Unique Learning System Lesson Planning

One of the most frequent questions I have been asked is how I use Unique in my classroom and how I plan! I have to admit, I am an avid fan of Unique Learning System, however, I do not use ALL components of the unit. I have been using ULS for about 5 years now, enough to have figured out which pieces of the unit fit best with my students. One of the good things about Unique is that they provide you with an abundance of materials. I have not met one teacher yet that is able to use ALL of the plans from the unit (and if you are one of those teachers more power to ya!). For me, the key is to find what works best for your students!

Monthly Mapping 

The first thing I do is grab a monthly calendar and my blank planning template (I will post the link to this free resource below). I mark all the days that we will be off and out of school. Once I have those days crossed off I start my planning. I print the first page from the unit that lists all the lessons. I plan when I will give my pre-assessment and then when I want my students to have their post assessment. If you do not use the Unique GPS, I highly recommend it! You can see student weak areas, what they need to focus on and you can see their growth over the month. I love it! Next, I choose the activities that I feel best introduce the topics to my students and highlight them. After I have all the activities chosen, I add them into my calendar.

Unique GPS data 

FREE Blank Template 

Download Template Here

Selecting the Activities

I have used Unique long enough to discover what works best for me and my students. It has changed yearly. This year, I used the following activities consistently every month: 

• Leveled Book (Lesson 1) and corresponding activity 
• Leveled Book Comprehension (Lesson 2) 
• Easy Read Book (Lesson 3) and corresponding activity  
• Easy Read Book Comprehension (Lesson 4) 
• Vocabulary (Lesson 12) 
• Literary Experience (Lessons 15 and 16) 
• Vocabulary Sort (Lesson 18) 
• Science Experiment (Lesson 28)
• History Timeline (Lesson 29)  

Supplemental Activities I use:

• Adapted Book Packs (samples of the packs in the picks below!) I created these book packs to help me supplement the curriculum because I needed more books! I started creating differentiated activities to go along with the books. Each adapted book set comes with at least 3 adpated books each book with 3 differentiated corresponding comprehension activities. 1 file folder game to cover vocabulary, 2 differentiated levels of vocabulary task boxes, and 1 counting card activity directly related to the monthly theme. Some packs include bonus materials! 



• Science Adapted Book Packs
• I currently have 11 science themed activities listed and 5 science themed adapted book packs available. You can find the link to them above. I also have them available in a BUNDLE.

• Social Studies Adapted Book Packs
• I currently have 6 adapted book packs available. I also have these bundled for convenience. You can find the bundle here.

• Craft Activities related to topic 
• Extension Activities from higher level unit 
• N2Y activities  

 Summer Themes: 

                                  Summer Camp Theme                     Amusement Park Theme

Planning the Lessons 

I don't have a ton of time in my classroom to teach science and social studies content. On top of all the IEP work, speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, specials, and getting them out to gen ed, I needed to integrate my lessons. So, my planning had to be simplified and integrated. During my small group/morning meeting I decided that when I was reading books, they needed to be adapted and content related. So my first step in my planning is mapping out my literacy activities. You can see those in the picture below color-coded in purple. 

After I have those planned, I go back and plan on my specific content related activities, which are usually only 15 minutes long. Those are in the picture below color-coded in green. 

The best part about planning this way, is once I have one month planned, I can pretty much easily plug in the rest of the year's lesson plans! I just re-use the same format and timeline from the first month. Some adjustments might need to be made based on days off, special activities, but for the most part, it's quick and easy to plug in my plans for the month!

Ideas for Lessons

Vocabulary 

I always like to introduce the topics from the unit by introducing the new vocabulary. Some things that I have done in the past to make these activities fun and engaging: 

• Mystery Box- add items to a box and have the students feel items and take guesses on what the new unit is going to be about. Example: for the light and sound unit I put a light bulb and a tamborine in the box and had students feel and guess what the items were. 
• Play Hide and Seek- Hide new vocabulary words around the room and have students find them. When they find a vocabulary word have them read it to you. 
• Mystery Word- Put vocabulary words in a brown paper bag and have students choose a word from the bag and tell class and hang up the word
• Put students in charge of changing the words- Our words are hanging on the wall next to our white board, I like to lay all the vocab words on the table and ask the student to find ______ and hang it on the wall. 

After I have introduced the vocabulary we play the corresponding match game the next day. 

I like to incorporate the leveled books during my literacy lessons. Typically, I will introduce the first book, and have students find the vocabulary words and highlight them.

For my lower level students, the adapted book packs I use incorporate the vocabulary making it quick and easy for you to assess using the books. I typically read the book and have my students make selections from the icons from a field of 2 or 3 depending on the student. I make sure to emphasize the unit vocabulary words during the story and direct instruction.

