Back to School Resources for the 1st Week of School and Beyond
Aug 01, 2023
Whether you feel excitement about a new school year or dread, you have to be prepared or you will be eaten alive (not to sound dramatic, but we all know it’s true). Knowing what you need to start the first day and week of school and having the time to create and perfect said resources are two separate tasks and sometimes you just don’t have the time or mental bandwidth to do both. So… check out the list below!
Best Back to School (and Beyond) Resources for High School and Transition Special Education Teachers:
First Day & Week of School
Paraprofessional Training Manual
Created to meet the needs of both new and veteran support staff, this is the training manual you will want to have your aides review and engage with prior to the first day of school, but the scenarios at the end will be meaningful from the first day of school until the last. With the ability to edit specific sections, this comprehensive guide can be tailored to exactly what you need for your students and classroom.
Digital Data
If you have a professional growth goal of collecting better data for IEP goals or want to save yourself time when calculating data, then you need these auto-calculating and graphing digital data sheets! You will be reporting IEP goal data super fast, because it's super easy! Why are these data sheets better than others? Because they come with functions and pre-formatted graphs that will automatically begin calculating and graphing as soon as you add data!
Life Skills Rubrics & Checklists
Use these 10 life skill rubrics and checklists to find out how strong your student’s functional skills are! Fill these out to help you quickly see a student’s strengths and weaknesses at a glance and give you meaningful data for the IEP present level of performance and student strengths.
These checklists and rubrics are comprehensive and cover it all, including:
- Community Access Rubric
- Cooking Skills
- Food Prep & Eating Skills and Safety
- Home Responsibility (Independent Living)
- Money (Financial) Skills
- Recreation/Leisure Skills
- Safety Awareness
- Self-Care Skills Rubric
- Time Management Skills
- Vocational Skills
Basic Skills Assessment
This resource comes in both PDF and Google Sheets formats, so choose your favorite way to collect and keep data! Perfect for learning about new-to-you students' strengths and weaknesses in everyday life skills like cooking, personal information, independent living, functional, community, and more. In total, this resource assesses 33 life skills and identifies 3 levels of mastery, which helps to show skill growth or regression over time. I share more about the Basic Life Skills Assessment and how I use it three times every school year!
Getting to Know You
It’s the non-ice breaker for the times when you want an ice breaker activity without all the awkwardness. This resource includes activities for students to complete independently, with a partner, and as a whole class, so you’ll strike just the right mix of new peer and whole class interactions without being overwhelming.
What’s a Transition Plan Lesson- Slide Deck & Checklist
If you teach high school or transition, helping students know what their IEP Transition Plan is and how it impacts their day-to-day at school is so important that it deserves time at the start of your school year. This resource includes a Google Slide deck to help increase understanding of the Transition Plan and a 1 page checklist for students to work through as they review and engage with their own Transition Plan. A great option for the first week of school or for an open day before different parts of your schedule really get in full swing.
Vocational Skills Inventory
If you are getting a new crew of students or changing ages or levels, assessing their vocational skills so you can plan future lessons and place them at appropriate volunteer sites is a great first week of school activity. With over 125 vocational skills, including prevocational, vocational, and soft skills, completing an inventory with each student will give you a full picture of their strengths and areas of opportunity and will help you narrow in on appropriate work boxes, vocational lessons, and volunteer placements.
Technology Skills Inventory
Modern-day students need technology skills! This thorough technology skills inventory includes 100 technology skills for the modern-day student (no floppy disk questions, I promise). Skills are divided between two categories- General technology and Internet-capable technology; General technology covers basic tech skills, such as charging, power on symbol, volume, etc and Internet-capable technology covers skills one would use when interacting with tablets, smartphones, computers, smart TVs, etc. Extra bonus: you can use this resource in a printable PDF or digital Google Sheets version.
Recreation Leisure Interest Inventory
You have to find out your students' interests before you can start including them in lessons and reinforcements! With 150+ recreation leisure activities listed, you are bound to find a few different activities your students enjoy. You can choose to use this single resource in print form or as a digital Google Sheets version (which is editable and configured with automatic color coding and strikethrough text to make this incredibly user friendly)!
Work Readiness Lesson Unit
If your students are at the career exploration, career research, or career readiness stage, you can set them up for career success through a whole-employee lesson focused on employability skills, including wearing a work uniform, workplace social skills, soft skills, and hard skills. Includes 5+ days of lessons, 5 slide decks, 5 worksheets, AND a unit assessment! Just print and go! 
Sensory Toys for Teens and Young Adults
If you are looking to stock or update your sensory bins, sensory closet, or sensory room with age-approrpiate sensory toys for your high school or transition age classroom, then check out my lists of the best sensory toys for teens and young adults!
FREE: Age of Majority Visual
Depending on the age of your students, you might use this once or monthly to help your students understand how their rights change once they turn 18 years old.
Resources for Daily Use
Daily Life Skills Warm-Up
If you want to review important life skills each day and want a new set of questions in every worksheet, then THIS IS THE RESOURCE FOR YOU! With 925 questions, your students will answer 5 NEW life skill questions with each new worksheet. Imagine spiraling back through important life skills every day! This resource includes 185 pages, so you’ll have enough to use one per day! Questions never repeat and topics are appropriate for the modern day student!
