Welcome (or welcome back)! Here are this week’s free lesson offerings: Free Adapted Literature Selection: A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner This retelling of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily reads at an automated readability index of grade 5/6. This text aligns to the version in Holt’s Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. Classic literature […]
Author Archives: sara
Empowering Peer Models to Lead Lessons
One of the absolute best parts of my personal life skills class is the peer models. I’ve got truly exemplary peers leading groups in class. Now that we are trying to navigate remote learning, I appreciate then even more. They are the ones reaching out to their peers via FaceTime, text, Instagram, phone, and mail. […]
E2E Free Lesson of the Week: March 18
I’m as shocked as everyone else that schools in my area have closed for the year. I know that families are feeling stressed about how to proceed with teaching at home. Schools WILL push out materials, but you may find yourself needing something to supplement it, especially if your student has an IEP. However, my […]
How to Choose the Right Peer Models for Your Social Skills Class
I write often about my program’s cadet teachers (peer models). When teaching normative social skills to adolescents, tapping into the resource of other teens is powerful. While younger children may enjoy and seek the approval of teachers, teens (yes, including those with intellectual disabilities, ASD, or behavior disorders) prefer acceptance and approval from people their […]
Data Collection Forms
It has long been a source of fury for me when students are moved to more restrictive settings without reliable data or without having tried every reasonable intervention to allow them to remain in the least restrictive educational setting. I’ve seen firsthand how it can turn a kid’s world upside down to be removed from […]
Adulting 101 Bootcamp
Working with secondary students who have intellectual disabilities comes with an enormous amount of pressure. I feel a strong sense of urgency. There is an immediate need to help them prepare for life after high school. Even a freshman has only four years to learn as much as possible about how to function as an […]
Rethinking How We Teach Social Skills: The Project-Driven Classroom
I’ve had so many ideas swirling around for blog posts for the past several months that I’ve had trouble deciding where to start. I have been co-teaching in general education classes and helping students at my school grow and develop a personal life skills class and club. The process of seeing teens with and without […]
Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is
I’ve written and spoken a lot about the link between undesired behaviors and classwork that is too difficult for students. I’ve been following my convictions about this for the past year and am pleased to announce that I have opened a sister store on Teachers Pay Teachers, Universally Designed. Right now, my focus is on reworking […]
Universally Designed: Coming Soon!
I’ve been working on a new product line since January that I hope to roll out for a soft launch this summer. After finding that there are VERY few lower Lexile versions of texts in the most commonly-adopted literature books at my high school (and even FEWER that were actually engaging and of good quality), […]
Free Lesson: Do’s and Don’ts of Workplace Grooming Slideshow Templates
My students are focused on all things work-related between now and the end of March. We had some discussions in class yesterday about skills we wanted to make sure we addressed, and students and cadets wanted to be sure we talked about looking professional (good grooming) in the workplace. I see lots of teachers assigning […]