We do the vocabulary sort around three weeks into instruction so that I know the students have a had good quality time to absorb the content. I usually use this as an assessment, and students complete either individually or with some physical assistance. For my higher level students they complete independently and have very little accommodations. For my lower level students they complete with some assistance (for physical needs) but I color code their sorts to make it more independent for them.

Color-Coded Vocabulary Sort (Not from Unique, but strategy I use for differentiation) 

Adapted Books/Literacy 

I use both of the leveled books provided in the unit. I adapt them so they are interactive and the students can use icons to engage in the story. If the book warrants, I will use props to keep the kids excited about the story. I use these books to cover content, otherwise I would not have time! My typical routine for literacy is: 

1. Introduce the book 
2. Read and emphasize vocabulary 
3. Have students match icons to story from a field of 2 or 3 
4. Complete literacy activity and discuss vocabulary 
5. Re-read book focusing on content 
6. Comprehension assessment 

I repeat these steps for the five books that I use during the unit. I created my adapted book packs so that I would always have a content related book to read and an activity to correlate! It makes my literacy planning so much easier! 

I love using the literary experience. I use these monthly but pick and choose upon availability of the books that correspond with that lesson. 

Adapted Books for "Plants Can Grow" Unit 

Adapted Book Packs

Props for acting out story "Bunny in the Garden"

Science Experiment 

I love doing the science experiments with the kids! I love getting them excited about them! I typically do my science experiment the third week of instruction however in this example (May) I needed to do it sooner due to the nature of the experiment (keeping plants healthy). I break my experiments down into smaller sections to increase engagement. Here is my typical routine for science experiments: 

1. Day 1- Introduce experiment- show items used in experiment, pass out experiment packet, look through experiment and discuss our steps. 
2. Day 2- Re-read experiment, discuss and make hypothesis, "check off" materials to make sure we are ready to go! 
3. Day 3- Conduct Experiment - following steps of experiment 
4. Day 4- Review our experiment, complete conclusion 

I try to do experiments on Thursdays because we have extra time on this day because we have no specials! 

One fun way I like to get them excited is to purposely leave materials for the experiment out around the classroom. When they find them, I say, "I guess you'll have to wait and see for experiment day!" 

Science Experiment "Keeping Plants Healthy" 

Crafts

I like to do crafts related to the topics of our units. I usually just pinterest or try to think of my own. Also, if you have access to the intermediate level of the unit, they have crafts as part of their lessons! I usually pull from that unit as well. 

Craft for "Our Impact on the Environment" Unit 

Craft for "Plants Can Grow" Unit 

How do you plan your units? I would love to hear new tips and tricks! Drop a comment below if you have any suggestions for me! Follow my classroom journey on instagram for more ideas, tips, and fun!

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Morning Meeting

Morning meeting is one of my favorite parts of our day! I love that it is so structured, consistent and it gets us started on the right track. When I switched over to teaching more severe students, I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to incorporate a lot into my morning meetings. In the past, we had a large hands-on calendar binder that the students used to follow along with me. When I whipped out those bad boys this year, I was like "whoa, this is not going to work" that binder may have worked for me in the past, but with this new group of kiddos I needed to cut it down. I had to totally re-structure my morning meeting and I am so pleased with the outcome! Here is our morning meeting schedule:

Student Check-In

When my students arrive in the morning, they unpack their things, and do some type of name work whether that be matching the letter in their name, typing their name on their label-makers, or practice writing it on the lines (if you'd like to see more on how I differentiate name writing, visit my instagram page! I did a post and videos of our name activities). Once those are turned in, the students "check-in" on my interactive white board. They drag their name to "here". Then they have 10 minutes of free sensory play. Why do I start their day out with sensory play? I have found that it makes transition for my students easier, and it also takes some students longer than others to complete activities. I set the timer, and when the timer beeps the students will sit down at our group table and our morning meeting begins. I pull up the "check-in" board and we talk about who is here and who is not here. We count the students in each category, we find the numbers (given a choice of 2) and then hang them on the board. We also use this time to say good morning and I like to use their AAC devices to ask them yes/no questions about students that are present or absent.

 Morning Check-In on our Interactive Whiteboard 

Boardmaker Studio

Here/ Not Here 

Free Behavior Poster

Interactive Calendar 

After we have decided how many students are at school, we go on to our interactive calendar. I use the boardmaker studio program to make my interactive calendar. Students will come up to the board and we will "cross off" the days that we have been at school. Once we complete that, we talk about any special days that month, which special we will have that day (art, music, gym, technology). Then we find what day it is on our interactive calendar. After we find the day, we sing our days of the week song and use sign language. One of my students is highly motivated by music, so we use this to keep him actively engaged. My students are starting to pick up on the signs, and it's amazing to see them "singing" along! 

