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Sharing my experience in the classroom as a life skills special ed transition teacher by providing resources and solutions for fellow educators

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Special Education Paraprofessional Handbook Training Manual
Special Education Paraprofessional Handbook and Trainings

Every school year brings a lot of excitement and overwhelm, as well as new paraprofessionals and support staff to train. While we may have the best intentions to provide hands-on training for the newest classroom staff, schedules may not always allow this.

Give your special education classroom para...

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Functional life skills daily warm up worksheet
The Life Skills Daily Warm Up Activity Resource You Wish You Had Time to Create

You know that starting off each school day with consistent structure, meaningful engaging activities, and skill-focused conversation will really set up your students for a great day. 

 

Well, I always wished I had a daily resource with fresh questions that were life skill related, especially aroun...

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5 In-School Vocational Jobs (That Isn't a Coffee Cart or Dog Treat Business) 

 I can picture it nowā€¦

 

You are an effective, student-focused teacher who wants to provide valuable vocational experiences to give students work-based practice beyond a vocational box in the classroom.  You want them to get out of your room, work with new, less familiar adults, and learn on-the-j...

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Creating Student Special Education Schedules
How to Create Special Education Student Schedules

To Do: Create Schedule

 

Itā€™s the thing that lingers on a special education teacher's to-do list and weighs on you all summer because it is NEVER just a one-and-done sort of thing. The first student schedule draft will take you a few hours and youā€™ll hesitate to even remove the task from y...

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How You Can Help Families Prepare to Access Benefits Over Summer Break

Let me preface this by saying that YOU wonā€™t be doing any work for your well earned summer break. Instead, youā€™ll give your families a summer to-do list to help them be ready to dive into the benefits/service/support application process in the fall.

 
 
 

Here are 3 things YOU can ā€˜assi...

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How To Teach: Eating at a Sit Down Restaurant and Tipping
 

Importance of Knowing How to Behave in a Sit Down Restaurant and How to Tip

 

Your students may enjoy a sit down restaurant every week with family, they may go periodically on the weekend with friends, or they may go a couple times a year for special celebrations. Either way, they likely ...

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How To Teach: How to Behave in a Restaurant
Importance of Having Manners When Eating at a Restaurant
Besides the grocery store, restaurants may be the community environment your students will visit the most. Therefore, it is important that they know what restaurant manners are expected of them in that setting. There are endless unwri
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Ordering Food at a Restaurant Worksheet
Teaching Life Skills: Ordering Food [Special Education]

For some students, ordering food from a restaurant is basically a part of their everyday life, but for others, it's an important life skill they might use a handful of times a month.  Regardless, food is a basic necessity and students are bound to access a restaurant (either by visiting the real thi...

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How To Teach: Restaurant Meal Budget Skills
Importance of Using a Restaurant Meal Budget
We may want to order everything on a restaurant menu that sounds delicious (including cheese fries, cheese curds, and a chocolate shake), but we just donā€™t have the money or stomach space for that. So, deciding how much money to spend on a meal o...
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If I Had $1,000 to Spend on My Classroom

Iā€™m going to give it to you straight right from the get-go: Some teachers will NEVER be given a budget to spend on their classroom, some will be given various amounts of money at various times with a strict timeline of when to spend it or what to spend it on, and some will have the luxury to buy

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How To Teach: Paying For a Purchase When Shopping

Importance of Paying for a Purchase

The checkout step at any store can be overwhelming. Some have signs on the ground, some signs are at hip level, and some are up above. Some have only human cashiers and others have a combination of self check out and cashiers. Some have only 1 check out...
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How To Teach: Cost Comparison Skills

Importance of Comparing Prices

Cost comparison is a skill that can be used anytime someone shops for something. You can compare the price of cell phones, oranges, shoes, and haircuts. However, knowing there are two factors that go into determining which is the best ā€˜valueā€™ is a true skill
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How To Teach: Find Items In a Shopping Store

Importance of Navigating a Store

Being able to walk into a store and know where to go to get what you need can reduce anxiety and increase shopping confidence in a student. Most stores have similar layouts and will demand similar skills from the shoppers, so helping students to know how to shop...
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How To Teach: Online Banking & Using an ATM Skills

Importance of Online Banking and ATM

When was the last time you balanced your bank account using a check register? Yeah, I thought so! Online banking is now available through most banks and can eliminate a whole list of challenging tasks for our students, like completing check registers! No mor...
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How To Teach: Budget Skills

Importance of Teaching How to Budget

 
Knowing how to budget, money specifically, is how someone strikes the balance between getting both their needs (food, water, shelter) and wants (movie tickets, game tickets, new phone) met. We all wish we had endless amounts of money to spend, but that is...
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How To Teach: Paying With Cash and Debit Card

 Importance of Knowing How to Pay with Cash and a Debit Card

Many people make more purchases using a debit card than paying with cash, and very few pay with a check anymore. Therefore, learning how to pay the way stores and businesses accept payment is a must.
 
In fact, more stores ...
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How To Teach: Counting and Adding Coins and Dollar Values
Importance of Counting and Adding Coins and Bills
Yes, the debit card (and even credit card) reign supreme in the money world, however there are still times when a student would need to not only know and add dollar bills, but also identify and count coins. So, while the need for this skill ...
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How To Teach: Following a Recipe
Importance of Following a Recipe
Cooking is just following a set of steps to create an end product. While the concept is simple, it can create a lot of opportunities for students to get off track and experience a cooking failure rather than a cooking success.
 
Learning how to ap...
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How To Teach: 5 Food Groups
Importance of 5 Food Groups
The Food Pyramid is what most of us grew up learning about and while I know there were levels to the pyramid and that determined how much of something you should eat, it was a little complex. MyPlate is the new guide, rolled out by Michelle Obama during the
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Soft Skills in Special Education Using Conover's Workplace Readiness
A speech pathologist shared with me recently that Google conducted a study and found that of the top 8 reasons people are most successful at work, the first 7 reasons were soft skills (read: nothing to do with the workerā€™s capacity to do the actual job at hand). If you arenā€™t shocked, then you c...
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Author

Heather

Blog Post Author

Heather is a former high school and transition special education educator with 15 years of experience in the classroom. She is passionate about creating high-quality, age-appropriate resources, sharing her knowledge of teaching with fellow educators, and helping Illinois families with disabled teens and young adults as they learn about and navigate the confusing world of benefits.

5 Free Worksheets!

Vocational Skills, Safety Skills, Functional Reading Comprehension, Kitchen and Cooking Skills, and Student IEP Transition Plan worksheets are ALL included

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