes as well as my contact information on sticky notes for the mainstream teachers I work with. You can find these IEP reminders here on TpT as a freebie.

This is my favorite project from the week. It's obviously not for the classroom, but for home. I'm not a fancy, lots of jewelry kinda girl. But I have been adding to my collection recently and am trying to dress outfits up a bit more. So I needed a place to store all of my earrings and necklaces. I bought this $3.99 frame at the Goodwill. I spray painted it. My husband added some knobs and cut down the chicken wire for me. (By the way, the knobs cost more than the rest of the supplies combined! Geesh!) I added a little fabric to the back to match my bedroom. I love the way it turned out! Now clearly I need some more earrings to fill up all that empty space!

Okay, I'm on the home stretch. We'll see if I can get any real projects done this week with setting up the classroom and savoring the last few days of summer! That cute fabric garland is still on the to-do list!

#SPEDChatSaturday- Together We are Better

Good morning everyone! Welcome to #SPEDChatSaturday. Today I'm host our topic on Together is Better- Special Education and General Education. We're talking all about communicating and collaborating with General Education Teachers.

How are your mainstream/inclusion placements decided? At my school, that is left up to me to approach and talk to the general education teachers. Since I have been on this campus for the past 15 years, I have a pretty good feel for the teachers on the campus and who would be the best match for our students. 

During my initial meeting with each teacher, I give them a Confidential Mainstream Notebook for each student placed in their class. 

This notebook contains the following: 
An opening letter

Teacher contact information Post-it

IEP date (if already scheduled) Post-it
Student Summary with photo of the student

IEP at a Glance
General Guidelines for Mainstreaming with Deaf/Hard of Hearing Students

I fill out a student summary sheet for each of my students. It's a quick way for the general education teacher to get to know the student that will be coming to their class. I like to include a picture of each student. Sometimes our teachers "know" who are kids are on campus, but this allows them to connect their face to their name.

I am excited to use these new IEP reminder post-it notes this year. It will be easy for the general education teacher to remove them from the notebook and place the sticky note onto their own calendar. It's quick and simple. The same with a teacher contact post-it. The general education teacher can place this near their phone for easy reference. I just uploaded these post-it notes to TpT as a freebie. Go download them and get ready for the new school year. There is also a template page included for you to create your own post-it notes to print.  

I also include guidelines for mainstreaming with Deaf/Hard of Hearing students. This is especially important reminders for teachers that have never mainstreamed before. I would suggest including general information on your population of students you work with.

This first meeting is usually a very brief as I recognize everyone is crazy busy before school starts. After I go through the student's needs and concerns, I schedule a follow-up meeting with the general education teacher to go into more detail after the first few weeks of school.

 Email is a special education teacher's friend! It's so hard to track down teacher's after school. I feel like I waste so much time looking for teachers. Scheduling a time to meet or at least emailing a teacher ahead of time that you'll be stopping will save so much time. 

My students each have at least 15 minutes a month of general education consult time written into their IEP. I try and schedule time to meet with at least one or two general education teachers a week. (Remember, I have 1st-6th grade... which is a lot of teachers to communicate with.) That way I have touched base with each teacher once a month. Sometimes this happens more often if there are issues, but we know how that goes. A lot of time is spent figuring out changes in schedules and trouble shooting equipment.

What do you find works best for you when it comes to ongoing communication with the general education teachers you work with?

 Collaborating with the general education teachers we work with is key! We have to be willing to go above and beyond to be apart of the team and make sure all of the needs of our students are met.  So what does this look like for you? For me, it varies from year to year, needs of my students, and time I have available.

• Co-Teach or Teach a Small Group 

One year I had a student who was really struggling with reading and needed more intervention. I was able to go into the general education classroom for an hour a day a teach a reading group. This allowed the general education teacher to split her class into two groups and rotate the students. It also gave me a chance to really see my student in action during reading and give her support without pulling her out of the general ed class. It was a win-win for both gen ed and I. 

Some years I am able to leave my Special Day Class to go teach sign language to the general education classes we mainstream with. The students love it! It helps bridge the communication gap and it gives the general education teacher 30 minutes a week of prep time. 

• Modify the Curriculum and Share

If you are modifying something for your student in the general education classroom, share that with the teacher. They probably have a student or two that could also use that same lesson in a modified format. One year I taught a modified writing group for some struggling writers from the gen ed class and my student. My student was able to be with her peers and get the specific instruction she needed, but it also helped the other students in that group.

