You’ve spent all week setting up your classroom, decorating bulletin boards, and laminating all the things. Now that you have that covered, you realize “what on earth do I do the first week of school?!”
Here are my tips for planning the first week.
Teach Students how to follow their schedule
It’s crucial to have some sort of schedule on Day 1, even if you tweak the schedule after Day 1. Students with significant disabilities need structure right away. Even if you change the order of activities, students will still transition and complete the activities in the same way (ie. independent work systems, how to line up, eating in the cafeteria).
Collaborate with general education teachers
Build a strong relationship with your students’ general education teachers if they push into the general education classroom. I try to get my students into their gen ed classroom as soon as possible. Our students should also be involved in the “getting to know you” activities with their typical peers.
conduct preference assessments
Motivation is EVERYTHING in an autism classroom. Conduct a formal or informal preference assessment. This will help determine what your student is motivated to work for.
Pair Yourself and your paraprofessionals with fun!
Building a solid relationship with your students is important for any teacher-but, it’s even more crucial for a special education teacher. Students with significant disabilities need to trust and like their teachers. Don’t force your students into difficult work quite yet. Your goal right now is to want them to return to school tomorrow! This will create fewer behavior problems later in the school year.
place "busy work" at your teacher station
As I said earlier in this blog post, the first week of school is about teaching students to follow their schedule. It’s about training your paraprofessionals, too! Give your students an open-ended activity like puzzles, painting, or even educational apps on the iPad at your teacher center. Now, this leaves you free to train your paraprofessionals what they should be doing at their center. You will need to model expectations, show how to collect data, and how to maximize student independence. This is also a great time to teach students how to complete their independent work stations.
Teach students how to complete independent stations
If you do this the first week of school and beyond, you’ll thank me later. Students are going to need a lot of support at first to complete their independent work. However, just think! – Later on in the year when you are trying to teach a math lesson to a small group, your heart will swell as you watch your other students work independently. This doesn’t just happen overnight- it needs to be explicitly taught.
You might hear your principal say that the goal for the first week of school is “get them here, feed them, and get home safely.” that is so true! You are doing a great job as long as your students feel loved and safe. Have a great year!
Feel like you need some ready-made activities for the first week of school? Check out these back-to-school activities in my TpT store.
