WHAT A YEAR

Ok, well so much for blogging about my first year as a SPED teacher.  Boy did life get crazy once school started.  It seemed as though there was never enough time for my work, my kids, and life!  You can tell by the IEPs I wrote!  We are transitioning to standards based IEPs and the ones I wrote at the beginning of the year were much more detailed and had more objectives than the ones I wrote in March (our district wanted IEPs all renewed by April 1st if possible.)

 Last year was the fastest moving school year in fourteen years.  I blinked and it was over.  I definitely want to do some things different this year.  I had great plans for this summer to map out how to address the students IEPs goals during the school year and the summer has now just about disappeared as well.

Next week my daughter is off to Camp Barnabas, the best camp around!  Camp Barnabas is a Christian camp for individuals with disabilities.  Ella is so excited to go and have fun for a week with other kids that don't think anything about her idiosyncrasies.  My son is hoping to hang with his cousins; which will lead me to a week to get some planning done!  Here's praying I'm self-disciplined enough to do it!

Paperwork & Progress Monitoring

Back to school means assessments!  We always have to check to see how much students regressed over the summer and that means paperwork to keep up with.  With special education there is also progress monitoring during the year and before and after breaks.  I wanted a way to keep up with this as well as my students' goals.  I didn't like the big binder I used as a classrooom teacher and never really found something I liked as an interventionist.  I saw a progress monitoring folder on pinterest and adapted it to me.

I have a chart to monitor reading growth that I use to show students where they are & where they need to get to.  I will also include the actual formal reading assessments in the pocket.

The goal pocket is for the IEP goals so I make sure I am addressing those in my instruction and monitoring.



Most of my students have math goals as well and so I included a pocket for our math assessments (STAR Math & quarterly assessments).  The last pocket is for other district assessments.

To make the folder I took a pocket folder with no brads but three holes and flipped it inside out.  Then I put the three holes into a pocket folder with brads.  I then duct taped the edges of the inside out folder to create one turnable page.

Organization

I love the e card that says something to the effect of: don't you know if my room is cute the rest of the year will go smoothly.  That is SO me!  Every year my goal is to be more organized and this year an additional goal was to make an inviting room. 

There are lots of pins out there on organizing classrooms but very few on resource or intervention rooms.  So, I took the pins I liked and things I've tried before to organize myself.  We'll see how well it goes.

Teacher Area

My happy spot next to computer with my work to do.  That way hopefully I can leave the day with a clean table.

Repurposed shelf Mod Podged.  Used to store quick reach items behind my horseshoe table.

Little notebooks for each grade level.  These will be used to keep notes during progress monitoring and for running records.

Supply storage! Scrapbook paper from Dollar Tree & Target.

The entire time I've been at my present school the resource room has looked well, sad.  The school has seen so many teachers come and go and those that were there just weren't that into organizing and decorating.  I wanted to make the room some place kids wouldn't mind coming to.  I think I accomplished my goal as I brought my sixth graders to the room for the first time today.  Their response?  "This room is tight!"  Couldn't get a better endorsement.

Back to School Set Up

Moving to the resource room from my old office and work space was challenging.  I had been in the same office for five or six years (I lost count).  I hadn't realized how much stuff I had!  Neither could my best friend and fellow SPED teacher.  She just kept saying, "Another load!"  "Yes," I'd say sheepishly.  Here's the pictures.

This summer I had to pull my daughter out of Girls Club as she is VERY impressionable and was picking up some topics of conversation par for the course for most junior high girls but with her autistic tendencies she doesn't always realize when these conversations should be filtered and kept to oneself.  So, with her at home and my son (whose in elementary school) there wasn't much time to work on the room.  My roommate and other half (she does lower elementary SPED and I do the upper elementary) is 8 months pregnant so she didn't work on the room either.

 Finally, teachers were back on contract and in between meetings and after school I managed to get things set up and organized.  Thank you to all the Pinterest teachers for posting great ideas for my new room!

Before (front of room)

After (front of room)

 

 

 

 

 We decided to put our small group areas to the back of the room, her on one side and me on the other with shelving between us.
We also wanted this small table for her kindergarten and first graders.

My side of the back of the room.  Plenty of room for all of my stuff.  I told her that I had so much stuff compared to her because it was 13 years of teaching versus 4.  Sounded good anyway!

 

I LOVE MY NEW SPACE!

 

 

Here it goes!

Ok, so I'm new to this blogging thing but I thought it would be a good way to reflect on what I'm doing this year.

I've taught for 13 years but this year I'm entering in the world of Special Education from a SPED teacher perspective.  I've worked with SPED as a classroom teacher and I've worked with SPED as a mama of a SPED student.

So, I'm using this as a journal of sorts for this year of new teaching and continued mothering of my daughter.  She's now a teenager and journaling is needed with her special needs and teenage hormones!  Hope whoever find this blog gets something from this as well!

I can do all things through Him who gives me strength!