• Provide Extra Staff

We all recognize how large the general education class numbers have grown over the years. Some of our upper grade classes have 36 kids in them! Those are crazy numbers! When our sign language interpreters are not busy and our deaf/hard of hearing students are doing independent work, they assist the general education teacher. They grade papers, file, etc. I always talk to the gen ed teacher ahead of time and let them know that my student is that staff member's priority. But if they are working independently, it's okay for them to assist. Most teachers are very appreciative of the extra set of hands and like the assistance. 

• Provide Supplies

I always ask if there is something that I can provide for the general education classroom. Sometimes my kiddos are one extra number that the teacher did not plan for when purchasing supplies. Every little bit helps and shows the general education teacher that you are a team. For one of my classes I take pictures each year for a special project. I crop, blow them up larger and print them for the teacher. It's one less thing she has to worry about and I'm happy to help. Any thing extra you can help with is always appreciated.

The only way we can educate the whole child is to do it all together as a team. That means we as special education teachers need to go the extra distance, do the extras, spend more time, be more flexible and put ourselves out there more. Our work is never done! But our students are the ones who benefit from this team approach. They are worth it!

I'd love to hear about how you communicate and collaborate with the general education teachers you work with. Link up below. 

Monday Made It- August 3rd

Hello August! How did you sneak up on us so fast?! I'm linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her weekly Monday Made It, as I feverishly try and get things ready for my classroom. I went in yesterday and my room has not been cleaned. =( The carpets were wet, but nothing has been cleaned. Ugh. So here is a little peek at what I have been up to.

I have several very low readers in my class. Last year several of my older kiddos struggled to read our job chart. So I remade it this summer with clipart. I just love the way it turned out! I use clothes pins with name labels hot glued onto the pins. This job chart is apart of my new Simple Black and White Classroom Decor set that's on sale right now.

Those same kiddos that are having a hard time reading the job chart, also struggle with reading and writing their numbers. I really needed a reference for them to use whenever needed. So I created a number banner and hung it around my room. This was an empty space before, and now it is filled with something very useful (and cute) for my students. I just added the Number Banner to my TpT store yesterday. If you're looking for a specific color combo to match your classroom decor, just let me know.

I have a few little guys in my class coming in that cannot reach the soap at the sink. I've needed a stool for a while, so this week I made that happen. I got a little wooden stool from Joann's with a coupon and spray painted it black. Then I added my signature polka dots. That's my daughter, shown a little #redbootlove while I was taking pictures.

Each summer I donate the fabric and sew the quilt for Camp Hapitok. This is a summer camp for children with speech and language disorders. I worked there as a teen and as a staff member for many years. This summer I did a little consulting work and enjoyed being apart of it in a small way. Each camper and teen pair make a quilt square. On the last day they raffle off the quilt to one of the teen volunteers as a fundraiser. This is just my tiny little contribution to a program I hold dear to my heart. 

Whew! What a busy week! Throw a little mini vacation in there and I'm not sure how I got it all done. Two weeks until school starts. Ahhhh!

Monday Made It- July 27th

It's Monday again! I'm linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her weekly Monday Made It. It was a busy week, but I did get a few things done for the classroom.

This week I saw these adorable little student birthday gifts that Learning is Something to Treasure had on her blog a while back. She even has the free printable! I got the cups and lids at our local Smart and Final. I took advantage of the free candy this week at Party City and filled the cups with a variety of candy. I then topped them off with a black and white zebra pencil for a 'straw', and a red Tootsie Pop for the cherry look. They turned out super cute and I know my students will love the goodies!

I am loving the many uses of vinyl in the classroom! The possibilities are endless! This week I created vinyl name labels for each of my student's pencil boxes. (And for the group of kindergarten students I work with in the afternoons during our Fairview rotation time. They share a box of supplies.) Then my daughters wanted in on the action, so they got some girly little hearts as well. I really need to invest in a Silhouette of my own. For now I am borrowing a friend's. 

While I had the Silhouette out, I also finished up this project. I have had these little foam squares from the Target dollar spot for a while. I decided to make a new alphabet center out of them for those new kinders coming up that I will be working with in the afternoons. I added some vinyl letters (See! The possibilities are endless!) to the squares. Now it's an upper and lowercase alphabet matching center! Super simple and quick. 

