BTS Organization {Step 2}

Time is really getting away from me!  I can't believe school starts in 3 days!

Here is the second step to getting your special ed paperwork ready.

Just copy & paste the goals that are already typed on your at-a-glance sheets into these progress monitoring sheets!  Now you are all set up to track your data!

I have sheets for weekly, monthly and quarterly progress monitoring.  Personally, I prefer monthly assessments because it gives kids time to make progress and it doesn't take away from my instructional time.

This step only takes a few minutes and you will feel organized as soon as it's done!

Step 3 is to make/print any worksheets/assessment tools that you will need for the year for each child which takes a WHILE.  I will post how I am doing that once I get it done which might not be for a few weeks :) 

Back to School Organization {Step 1}

I know many of you are already back to school (sorry) but I'm going to share step by step how I get my paperwork ready for school as a special educator.  Each day I'll post a new step to help you get organized! 

The very first thing you should do is become familiar with your ieps! Every summer, I print the ieps and make each child an "at a glance" sheet as I read them.  I give classroom teachers this sheet as well (but it is not a substitute for reading the iep...make sure they know they also need to read the full iep!)

This is what my "at a glace" sheet looks like.  It has the basic information that I need to know quickly.  The top has the child's birthday, classification, grade, next evaluation date.  Next, I check off what services they recieve.  Then I add their goals and testing accommodations.  

In the important notes section, I write things like if they have daily communication between home and school, if they have a medical issue, a family situation staff needs to be aware of...big things!

Finally, at the bottom I add a little box for the parents names & contact info.

This sheet is available in my teacher binder kit or you can make your own:

I highly reccommend typing this information into the sheet and saving everyones.  This will help you save a lot of time for step two in getting organized! 

Bulletin Board Planning

I am quickly running out of time to set up my room so I sat down today to plan some bulletin boards.  I was trying to decide what font colors to use...I don't know about you, but I am a visual person.  I have to see it before I know what I like. I didn't want to do the bulletin board 2-3 times so I quickly made digital versions in power point.  

I put a black background and purple border because that's the colors on my board.  I quickly decided that white font was out.  I think I am going to go with each word in 1 color instead of each letter.  Now I just have to print and cut my letters and I'm all set for putting up my board tomorrow!  

New Beginnings

My last post was a year ago....a year!  And that makes me feel bad because I love blogging and creating things for my classroom and TPT but I have an 18 month old who is my whole world now so my time is spent with her.  I honestly have no idea how you teacher blogger moms do all of this! 

Speaking of not being able to do it all, I am switching positions this year!  I am leaving the 12:1:1 special ed room and going back to resource room.  While I loved having my own classroom and being my kids primary teacher, I felt too torn between giving my students what they deserved and coming home to my daughter.  I was going to stay a few more years but a resource room teacher retired and I had my opening to get into the school that is 1 minute away from my house.  I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing (I'm still not sure if we are being honest), but sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump!

I am going to be working very hard this summer to get my life in order...school and home!  Hopefully things I create for myself will help you too!  Stay Tuned!

Becky