A Look Inside Early Numeracy Curriculum by Attainment's

Tips for Getting Started 

When you open the box, it is extremely overwhelming. You get so much with this curriculum it just looks like it's going to be difficult to implement. Here are a few tips to get you started: 

• Take out and organize and store the manipulatives. I used dollar store storage containers and labeled them so I can quickly find them when I need them. 

• Use a three drawer system to store materials for your current lesson. I have two groups on two different levels/lessons. I use a three drawer system and put each groups materials for the lesson in the drawer, that way I can quickly grab them for the week and begin the lesson. 

Drawer system for storing lesson materials. 

In each drawer is everything I need for the lesson! 

• For nonverbal students, look into getting a multi-step leveled communicator so that they can practice counting and their early numeracy skills! 

AAC programmed to count with texturized numbers. 

• For students who require more tactile and visual supports, texturize numbers and a number line. 
• Go to the company's website and watch the model videos. This helped me a ton!

 Early Numeracy Curriculum

What do you get in a box? 

A ton of manipulatives, a teacher's guide for 6 units, an assessment manual, a student response book, a math stories book, student workbooks and posters for instruction. The manipulatives go along with the theme's of the lessons. On my Instagram page, I show you more of these in depth. Didn't get a chance to snap a picture of the manipulatives! 

Teacher's Guide for Lessons 

Math Stories Book 

Student Workbooks

Graphic Organizer Posters

What's in a Lesson? 

Each lesson has it's own theme. Currently, the lesson we are on is "My Favorite Fiesta" so everything is related to that theme. The manipulatives for this specific unit are maracas, which my student's love! 

Each lesson begins by reading a "math story" out of the math stories book. The stories are full of math concepts that the students will relate to once they start working on the objectives. The numbers in the math stories are highlighted in red, so that students can connect the numbers to the story. 

Each Lesson has 12 objectives that you will cover. The goal is to the teach the same lesson throughout the entire week, providing the most support, and then slowly fade back your prompting until the students can complete the objectives independently. The unit's build upon the skills that were acquired in each previous unit. For example, in unit one students are expected to count objects up to 5 on a line. In unit two, they are expected to count objects up to 5 in a scattered pattern. Here are a few pictures of my students in action using this curriculum: 

Working on the objective of identifying greater than and it's symbol. 

Measuring with standard unit for the Chinese New Year theme. 

Working on creating patterns. 

Assessment

The curriculum comes with progress monitoring forms that are super easy to use. I progress monitor once a week to see if we are making growth and identify which areas we are struggling on. There is also an assessment at the end of each unit in which students need to pass with a score of 80% in order to move on to the next level. The manual also gives tips if you are "stuck" in a level on how to modify the next level up to meet the needs of your students. 

Progress Monitoring Forms 

Overall, my student's have made huge growth with this program. They enjoy math time, and they love the themes and manipulatives. I am very happy with this program, and I can't wait to see how much we grow by the end of the year! 

I hope this was helpful and if you have any questions feel free to leave me a comment! 

2

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?

 

0

Differentiating Writing for Non-Writers- Lowest Level

It Takes a Village

Before I even get started with this post, I have to say that I have an amazing team of therapists. We have an awesome occupational therapist that will do whatever we need at the drop of a hat. It takes a village, it truly does, and all of the activities I am posting about have been a collaborative effort between my team and I, so thank you Miss Jessica!

Who are these particular activities for?

I broke this into different levels because I feel that there is SO much information to share! So let me begin by breaking down this level of "writers" in my moderate-severe classroom. This particular group is my younger group, they are also my most severe group of students. We are working on things like: crossing mid-line, making selections, putting things "in", and horizontal lines. We had to break down our pre-writing because we weren't making progress. We have been and will continue to work on making horizontal lines until our students are able to make the lines themselves.

Writer's Workshop for Non-Writers

I do Writer's Workshop during my center rotations weekly. It is time for me to sit and specifically work on writing skills. This is our weak area, and I know this. I decided to make it my goal to tackle this head on this year. In order to do that I needed to think outside the box and collaborate, collaborate, collaborate! My Occupational Therapist and I have worked very hard to make sure have motivating and engaging activities. Each student has a writing folder that I keep their work in. In the higher levels of writing, it takes us a week to complete one step. I will get into that in my next blog post. 

Hands-On Activities 

Before I begin any type of writing with this lowest level, I do a hands-on, texturized activity. We tried to make sure that the activities for making horizontal lines were motivating and engaging for my kids. Here is a picture of some of the items we utilize for motivation: 

My Occupational Therapist made these activities for us. She hot glued large pom-poms on a large popsicle stick. She also used fabric paint on a large popsicle stick. The next is a large dowel rod, with a ball that we stick on the dowel rod. Students need to move the ball left to right to get it off the stick. They love to watch the ball fall off the rod! The last she used a large wrapping paper tube and wrapped the center in tissue paper. The students hold each end of the tube while we hang the ball on a string. They have to hit the ball with the orange part of the tube. This helps are students who struggle with visual perception and it's also really fun!

Horizontal Lines

Once we have completed about 2-3 minutes of making horizontal lines on our texturized materials, I have my students make horizontal lines on paper. I use a large sentence strip and we are using markers right now because they are larger and easier for the students to grasp, and also if it gets on my table, it's easy to wipe off. I help the student place their hand in writing position and then they make a horizontal line following the sentence strip. 

