Spelling

As a resource room teacher, many of your students will probably have a lot of difficulty spelling even simple words.  I have recently started using the students writing as a way to create their spelling word lists.  My plan for next year is to give the students a few weeks to adjust to school.  I will look at the spelling lists they are given in the classroom (and look to see how they...

Planning

My apologies for not updating in a while!  There has been a lot going on lately and since I didn't follow my own advice, I was short on time.  Set aside one day a week to stay late and write your plans for the following week. Once they are written, make the copies you need and stick the materials into manila folders, labeled with the days of the week. All Monday materials will go in the...

Mental Health Days

I really needed a mental health day today.  Although today is more like a get-all-the-paperwork-done-without-students day.  It seems impossible to keep up with all the paperwork I have this year.  I know it's  not impossible but it sure feels that way.  I have service logs (each day I see a student I have to write down the date, time I saw them, if I was out or they were out,...

Schedule

My schedule changes every 2-4 weeks. Students are added, moved around, or no longer need my help. It's easy to just copy and paste kids around in your schedule but I really recommend printing out a new copy of your schedule EVERYTIME it changes. Keep them all in a folder with the dates of the changes and why it changed. I would also keep a list of students in that folder. When you get new students,...

Attendance

How are you going to keep track of attendance? Some schools will require you to take it everyday (especially in the middle school and high school). If not, you should still keep track for your own purposes. My records do not always match the schools (times are off, dates are entered wrong). Mailbox magazine has a lot of helpful organizers for teachers in it. Go to your library and flip through some...

Welcome Letter

After you decide on your rules and consequences, your next to-do list item is creating a welcome letter to students and parents. My letter was very simple. I introduced myself as their child’s special education teacher. I told them that I thought parent-school communication is very important and I gave them my contact information. I also stated that I attached an information sheet to the letter and...

Rules and Consequences

Once you have a job, writing your rules and consequences is the most important thing on your to-do list. Take your time with this. Choose rules that are easy to understand yet are broad enough to cover many situations. Some of my rules are: 1. Enter and exit the room quietly (I share a classroom so this is VERY important to me) 2. Think before you speak and act. (This covers all bad behaviors) 3....

Hello World...

Hello World, Allow me to introduce myself and my concept for this blog. My name is Becky and I am a first year Resource Room teacher. I teach students from K-5th grade in 2 different buildings. Needless to say, organizing myself to teach 6 different grade levels at 2 buildings was not an easy task. It's still not easy even after 8 months of practice! As I was searching professional...