Teaching Math


What's 2 For Tuesdays? 
Its a group of bloggers linking  together  to offer YOU 2 special items for sale in our TPT stores this summer. Check out the link above to go to the reserved place in my store where I have 2 different items on sale each week just for you. Be sure and check back each week because you will want to CATCH that special item YOU need next school year ,or even for Summer School or Extended School year.

Teaching Math
Today, for 2 For Tuesdays, I wanted to share about Touch Math. I want to talk  specifically about
teaching counting and number identification and naming. This past year, I taught  several students that had a particularly hard time learning number and counting to 10.
As a teacher of special education working with students with significant disabilities,  many of the kids I work with have great difficulties learning to identify their their numbers and correctly use one to one correspondence to count items.
Many teachers even in general education classes also have students with this problem in learning numbers. One way I have used over the years has been the Touch Math program. This program has been around for a quite awhile and has proven to be quite an effective tool for teaching student with math difficulties.
If you haven't heard of this program, you should look it up. You can click here to see more about it.
Its the best program I have found that works children with many different types of math problems.
It works for children of different ages; from Pre-K through 3 grade. Primarily what TouchMath has done is  assign points to each number that corresponds to the value of the number.TouchMath  provides students with  a multiple sensory way for kids to learn math. The points are single dots in numbers 1-5 and double points (dot plus a ring around the dot). Each number has assigned dots that are affixed to a specific place on the number. The important part of this program is to teach the student HOW to count the dots for each numeral from 1-9.
The Touch Math program uses pictorial objects and dots for the The Touch Points as the students learn to count. First the students can use the pictorial dots (apples, ducks, ladybugs) to learn to touch, count and say the numbers then as they progress, the pictorial objets are faded to dots. Once your students have learned the touch points they have something tangible to touch (the dot) and say the count aloud(say the number). Then using the dots and/or pictorial objects the students can move from counting to adding, in which they use the dots and counting forward to add, In subtraction, the student count backwards and in multiplication and division they count in sequences  to multiply and divide.
Check out this great program! I have seen wonderful things happen when kids realize they really can count or can add!
This week in 2 For Tuesday, I am offering a set of number counting and matching cards with counting points on them. I use them as a supplement to the Touch Math program and it has helped immensely. I also made a set and put them in a work center.
Item 2 today is a review set of worksheets for sight words. These words particularly come from the PCI Reading Program Level 1 but they are also on the Dolch Sight Words list and can be used with any reading program.
WAIT!  Be sure and check out other items in Two for Tuesday!
Click the picture below to go to  Chalk One Up for the Teacher where you will find other links for
2 For Tuesday
 Chalk One Up For the Teacher

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2015 Summer Bloghop




THE ABC'S of Special Education Classroom Scheduling    


Scheduling in a special education classroom (next to organization) is one of the most important things. It can get a little complicated, but stick around and lets walk through it together. I spent many years being the only special education teacher at a small neighborhood school. I had no one to bounce ideas off or share ideas. I only wish the internet was available then ( yes, I've been around that long) so I could see what others were doing . So stick around and let me share a little of how I schedule my classroom. It is my hope that some of what I do can help you or give you an idea of ways to make it easier for you.
Step-by-step and piece by piece it will come together. There are so many different factors to consider when scheduling in a self-contained special education classroom but we will consider just the basic starting points in this post.



  • Assemble all your information regarding what your students needs are. Read your students IEPs to get their goals and objectives. Tracking the students progress throughout the year is imperative so the first thing is to look at goals and objectives for each student.  Ask yourself: Where am I going to start with each student? What is my next step academically and behaviorally as well as in the areas of social skills, independent functioning and health issues(if any)?
  • What related services do your students receive? Do your students receive Occupational Therapy, Speech/Language Therapy, Physical Therapy? 
  • What special activities such Art, Music, Computer do your student attend? And of course, don't forget Lunch and P.E. 
  • Once you have all your information about your day (or as close as you can get), move on to the next step.



I use 2 primary schedules to map out my classroom information each year. 
One way that I started in the last few years was to take all the components of the schedule and prior to putting it on paper, I used post it notes on a white board to get the schedule to a manageable  point. Manageable means until I could understand it in my head! Using the postit  notes seems a little old fashioned for tech- savvy teach but it worked since you could see the whole schedule or all the schedules at one glance and move things around to try them out until your hearts content. With the postit notes, I could still
Color code. Color coding for my classroom makes me calm! 
Then when it was more manageable (in MY mind) a.k.a the schedule was about 80% done I would do it in excel or in a chart in Word.

#1    SCHEDULE STUDENTS STATION TIMES


The first is a CENTER ROTATION schedule of when activities are held during the day and what station each student goes to. For example, Student 1 goes to Reading Station from 8:45-9:00 and Student 2 goes from 9:00-9:15. With times down the left side in increments of 15 minutes and student names across the top. I complete this schedule first in order to make certain every student is assigned each station and there are no overlaps.







#2 STAFF SUPERVISION ASSIGNMENTS 
This chart tells which staff member works with which student(s) at what time. With this chart I can make sure all student have supervision, Paraprofessionals have their breaks and all areas of the classroom are covered.







  • I prefer to use color coded schedules myself as the color gives me one more way to organize my thinkings and see the classroom organization at one glance.
  • I created an IEP goals/objective form, that my paraprofessionals and I use to track the student's progress.  It lists the goals and objectives down the left side of the chart and a place to record the data for each; whether that is trials correct or percentages.
    I was lucky for the last couple of years to have a fairly stable class in which 95% of the students returned to me each year, so I was aware of their skill sets, their goals and objective as well as their limitations from the day they walked back into my room, yet I still made sure I had these charts. 



I have included both color and black and white forms in the pack.  Below you'll find a link to several of these forms that I've used in the past. I have left them totally editable in MS WORD format so you can modify them to make them your own.



Thanks to Kim Geswein fonts.
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