Life Skills Daily Warm-Up Boom Cards
It's a digital take on the 5 Question Life Skills Daily Worksheet (above)! With new but similar questions, this 4-question AUTOMATIC GRADING Life Skills Daily Warm-Up Boom Cards will have you assign 1 deck per week and have students answer a short deck daily. Perfect for morning meetings, early finishers, homework, sub notes activity, and centers. Such a flexible resource!
NEW: Daily Functional Math Worksheets
200 Pages of functional math worksheet awesomeness. Designed to span 5 key functional math skill areas: Time, Shopping, Money Management, Budget, and Vocational Skills Math; these workbooks will have you using a new page WITH NEW QUESTIONS every day of the school year. Super helpful in introducing or looping back around to key concepts all throughout the year.
NEW: Daily Functional Reading Worksheets
I'm aiming to be every special education teachers go-to for meaningful, daily resources and this functional reading comprehension resource is just what your teacher toolbox needs! With 200 pages of functional reading examples, spanning daily living, technology, community, cooking & eating, and safety, this resources will give your students quality daily reading comprehension practice.
FREE: 10 Functional Math Skills Worksheet
A great answer to the question, 'What am I going to teach or review the first day of school?' Get a baseline of your student's functional math skills with this 10-question FREE functional math worksheet. It's designed to be easy to differentiate by printing just 1 page for the 5 most foundational skills or printing two-sided for the 10 most common functional math skills.
Question of the Day (Vocational Skills, Life Skills, & Consumer Math)
If you are looking for a casual way to get students communicating at the start of a lesson or to round out those last few minutes before the bus or bell, this is the resource to grab! With 180 questions specific to Vocational Skills, Life Skills, or Consumer Math, you will get engaging on-topic conversation going with just a single question.
Morning Warm-Up Worksheet & Question of the Day Bundle
If you want 3 functional life skills resources to use EVERY DAY of the school year, then this is the bundle for you! This resource includes Question of the Day Conversation Starters, Functional Life Skills Worksheets, and Daily 5 Life Skills Questions Worksheets.
IEP Transition Skills Goal Bank
Never sit at a blank IEP goal page again wondering what goal to write for a student. With over 900 transition skills, this resource covers all the key areas for independent living, education, training, and employment. Read More about the Transition Skills Goal Bank awesome resource HERE!
Resources for Weekly Use
Transition Portfolio
If you need a Professional Growth Plan objective to help students set meaningful goals, then this Transition Portfolio will do just that! Students will identify people who support them (and how), their goals, their strengths and weaknesses, align their strengths/weaknesses with their goals, challenges to anticipate with their dreams, available supports, and more! With 2 formats (written response and circle response), this resource is for teachers who have a wide range of students in their classroom and want to address the same skills at the various levels.
Weekly Worksheet (and yes, you can grab 1 page of all of these for FREE HERE!)
Safety Skills (Read more about this resource HERE)
Functional Math (Read more about this resource HERE)
Functional Reading (Read more about this resource HERE)
Vocational Skills (Read more about this resource HERE)
Transition Workbook (Read more about this resource HERE)
Use 1 sheet each week and it will last you the whole school year. Similar to the Life Skills Daily Warm-Up, these weekly worksheets focus on a set of skills to keep concepts and learning fresh in students minds. With between 4-6 questions per page, the worksheets can easily be worked into your morning or afternoon routine or used as homework!
Pro tip: Grab one of the resources above and print a set for the class along with answer keys. This is a great resource to grab when a lesson runs short or you have a substitute teacher!
Functional Math Worksheets
Practice money math, telling time on an analog clock, and counting in increments all on 1 worksheet! These functional life skills are important to learn and review at any age. With 36 pages, this resource will last you 1 full school year if used once a week! Design and graphics are appropriate for all ages. This resource is ideal for gathering IEP goal data around functional math skills!
Life Skills Homework
If you want to have a way for students to practice transferring the skills they learn from the classroom to the home setting, this is a simple way to allow students and families to choose the best and most appropriate skills in their own home. If you grab any of the Life Skills Lesson Units in this curriculum, they are included, but you can download them separately to use with your own lessons and curriculum and calendar!
Job Site and Job Shadow Student and Staff Reflection & Feedback Forms (for Vocational and Community Based Instruction Job Site Visits)
Do your students do one-time job shadows? Get this resource.
Do your students need both written and circle response style forms? Get this resource.
Do your students work/volunteer at a job site every week? Get this resource.
Do you want feedback from staff about a one-time job shadow visit? Get this resource.
Do you want feedback from staff who support students at a job site every week? Get this resource
Do you want both printable and digital versions of this type of data and feedback? Get this resource.
Seasonal & Holiday Resource Bundle
Don't let another season or holiday creep up on you without being prepared with a meaningful, age-appropriate activity! This resource is NOT a simple coloring activity; it will have your students think about and learn about 10 different holidays and seasons throughout the school year. Buy now and be ready for the whole year!
Amazon Resources
Working on your Amazon Wishlist? Check out my Amazon Favorites or watch this series of Instagram Stories about why I love and how I use the different items.
When you feel like your teacher toolbox is full of meaningful, easy to use resources that you know are appropriate for your students, you’ll feel confident and (mostly) ready for the school year ahead. Now, go fill that toolbox!
