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

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Transition Plan Student Workbook for High School and Transition Students functional life skills life skills special education teachers teacher experience teacherspayteachers transition Dec 12, 2022

I love a really good transition assessment.  I love when parents/family members give quality feedback.  I love when staff share their ideas and insight about a student’s future.  But, I really love when students are open, honest, and (most importantly) realistic* about their...

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Functional Reading Comprehension Worksheets for High School and Transition Students functional life skills life skills special education teachers teacher experience teacherspayteachers transition Dec 05, 2022

What is ‘functional reading?’ According to me, it’s being able to read and understand enough to get what you want or need AND what you don’t want or don’t need. This includes weeding out the fluff stuff that doesn’t matter.  The fluff detracts you from...

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Transition Assessments for High School and Transition Age Students functional life skills life skills special education teachers teacher experience teacherspayteachers transition Nov 01, 2022

You are sitting down to write a student’s IEP and you get to the Transition Plan section.  You plug in the same phrasing you use to every other student.

 

GASP!!!!

 

You would never do that!!!  You are a better educator than to copy + paste (even if it would save you a...

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Paraprofessional Trainings for Support Staff in Special Education life skills special education teachers teacher experience teacherspayteachers transition Oct 17, 2022

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

 

Give your paraprofessionals the training they want and...

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Creating Teaching and Student Schedules: What to Consider life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition Jul 01, 2022

  • Create schedule

 
It’s the thing that lingers on your 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 you’ll hesitate to even remove the task from your to-do...
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How You Can Help Families Prepare to Access Benefits Over Summer Break functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition May 17, 2022

Let me preface this by saying that YOU won’t be doing any work for your well earned summer break. Instead, you’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...

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How To Teach: Eating at a Sit Down Restaurant and Tipping functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition May 16, 2022
 

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...

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How To Teach: How to Behave in a Restaurant functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition May 09, 2022
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...
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How To Teach: Ordering Food at a Restaurant functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition May 02, 2022
Importance of Ordering Food at a Restaurant
No matter what kind of restaurant you are ordering food at, your food order with a cashier or wait staff is a conversation. If your students struggle with bilateral conversations (ask question, respond, ask follow up, respond, etc), then ordering...
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How To Teach: Restaurant Meal Budget Skills functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition Apr 25, 2022
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 don’t have the money or stomach space for that. So, deciding how much money to spend on a...
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If I Had $1,000 to Spend on My Classroom life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition Apr 19, 2022
I’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...
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How To Teach: Paying For a Purchase When Shopping functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition Apr 18, 2022

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: 5 Food Groups functional life skills how to teach life skills teacher experience transition Feb 21, 2022
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 functional life skills how to teach life skills teacher experience transition Feb 15, 2022
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 worker’s capacity to do the actual job at hand). If you aren’t...
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How To Teach: Where to Store Food and Read Expiration Dates functional life skills how to teach life skills teacher experience transition Feb 14, 2022
Importance of Food Storage and Expiration Dates
Helping unload the family groceries and putting the food safely away can be a BIG help to caregivers. Also, detecting mold and knowing not to eat it can keep students safe from sickness. So, knowing where to store food and how to read expiration...
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Why I Prefer Teaching Transition Over High School life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition Feb 01, 2022
I remember squating in front of a student’s desk in a high school math class where I was a co-teacher reviewing absolute value with them and how to apply it to different problems. I thought to myself, ‘they are probably never going to use this in their entire lives and yet, I must...
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How To Teach: Table Manners functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition Jan 31, 2022
Importance of Meal Manners
While you may think manners only happen at the ‘dinner table,', meals can happen anywhere. However, regardless of if your student eats at a dinner table, a pop-up tray, on the floor, or at a restaurant high-boy, they need to know what to do at each point...
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How To Teach: Packing Skills & Keeping a Wallet or Purse functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience teacherspayteachers transition Jan 24, 2022
Importance of Packing and Wearing or Using a Wallet or Purse
As students become teenagers and young adults, being able to hold their own things shows a level of independence. Holding on to a bag and keeping the bag with them as they move from one environment to the next will allow them to...
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How To Teach: Self Advocacy Skills functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience teacherspayteachers transition Jan 17, 2022
Importance of Self Advocacy
Adults advocate naturally constantly throughout their day, we just don’t come right now and announce that we are doing it (however, we really should). Therefore, advocating for yourself is not something that is typically modelled for our students on a...
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How To Teach: Cleaning A Room functional life skills how to teach life skills special education teachers teacher experience transition Jan 10, 2022
Importance of Cleaning a Room
Some people are born with the need to have things clean and orderly and others...just aren’t. However, learning to keep a room clean (like a bed room or dorm room) is a useful skill. Not only will students increase their feeling of accomplishment because it...
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