This project has been sitting in my living room for the past month and I am happy it's finally done! I had so many literature units that they no longer fit in my two crates. Really, the problem was that I kept too many copies of copies of copies. (Anyone else have that issue?) So I went through every single file and cleaned them out. It's amazing how much space I have now! I made some pretty new labels for the files and separated out the seasonal literature books that I use. Those dividers are super simple, but will be quicker for me when I am looking for a specific theme book. Another summer organization project complete.

My to-do list is still pretty long for my summer projects. But I am checking them off one by one.

#SpedChatSaturday Back to School

Welcome to the first #SpedChatSaturday topic! Today's topic is Back to School and this linky party is hosted by the lovely Ashley at Lattes, Lesson Plans & IEPs. Today we talk about all things related to Back to School. Not that I am ready for school yet! I feel like I just finished ESY and the summer is just getting started.

But let's jump in. There's a lot to talk about! First up, what's on my To-Do list?

There is always a ton to do before school starts and those first few work days back. We only have two prep days before the students come. That means I have to have all of my general education communication materials prepped ahead of time. I want to be able to approach each mainstream teacher on the first work day back with my mainstream folders in my hands and be ready to talk about students. (I will be sharing all about my mainstream folders and how I communicate with general education teachers coming up on August 8th as I host #SpedChatSaturday - "Special Education and General Education Together is Better".) So before school even starts I prepare a mainstream folder for each student that will be mainstreaming. I also prepare a folder for each staff member (in my case, educational sign language interpreters) with information on the student they will be working with, expectations, schedules, etc.

On the first prep day I am at a half day Back to School meeting with my County Office. The second part of the day I am RACING around trying to sweet talk general education teachers into mainstream with my students. Seriously. Does anyone else feel super awkward about asking teachers to mainstream with your students? An extra student. At least 1 extra IEP to attend. An extra adult in the room. It's not always an easy conversation. Especially when general education teachers already have so much on their plate.

Usually this is not too much of an issue finding someone to mainstream with at each grade level. I tend to mainstream with the same teachers each year that I am familiar with and "get" my student's needs. I've already talked to several teachers before the school year ended and they have agreed to take some of my students. Our site principal does not place our D/HH students since we are a County program on a District site. It's a bit complicated.... and always a stressful process for me... since the responsibility is on me to run around and ask people to mainstream with my students, what their schedule *might* look like, etc.

After I have a general education teacher for each student in 1st-6th grade, I have a better understanding of what the schedule will look like. This means I can finally pair up students with sign language interpreters and start a *rough* schedule for the interpreters to work with that first week of school. Let's talk about schedules and juggling that many recesses, lunches, etc.! Holy moly. But you guys get that for sure! Scheduling is a whole other topic for another day.

So ALL of that happens on the first day back to work. On the second prep day I have a staff meeting with the sign language interpreters assigned to my class and my signing instructional assistant. I go over expectations, schedules, duties, which student they will be working with, student goals and individual needs, etc. At that time they each get their folder with information on the student(s) they are working with, expectations, and a rough schedule with their assignment and duties.

Whew! I am tired just thinking/typing about this whirlwind of Back to School! How do I keep it all organized?

Organization is my love language for sure! But let's be honest. You just need to make it through that first week back! So let's focus on that first!

Student Information: Each student is going to bring that huge Back to School packet of paperwork the first week of school. Before school starts, look through that packet and make a simple spreadsheet of what paperwork you need returned. As they bring back these forms, check them off. You'll know who has turned in what and what you still need. Sort these papers into stacks as they come in.

Staff Information: We all work with a lot of extra staff in Special Education. Make sure you have an area for a mailbox for each staff member. I also post the school's weekly news so each staff member is responsible for knowing what "extras" are happening that week. I don't have the time to tell each person individually about the upcoming fire drill or assembly.

Teacher Information: You know that huge packet of Back to School information you get from your County Office or District? Your class budget, the new rules and regs, etc. File that and get to it later in the month. You need to survive the first week and this is so not important right now!

Lesson Plans: Now *this* is where you will need to spend lots of time prior to the start of school preparing for! It will save your sanity when you are exhausted those first few days. Your materials will be ready and you can walk out the door and actually nap when you get home rather than stress about what you are doing the next day. You know which subjects you will be teaching. You might not know when, but you know what. So plan ahead of time. Also, plan lots of extra activities just in case. That first week moves really fast and you need to be prepared for extra time in the day. After you have spent a few days with your students you will be able to make plans for the second week.

