Mrs. D's Corner

teaching from the heart, not the books.

data collection and progress monitoring I took data now what blog post header

Progress Monitoring: I Took Data, Now What?!

Being a teacher of students with special needs, and having taught in so many different school settings and states, I feel like I’m really good at tracking data. Truthfully, I’m a data nerd – I LOVE collecting data and student progress. Because of this, I’m constantly assessing IEP goal and objective progress. On a weekly and daily basis, I take data in a lot different ways. If you haven’t read the Data Collection for Special Education Teachers blog post, you’ll want to start there. One of the most important data collection sheets is my weekly progress monitoring page. I get asked… Read More

Bookshelf Share February books for kids

February Bookshelf Share

February is the month of love… but also Black History Month, Dental Health Awareness Month, and the sweet little groundhog decides if we get an early Spring or not. And that’s just the beginning. Phew! But fear not. I am here to share with you a bookshelf for each major topic for the month of February. Let’s take a look! You can use these books to talk about Black History Month, different US Presidents, the 100th Day of School, snow and winter, Chinese New Year, being kind, and being a good friend. In addition to children’s books you can purchase… Read More

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Holidays Around the World for Special Ed

Holidays Around the World is a popular topic during the month of December. It’s engaging, cross-curricular and culturally inclusive. So it’s time to take your students on a trip around the world. Enable all of your students to participate in the unit while you travel to 21 different countries and celebrate a different holiday tradition at each stop with this set of leveled, adapted readers, activities, recipes and more! Where are we traveling to? In this trip around the world, your students will travel to: • US / Canada Christmas• Kwanzaa• Hanukkah• Australia• England• Mexico• Germany• Sweden• France• Italy• Netherlands•… Read More

This Math Assessment bundle includes all of the parts needed to assess your students on the early elementary skills needed in grades K-3.

Assessment in SPED – Math for K to 3

As special education teachers, we often are not provided with appropriate resources to assess our students current levels of learning. Or the resource we are given doesn’t meet the needs of all of the learning styles in our classroom. We always make it work, we’re superheros! But it’s time to use our superhero strengths for something else. This Math Assessment bundle includes all of the parts needed to assess your students on the early elementary skills needed in grades K-3, with all the data sheets needed to collect baseline data and show progress on the mastery of the skills. You may… Read More

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Halloween Treats for Kids That Aren’t Candy

Halloween is a holiday that all kids love because of all the candy, but we have to think outside of the norm when it comes to halloween treat ideas. Many of our students have allergies, don’t celebrate the holiday, or are limited with how much sugar or candy they are permitted to have. Not to mention, all this sugar isn’t good for young, growing bodies or teeth. Here are a few treat ideas for kids that you can hand out at school for the Halloween holiday, or within your community for trick or treat night or trunk or treat. Learn… Read More

core vocabulary in a special education classroom - blog header

Core Vocabulary in the SPED Classroom

Core Vocabulary. It’s such an important aspect of any classroom, especially in a special needs classroom. Communication is a natural part of life, and it’s how living things communicate wants and needs. But what if you’re unable to communicate verbally? Imagine you’re 4 years old, and you have no other outlet to tell your parents how much your belly hurts… or that you don’t like green beans, that you want french fries… or the reason you had a tough day at preschool. Sure, our students and children do find ways to communicate with us using body language and facial expressions…. Read More

Core vocabulary - practicing the basics with put in tasks

Core Vocabulary: Practicing the Basics

Core vocabulary is a key element in any person’s day. For some of our students with special needs, we need to model and practice how to communicate and ask for what we want and/or. If you’re unsure of what Core Vocabulary is or where to start, I recommend learning more in this blog post first. In this blog post, we’re going to learn all about how to use a put-in task as an AAC device communication lesson. One that is simple and very inexpensive. Before we get in to what the activity is or can be, let’s learn about the… Read More

IEP Meeting tips and tricks for new and veteran teachers to rock that IEP meeting. Blog post at Mrs. D's Corner.

IEP Meeting Tips and Tricks

IEP meetings can be daunting. Especially to parents. And even to veteran teachers. From nerves and anxiety, to tears of happiness for progress made and unity of the team. As the special education teacher, there are some things that we can do to be top notch prepared for anything… and ready to rock our next IEP meeting. The list is broken down into 4 sections: before the meeting, bring to the meeting, during (or at) the meeting, and after the meeting. Let’s get started! Have a peer edit the IEP. Everyone makes mistakes and it’s better to catch them pre-meeting…. Read More

IEP Binder for Special Ed Teachers blog header. Mrs. D's Corner.

