Planning for the School Year: Building a Strong Parent Rapport Right off the Bat!

Parents can be their student's biggest advocate! It is so important to include the parents in their child's educational program. It is so important to build a good rapport with them, as they can be invaluable to reinforcing things that you are doing in the classroom at home AND provide insight to their child. We are all on the same team, so I like to try to get off to a good start with them!

At the beginning of the year, I like to:

• Call them! I like to call to introduce myself to them before the school year starts, especially if the student is new to you. This will be my second year with the Kinders, so a lot of my guys come from different pre-k programs. I also like to give them the opportunity to teach me about their child! I ask them some questions about their child, like if they have any health concerns/needs or allergies and what types of things motivate their child. This simple gesture helps you get off on the right foot with the parents AND helps you to know the student a little better than the information the IEP may give. 
• Ask them how they want to communicate! It is a blessing to make communication as convenient as possible for them. They have a lot on their hands! 
• Send out a teacher introduction letter. I send out a letter, telling them who I am, my credentials and teaching experience and how excited I am to be working with them and their child! I send this home on the first day of school
• Survey them. Along with my teacher letter, I send out a simple survey, asking the parents about their child. Enjoy this freebie (in PDF or Microsoft Word)!
• Hold a Back-to-School-Night! My school does this for all parents; we all meet together in the cafeteria and then break off into classrooms for more classroom-specific information. More on this later!

And some tips for throughout the year:

• Daily notes home 
• Parent Communication Book. Logging your communication is super important in special ed. It gives you a record to go back to, especially in sticky situations. I keep a binder of my communication with each parent. 
• Save your e-mails. My school system uses Outlook, which unfortunately deletes e-mails after a certain period of time. I used to print all of my e-mails but this is such a waste of paper! I heard this tip from someone at a mentoring class I was taking this spring: Have all of your received and sent e-mails forwarded to a Gmail account! Gmail has a huge amount of space for you to work with and a great search feature if you need to refer to a specific e-mail. 
• Monthly newsletters. Helps keep parents updates about what you are doing in class! 
• Have a resource guide readily available. A resource guide is GREAT to have handy, especially when parents have questions about different services and resources available to them.
• Make sure to include them into the IEP process. 
• Honor them for the holidays (Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa, Valentine's Day, Mother's & Father's Day). Make sure to have your little guys create something beautiful for them! 

It is so important to have clear communication with your students' parents. Not only do they feel included in their students day, but it will make things SO much easier!

Until next time!

Planning for the School Year: Scheduling

Hi!! I am starting to plan for the school year; one of the first things I do at the beginning of the school year is create my schedule. Scheduling can be one of the most frustrating tasks for a special ed teacher. Between related service providers (OT, PT, SLP) and specials/lunch/recess and breaks for staff, it can be a real nightmare when you find that pieces are not fitting together as you'd hoped.

First, I give the IEP goals a glance over to see what instructional activities may work. I usually write these down for each student so I have a draft copy of all the goals in one place; I call these my IEP's at a Glance. I keep a copy in my plan book and share it with my paraeducators to let them know what things we are working on. After creating my IEP's at a Glance, I then think of what goals can be met in which types of instructional activities. For example, last year, one of my students had a vocabulary IEP goal; the goal was to gain functional vocabulary receptively (5-10 per quarter). I decided to have an ABC centers time, where the students would transition between 3 centers run by my paraeducators and I: a sensory center, writing center and word and letter center. We would introduce functional vocabulary in the word and letter center based on the letter of the week; the activity aligned nicely to the IEP goal and I wasn't awkwardly scrabbling to figure out where I would assess this goal every week. When you plan in your schedule for the ways that you're going to assess for your IEP goals, it ensures accountability on your part that you will be working on it at least once every week! 

Second, I create a template, first scheduling my non-negotiable's. This includes lunch and recess and specials, based on the school master schedule. This could also mean your students time with their related service providers, especially if the SP's have a strict schedule of when they are able to meet.
From there, I go on to create the rough draft of my schedule. Everyone has different methods to this. Some teachers do a hard copy rough draft. My OT uses a file folder and movable post-it sticky notes for each student. It seems to work really well for her. For teachers, you could even color-code the post-it notes to correspond with your instructional activities! (I have OCD tendencies!)

Source: Pinterest

I like to do my schedule on the computer. I use Excel and schedule using 15 minute increments; I color code each instructional activity. For like activities, I can use different shades of the same color (reading groups and read alouds)! This seems to work the best for me, as I find that I can easily manipulate Excel.

Once I have my schedule, I create an IEP Matrix and a Staff Schedule. An IEP Matrix is way for you to see which IEP goals you are meeting throughout the school day.
For the matrix, I simply copy my schedule on Excel and write in which IEP goals I can meet in the square for the instructional activity. Sometimes, I group like IEP goals into a category on the IEP at a Glance and then use that category name for my IEP matrix, just so I am not writing each goal down on the tiny little squares of Excel.
For my staff schedule, I find that this can be the most frustrating part of the day. Our staff work very hard so it is important to give them the breaks they deserve! At the same time, we have to ensure that we have coverage in our class, especially for activities that require more hands on deck. :) For the staff schedule, I copy my master schedule and start plugging in. I try to ask staff if they have preference for when they would like to have lunch or take their breaks. Some of my para's have friends who work in different classrooms and if I can accommodate them eating lunch at the same time as their friends, I try. Sometimes, it is just not possible but I try. :) My staff schedule can be confusing to my staff, so I also make sure to type up a schedule in Word to give to them.

Scheduling and I have a love/hate relationship. What are your scheduling tips? 

Summer School Blues

I had a nice, long 3 week vacation from school, but today was our first day back to plan for summer school! I was getting a little TOO used to sleeping in, running every morning, reading, relaxing by the pool, cleaning and cooking up some new recipes from Pinterest! My hubby was getting a little too pampered this summer. :)

This morning, I had to drink a big cup of coffee to wake myself up and drag myself to school! Even though I had a really nice break, I am ready to get back to teaching and having a somewhat more productive schedule again!

In our school system, students (whom are eligible) are able to attend summer school for 4-5 weeks, from 3-4 hours a day, depending on their needs and the program that they are in. Today, we got the (half)day to set up our classroom and plan for the summer (not enough time at all!). My classroom is nice this summer; we are in a brand new building with lots of WINDOWS and a Promethean board! I will have 7 kindergardeners this summer, 6 boys and 1 girl. One student is mine from the school year.

I am excited for the things we are going to do this summer! I am centering instruction around a beach theme. We are reading Pete the Cat At the Beach, making the cute confections pictured below (blue jello, vanilla pudding, gummy bears, and an umbrella!), and a bunch of other fun beach crafts, songs and activities. Don't worry, we're also going to be ensuring the maintenance of IEP goals that were achieved and worked on throughout the school year. ;)

Source: Pinterest

Do you do summer school? What activities are you planning on doing?