Journaling 

In Ohio, we have extended content standards for students with disabilities who are on a modified curriculum. One of our standards is to make a picture selection to complete a sentence. I created these journals so that my students can participate in journaling at their level. Our theme for the month is weather, so I made weather pictures in their journals and they have to complete the sentence. I give them two options. Once they have made their selection, we read their sentence. 

You can get these journals in thematic packs that correlate with the Unique Learning System here: Non-Writer Journals

Assistive Technology 

We use a few iPad apps to help with our pre-writing skills. Here is a list of the apps we use: 

Dexteria Jr- This app helps with visual tracking, pre-writing strokes, and technology skills such as pinching the screen.

Writing Wizard- This app helps with pre-writing strokes and is HIGHLY engaging. My students love this app. I love it, because the app models how to make the strokes before the students can try to make them, then after they complete the strokes, it gives them some "play time" with the various pictures they use to to form the lines. They also have cute themed pictures likes Santa's, hearts, and shamrocks for the different seasons. Also, big benefit for me- IT TRACKS DATA! Just email it to yourself, and you can print your students pre-writing strokes. Love it!

Ready to Print- This app also works on pre-writing strokes but it is not as engaging as the Writing Wizard, however it is more practical. It shows a highlighted path where the student should be writing, and when they go out of the path, it will show them by making their stroke red. This app comes with companion worksheets that can be laminated for extra practice. Just go to their website (http://apps.essare.net/app/ready-to-print/) and download. This app also tracks data! Just email it to yourself and you can print your students pre-writing strokes. 

These apps are paid apps, but they are so worth it! I have posted some videos over on my instagram page of this particular level of writing. Make sure you check it out! www.instagram.com/multiplymagnificentlearners

Name Stamps

We have students who are utilizing name stamps to write their name on their classwork. We are currently working on "pushing" the stamp down. Our particular name stamps do not give a lot of feedback, so it's hard for the student to tell if they've pushed hard enough to get the stamp on. My OT added pop buttons to the top so when they push on the stamp, they are getting some type of feedback. This seems to have been pretty effective! I took a piece of brightly colored paper and cut a window in it. We laminated it so that we could easily wipe it off. We place the piece of paper over top of construction paper, lined paper, etc. and have students practice targeting that window. I will add a picture of this later, I forgot to take one of this specific tool, but you can see it in the very first photo on this blog and in a video on my instagram account. 

Texturized Writing Utensils

My occupational therapist and I were struggling to get them to hold onto markers, crayons, pencils, a stylus, anything really. They were just NOT having it. She came up with the genius idea to add different textures to the utensils. She chose textures specific to what my students like, but you can add any texture really. This trick has been so useful for us. The students will hold the utensils long enough to make horizontal lines. I will also add a picture of this specific tip/trick when I get the chance, but for now you can hop over to my instagram to see it in a video. 

Hope this was helpful! Drop me a comment if you want a closer look into anything or have any more ideas for me to add to our routine! 

1

Name Puzzles

We have been so busy! I haven't had much time to update. We are getting into the swing of Christmas spirit! Our classroom tree is up, as well as a few christmas lights, we have the christmas music on and tons of crafts and activities!

One of our favorite things lately has been our name puzzles. We have been working hard on reading and identifying our names and our friends by playing fun matching games. During Halloween and Thanksgiving our name puzzles were candy corn pieces with each student's picture, first name and last name. When put together, they form the candy corn peice. This month, we have snowmen puzzles! Each student's picture has been made into a snowman (the smallest and first snowball) and the second snowball is their first name, and finally the last and largest snowball is their last names. I put magnets on the back and let the students match them on the large space as a center. They just love this one! (Will add a picture soon!)

I have also been saving 2-liter and bottle caps to make a new name puzzle. I saw this flying around on pinterest, however made our own version to suit our needs. First, I printed pictures of each of the students, then I made a template on word using the shapes to make bottle cap sized circles. After I printed them out, I counted to make sure I have the correct amount for each student. Now, each student has their own individual name puzzle to help with letter identification/sound identification/spelling. They also have the choice to do their friends as well!



Until we master our name goals, we will keep working on these! They will go home at the end of the year so they can continue to practice.

We will be going on a community trip to the mall soon! Can't wait to take them and have them experience the fun of shopping for loved ones!

0

Our Calendar Books

Like I said before, this is one of my most treasured creations! After hundreds of peices of velcro and one year of trial and error, my paraprofessionals and I finally mastered the goal of my calendar book!

The reason I created the calendar book in the first place is because my students were bored, and they were not grasping the concept of the calendar what so ever! Now, they have taken ownership of their calendars and this is probably their favorite part of our day. Not only has it been awesome getting them to stay on task, it has helped me visually show them a concept they have not been able to grasp for years: the changing of months.

Everytime a month comes to an end, we say "goodbye" to the month. We wave goodbye, and then change our month title at the top of our page, and then (the best visual to show them we have started over) they remove all their calendar numbers! It has been absolutely ah-mazing. For some reason each of them having their own book, and their own calendar, it has really sparked an interest in this concept for them, and they take care of their books so nicely!

I just put my template on TpT! Here is a preview of our Calendar Books:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Rachelle-Hughes

Have a great night!

Rachelle


Interactive Calendar Book by Rachelle Hughes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

0