I always spend way to much time trying to make my classroom look just right rather than having a plan for the first week. Not this year. I already have my first literature unit picked out and TpT units purchased. ;)

Now.... on to wishes. A girl can dream big, right?

Scheduling mainstreaming for grades 1 to 6, along with four staff to cover 7 kids is always a nightmare. I already know I don't have enough interpreter coverage. I just pray that the stars and moon align and the schedules work out perfectly. Enough said.

When you work with that many extra staff in Special Education there are bound to be staff issues. I am just hoping for an easier year than last year in this department.

My goal is to be proactive and prepared enough to be out the door and headed home by 4pm each day. We're contracted 8 hours a day. But who only ever works their "40 hour professional work week" as a teacher???

Speaking of... how do I manage my time?

Each day after recess my students have 15 minutes of free time in the classroom library. They can read, do puzzles, or build. During these 15 minutes I lesson plan for the following week. This way I can put together a to-do list for my assistant with copies or examples that need to be made. I don't get a "prep period". I constantly have students in my classroom.

Each of my students get at least 15 minutes of general education consult time per month. That means I am running around after school trying to catch certain teachers. This year I plan on scheduling these times in advance so I am not wasting time trying to track teachers down. Email is a beautiful communication tool meant to make our lives easier. I am constantly emailing teachers to set up a time to talk after or before school. 

How about a promise? 

This year is full of changes for our program. I have a new supervisor and will be working with new staff in my classroom. I just need to embrace these changes and not worry about things I cannot control. I often tell myself to just "shut the door and teach". Do what I can with what I have.

Here's to a great start to the 2015-2016 school year!

Tell Us About You Tuesday

Hi everyone! I'm linking up with Freebielicious today to tell you all about myself. I'm Kelly and this is going to be my 17th year of teaching Deaf/Hard of Hearing Students on the Central Coast of California.

Waaaaaay back in high school I volunteered at a summer camp for children with speech and language disorders. My younger cousin is deaf and had attended this camp when he was young. I already knew a little bit of sign language, but after voluteering that first summer, I just knew I wanted to work with deaf children. I took sign language classes at our local community college and ended up being paired with a deaf child for three more summers until I graduated from high school.

By my senior year it was pretty clear, I wanted to become a teacher of the deaf/hard of hearing.  Here in California there are two choices for schools with Deaf Ed programs. Fresno is WAY TOO HOT and Northridge was WAY TOO BIG. I ended up going out of state to tiny MacMurray College in Illinois. But the fact that it was literally a mile from IL School for the Deaf sold me. Hands down, going out of state forced me out of my little shell and I had an amazing experience in college.

But I ended up coming back and settling here on the Central Coast. This weather is perfect. (Except the last two days. I am melting people!) I couldn't find a Deaf Ed job right away so I applied to be an interpreter. At my interview the coordinator did a double take that I had just graduated Deaf Ed. She offered me a preschool teaching job on the spot. I took it! But I had to start a week later than school was starting since, um, I was getting married!!! First teaching job and getting married all within a week as a baby at 21.

I taught preschool for two years with itinerant as well. Then when a position opened up in the classroom I moved over to teaching 4th-6th grade. As our numbers decreased I expanded to 3rd-6th and now it's 1st-6th grade! It's crazy! Some days it feels like a one room school house. So many pros, so many cons. But I make it work and I try not to complain too much. I have a job I love.  

I have two beautiful girls who keep VERY busy when I am not at work.

Aubrey is seven and is simply a miracle. She was born at 29 weeks which was a scary experience. She was diagnosed at 2 with Childhood Apraxia of Speech and didn't even learn to talk until 3 1/2. Just by looking at her now and talking to her, you'd never know she was a preemie or had such great difficulty learning to talk! This girl is going to be taller than me by third grade!

Addyson is my spunky five year old. She has more personality than I know what to do with most days. But she keeps me laughing, that's for sure. I couldn't even make up half the stuff she comes up with. Always making me smile, that's for sure!

In my "spare" time I love to scrapbook. Both the traditional albums and also Project Life. I just love to document all the big and little moments in our life. It's a huge creative outlet for me. Plus retreats twice a year with my scrapbooking group keep me sane!

Some times I wonder how I fit it all in. Priorities. You always have time for things you love.