Interactive Calendar Template 

(Boardmaker Studio)

Weather Check 

After calendar, we check the temperature. I move the arrow for my older students to see on the temperature gage if the weather is hot, warm, cool, or cold. We discuss this orally and then we have a friend check the weather by looking out our window. The friend will tell us what the weather is like, and then we dress Joey for the day! I use a file folder system to store all of Joey's pieces and use my choice board to give selections to the students. Once Joey is dressed, we move on to a more hands-on calendar. 

Temperature Guide and Joey the Weather Guy from Unique Learning System

Choice Board 

Simple Hands-On Calendar

I re-invented my calendar from my larger calendar book set, to a more simplified version. In our simple version, we are working on finding the day, month, weather,  and temperature. I have been slowing adding more skills to this calendar, and this is where we are currently but we still have "yesterday was" and "tomorrow will be" to add. I think this will be a hard topic for my students. When using this simple calendar, I give my students a choice of 2 using our choice board. We love the choice board!

I put my calendar in a 2" inch binder for ease of use 

Simple Adapted Calendar

Last year, I used the more advanced version of this calendar book for my learners. Here are some picks below of how I set that one up and the link to the resource. I have recently updated this version to have better fonts, graphics and a cleaner looking design. I also added American Sign Language options for teachers using ASL to teach days of the week. Each student had one of these calendar books to follow along!

Here is a picture of the updated version. 

Adapted Interactive Calendar

Music 

After we complete the calendar, I use youtube to project videos of various songs. We sing more days of the week songs to work on sign language. We also sing a song called "one little finger" every day. My hope was to get the students involved in doing the hand motions to the song. At first it was a lot of hand over hand, but now the students are catching on and participating in the hand motions. We also will sing songs that have to do with our core-vocabulary words. 

Days of the Week Song

One Little Finger

Walking Walking  (a sample of a song I would use for core vocab word "STOP"

Adapted Books

After we have completed all of the music activities I introduce our daily adapted book. I am really focusing hard on using adapted books that are related to the science and social studies content I am currently instructing. This has pushed me to create some of my own supplemental adapted books and to think outside the box. When reading the books, I use my choice board to display picture options to students about the books. We will use AAC devices to answer questions about the books. After we have read the story, we have reached about our 30 minute maximum. My students are antsy, need restroom breaks, and some even transition to gen ed.  If you are interested in more themed adapted books, check out my instagram page. I share videos of our monthly adapted books. Look for them in my highlighted stories. 

This is how morning meeting looks in our classroom! How do you do morning meeting?

 

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Adapting my Teaching

I started out my teaching career in a mild to moderate self-contained classroom. Our district had purchased us the Unique Learning System and I had to muddle my way through it. There is a lot of content provided in the units each month, and I started to get the hang of it. Then, this past year, while I was on maternity leave no less, I was told that my position would be slightly changing. I would no longer be teaching the K-1 mild/moderate self-contained kids, but would be teaching the K-3 moderate to severe medically fragile children.

What. A. Change. I quickly realized that reading the books for the unit and expecting them to sit and listen was just not doing the trick. So as all good teachers do, I changed up my entire routine. Instead of having them sit and listen to stories and expecting them to soak all of that information in, I got to work providing two to three adapted books per unit. I honestly didn't know where to start! I ended up catching some videos from Little Miss Kim's class on instagram. She had some amazing adapted books and so I was inspired to get to work! So, I started by modifying some of the books from the Unique unit and then I started to get more comfortable with adapting books. I started to create some of my own supplements to go along with the units each month. I started finding books from different sources and adapting them. My students started responding to the books, interacting, engaging, touching them, looking at them, and I mean truly looking at them!

Now my students are engaging in adapted books that go along with the unit theme daily. It's a lot of work. It truly is, but my students are so engaged, and accurately responding to questions about the text that it is 100% worth it. As we read a book I add it into a rotation for their task work, having them work 1-1 with a paraprofessional reading the book and taking data on comprehension.

Here are some pictures of the Unique Learning System books that I have adapted: 

I use the communication boards as matching icons to the story. Right now my students are at the level of choosing from two picture choices. 

Here are the Reading A-Z books that I adapted and some Scholastic books I plan on using in our classroom: 

Here is a peek at the supplemental activities I created for this specific unit on weather: 

here is the link to my TPT shop for this product: Weather Adapted Book Pack. Head on over to my instagram account to see some quick videos on these books (@multiplymagnificentlearners) Multiply Magnificent Learners

Here are some other activities I plan to use to reinforce the unit concepts daily in our morning meeting: 

These resources are from the Unique Curriculum. We will use this to determine what type of clothes Joey will wear daily according to the weather in Ohio. 

These are pictures of the mini-posters I made for my adapted weather pack in my TPT store. We will refer to these daily to discuss what season we are in. 

                                                       

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