Get Ready For January and a FREEBIE!

Have you noticed how quickly winter break goes by?!?! While winter break is a great time to relax and get refreshed again, it can be tough on our students. My special kiddos crave (and need!) structure, routines and a predictable environment. These resources are perfect for giving students what they need without a ton of extra prep!!

Don’t expect students to be able to sit and follow directions as well as they could in December. Take time to review rules and behavior system and build movement into the school day. There are TONS of ways to build in movement without any extra prep or materials. Click HERE, HERE and HERE to read up on easy ways to add in movement.

Choose resources and materials that are already leveled and differentiated for you! It’s a lot of work to adapt materials to fit the needs of every single student in my classroom. No thanks!! Instead, these are a few of the materials I will be using after break.

Read and Do Playdoh Mats! All of my kiddos LOVE playdoh and there are 2 different levels included. I use them for all of my students- not only the ones that can read. For my non-readers, I read them the text to target verbal comprehension and following directions.

We will also be using these interactive winter books. My kiddos have a serious OBSESSION with interactive books. Luckily for me, they can be used in so many different ways! Click HERE to read about getting the most out of interactive books. We do all sorts of things with the pieces to make sure we are covering all of the students’ skill targets.

There are 4 books included in this set. You can check out all 4 books HERE.

High Interest

Our theme will be transportation for the first 2 weeks after winter break. It is a highly reinforcing topic for many of my kiddos which is a win! We will add movement and sensory elements into the tens frames pictured below. We will hide the numbers in a the sensory table and then students will have to do gross motor activities to match the number to the tens frame on the other side of the room/space. We will also use the numbers and tens frames in work task boxes to work on number ID, number concepts, sequencing, etc. Being able to use the materials in multiple ways saves me time and money!! You can find the transportation themed materials HERE.

The clip cards pictured above will be used during direct instruction centers (click HERE to read about direct instruction) and work task bins.

We will work on standard and non-standard measuring. This can be a difficult concept for my kiddos, so using highly motivating pictures and themes helps a lot!!!

We will also be changing up the work box tasks we do. You can read about how we do work boxes by clicking HERE. We do work box tasks every day to reinforce skills and to build independence levels for students. Here is a FREEBIE  to get you started. Click HERE for the free download in my TPT store. Be sure and click the green star next to my name when you download to be among the first to hear about future freebies, sales and new resources.