IEP Organization for Any Special Needs Teacher

Being a caseload manager and special education teacher is a wonderful experience that, unfortunately, includes tons of special education jargon and paperwork that can sometimes become overwhelming. Not only do we need to keep the legal documents organized, but we have timelines to abide by and follow. This IEP binder is your key to tidying up your daily caseload, organizing key special education information, and focusing more on your students, rather than the paperwork. { Grab your IEP Caseload Management Binder here. } All of the IEP Caseload Binders contain the same content, but the themes are different. That means… Read More

color coded student iep binders header

Color Coded Student IEP Binders (Color Coded Classroom)

Do you need an effective, tried and true method to keep track of all of your students’ IEP goals, progress notes, work samples, notes, and everything else?! Enter color coded student IEP binders. This simple system makes it easy to keep track of independent student work, IEP goals and objectives, notes from home, and everything else in-between. Picture this scenario… admin walks into your room at 3:20PM on a Thursday afternoon. Your contract time ends at 3:45PM… but now you have an impromptu parent meeting. The parent wants to see work samples and data on their child, who is in… Read More

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Tips to Avoid Getting Sick as a Teacher

Getting sick can be an inevitable part of any teacher’s life, especially if you work with the younger kids. There are germs everywhere… tables, pencils, doorknobs, papers, shoelaces! Oh, the shoelaces. So how can we, teachers, help ourselves? How can we try our best to prevent getting sick? Here are a few tried and true tips from veteran teachers on my Facebook page: Mrs. D’s Corner. Open the windows and let the fresh air in. Eat well and healthy. Get enough sleep. Eat your fruits and veggies! Wash your hands often. Don’t touch your face or eyes with germ-infested hands…. Read More

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A Substitute Binder for Special Ed Teachers

No matter how hard we try to not get sick, there are days when we need to take a sick day… or even a personal day. But planning for a sub is stressful, especially if it’s an emergency situation. The last thing you want to worry about when you are at home sick, taking care of a loved one, out on maternity leave, or even at a staff development session is how your class and substitute are doing. It’s time to rest easy. Never feel unprepared for a substitute again with this dual-purpose, editable substitute binder for both short and… Read More

tips and tricks for keeping velcro scissors clean

Tips for Keeping Velcro Scissors Clean

Every teacher has a pair of scissors. Every special education teacher has a pair of Velcro scissors. And every teacher has gone through the struggle of having something sticky attach to their scissors, making it difficult to cut anything. Below is a list of preventative measures to take to keep your Velcro scissors all nice and scissory… as well as a few options to try when your Velcro scissors need a good cleaning. You’ll want to use a pair of scissors that are non-stick. And then label the blades “VELCRO” with a permanent marker… that way there’s never any mixup. … Read More

Conferences for Special Education Teachers

Conferences for Special Education Teachers

Teachers are always learning and are always searching for new strategies, instructional methodology, and ideas to help their students learn. Sure, we have professional development sessions provided by the districts and schools we work for… but they aren’t always geared towards special education teachers. Or it’s a slideshow that’s repeated each year. Thankfully there are dozens of national and international conferences that are held every year, and are geared towards special needs teachers, parents, and professionals. Below are a few conferences for special ed teachers, linked with descriptions, that are recommended by fellow special education teachers.  Wright’s Law Sessions –… Read More

work task Wednesday - test tube patterns and colors. mrs ds corner.

Work Task Wednesday – Test Tube Patterns and Colors

Welcome to Work Task Wednesday, a place where we will be talking all about different work task, work bins, task bins… whatever you call them, we will be talking about them! The benefits of using work bins for academic learning centers include promoted independence, practicing transitions, playing and engaging in multiple activities during a certain time-block of the day, cooperating and sharing with others, and an opportunity to provide students with a more hands-on approach to learning. Plus so much else, that’s just the start! The best part about using work tasks in the classroom is you can meet the… Read More

Grading Rubrics for special needs students. grading rubrics for students with disabilities.

How to Give Grades in Special Education

Rubrics allow a teacher, paraprofessional, service provider, and/or admin to break down lessons and skills into competencies and criterion.

moving past the trauma a tribute to teacher anxiety

Moving Past the Trauma and Back to You – A Tribute to Teacher Anxiety

Anxiety is a tough thing to work through, on your own or through therapy. It can take months, years… even then it’s a constant work in progress. As a teacher in today’s society, it can be even harder. Social media makes everything seem so perfect, so idealistic, and for so many… unattainable. Perfect classrooms, teachers so put together, kids always on task working. Seeing these IG-worthy and Pinterest-perfect posts on social media doesn’t always help those of us with anxiety. Over the past couple of months, I have opened up more and more about my journey with anxiety – sharing… Read More

classroom library and organization tips blog header. special needs classroom library.

Classroom Library + Organization for Special Ed

Having a child read is a crucial component of becoming a good reader. It is our job as teachers to provide our students with multiple opportunities to read while at school. Schools come equipped with a school library, but many times students only see the inside of the school library one day a week or less. Classroom libraries should be inviting, organized, and provide students with more than one or two options students want to read. The more books we house in our classrooms, the more opportunities we are providing for our students to read… and read for fun. But… Read More

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