A place for teachers and other providers of special education services to support each other, share information, and discuss topics, including assessment.
HIgh School Special Education Teacher
Cheri Maupin
Resource Teacher, Community Based Education, High School from Ogallala, Ne
Posted on 3/20/2010
I teach a Life skills class for special needs students. I have been given the challenge of creating a program in our school plus thing out of the box with it. What are you doing in other schools? Does anyone have an apartment or house that you use? How do you fund these projects?
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Have you seen the book, With Open Arms by Mary Schlieder? I recently attended a workshop by her and the book has a lot of ideas regarding Social Skills and Circle of Friends to teach Autism and Asperger's children.
She is a good speaker. I want her book.
A Leach
Our school is fortunate enough to have a small kitchen with washer and dryer. Believe me, I know how very fortuante we are.
Our life skills class (at one time or another) have:
* ran a cookie business where the students sold the fresh baked cookies at the end of the day~there is nothing like the smell of baked goods to encourage sales
* ran a breakfast program for faculty. The students developed a menu, took advance orders, perpared and even delivered orders, shopped for materials, and arranged the advertisements
*host a sit down Christmas luncheon for faculty/staff/family members. We sell tickets to the event, prepare all foods and serve our guests. The students bring in recipes or search for a recipe to make and in the end - we prepare a cookbook with the recipes that we used.
*have a student run school store for after school snacks
*do laundry for the PE department
*prepare a family style meal at least once a week
* have the local Red Cross come for babysitting/tips on staying alone and basic first aid training
*participate in job shadowing/community outings
I should note that we have excellent staff and students but are also a very rural area with limited resources. We have had to think outside of the box and feel we have been quite successful.
Wow! Thanks for the
Wow! Thanks for the information. You have given me soon great ideas for next year. I also have a washer and dryer and kitchen but I haven't even though of some of your ideas. We did prepare cookies for the Blood Drive and Student counsel conference. We wash other students' gym clothes. How do you teach general housekeeping? We clean the school's library and teacher's lounge (they are messy =). ) We clean our room when the janitor is sick. We care for a class pet and plants.
For general housekeeping - we
For general housekeeping - we did as you seem to be.... cleaned our rooms and kitchen area. Since we are such a small commiunity, we are exploring the idea of general house cleaning for an elderly person (which happens to be related to/good friends with someone on our staff)in our community. Along with the house work we have also discussed the idea of general outside/yard chores. We havent gotten very far past the discussion stage and still have to explore the liabilities of it but, in theory, it sounds good.
Your general housekeeping
Your general housekeeping ideas sound like very good ones. I had not thought about the elderly in our community. Do you have a community garden area? We don't but I was thinking of helping people in the community that do have gardens for that experience.
I think that a local nursing
I think that a local nursing home would be willing to work with you to develop some housekeeping skills. You could do wash, make beds or perhaps work in the activities department.
Your school sounds similar to
A Leach
Our school is fortunate enough to have a small kitchen with washer and dryer. Believe me, I know how very fortuante we are.
Our life skills class (at one time or another) have:
* ran a cookie business where the students sold the fresh baked cookies at the end of the day~there is nothing like the smell of baked goods to encourage sales
* ran a breakfast program for faculty. The students developed a menu, took advance orders, perpared and even delivered orders, shopped for materials, and arranged the advertisements
*host a sit down Christmas luncheon for faculty/staff/family members. We sell tickets to the event, prepare all foods and serve our guests. The students bring in recipes or search for a recipe to make and in the end - we prepare a cookbook with the recipes that we used.
*have a student run school store for after school snacks
*do laundry for the PE department
*prepare a family style meal at least once a week
* have the local Red Cross come for babysitting/tips on staying alone and basic first aid training
*participate in job shadowing/community outings
I should note that we have excellent staff and students but are also a very rural area with limited resources. We have had to think outside of the box and feel we have been quite successful.
Your school sounds similar to mine. It is a non-public school, and I have found, if we need it... our directors usually get it for us. I work with the 18-22 year old population and we have job coaching; a mock restaurant that plans, takes orders, prepares, serves a very healthy (vegan) meal once a week; a washer and dryer; simulated stores; etc... About 40% of our kids are diploma bound.
Teacher of Developmental Cognitive Disabilities
[quote]I personally do teach this group of students...but when I was student teaching, I worked in Bend, OR area. One of the schools there had an apartment where post high school students reported, and then went to their supported employment positions (shelters, and other arranged jobs). You might want to look up the schools in the Bend area.[/quote]
An apartment is a good idea
An apartment is a good idea for your older CD students. A neighboring school district had an apartment for teaching life skills. All students spent time learning a variety of skills.
Another project I had was matching students with seniors and had them do life skills in their apartments and homes. Great for both the students and senior citizens.