1st Video Segment:
Hi! My name is Laura Graves from Tennessee Technological University. We are here today in a rural school in the southeastern United States in a preschool classroom for special education. It’s an inclusive classroom, which means it has typical and atypical children. That also means children with and without disabilities. The children’s ages are from 3 to 5. They come to school at 8 o’clock in the morning. Some ride the bus and some come with their parents, and then they leave school at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Part of their school day, they get breakfast and they get lunch. They also have a planned naptime for the developmental appropriateness of their age. Today, we are going to be looking at how to incorporate a visual schedule within the school within the classroom, and you will be able to have examples of what that would look like in an atypical special education Pre-K classroom.
2st Video Segment:
Hi! My name is Mrs. Megan. I am the teacher of a preschool special education classroom. I have 15 students in my classroom right now. Four of those students are typical developing students, so they are not diagnosed with any type of special needs, and they are in our classroom for the inclusive setting. I am looking for good peer models when they are in here, so very good language skills and good behavior skills and good students to work with everybody cause everybody benefits in here. I have one student who is diagnosed with autism. I have three right now that have Down syndrome, and I have another student who is classified under other health impairs, so he’s got some different health issues going on. He is in a wheelchair, but he can access the environment with us in the classroom. All of my other students right now are under Developmental Delay, so for whatever reason they are behind compared to their same age peers, and they are in this classroom for support. The first thing that we are going to talk to you about today is the use of visual schedules, this is my classroom schedule, this is what the whole class is using whenever we meet together at the carpet or we refer to throughout the day. So, everything always comes back to here. We would start the day off by saying we came to school, that is all done. Next is breakfast, or time for breakfast. We go to breakfast. We come back. Breakfast is all done. It’s time for Circle Time. They all have their spot on the carpet. Some of them have taped squares so they know where to sit. I need to redo some of my tape, but the taped areas are more like a visual place to let them know where they need to put their bodies at Circle Time. So, what we would do from there is Circle Time is all done, time for centers. Then what we have in place over here, I am going to take you this way and show you, each child in my class is going to have an individual picture schedule that is going to lay out where they go for centers time. It tells them where they are supposed to be, what happens, and what is coming next. I would call them all one at a time to come and get their schedule, and my kids know because you are going to pre-teach this, they are going to come and get their schedule, and this little guy knows I go to ABC first. Then what we do is that I have whatever picture is on here, the same picture is up here, and I am going to match it. So I have parked my picture schedule, so ABC, ABC. And then, this is a teacher-directed area. The teacher would be here with one or two students with their schedules would sit here, and we would do teacher-directed activity at this time working towards their goals. What I do use a visual timer. Say, “We are here for 12 to 13 minutes.” We start it, and this is going to decrease so they can see how long they have at this schedule, or at this center. We are going to pretend that we have gone all through this and it has beeped, and we are going to have that. The child will be sitting here, we’d say, “Ok, time to check schedule.” They would stand up, come get their schedule, ABC is all done, time for books and puzzles. They march over to books and puzzles. And this picture again matches what is on their schedule, and they match it up. This is more of a child-directed center right here, and they are going to stay for the same length of time. They can do books. They can do puzzles. Whatever we have out for the day for them to do here is what they’ll do, and then the timer will go off. We would say, “Check schedule.” We would stand up, books and puzzles all done, time for numbers. They would come over here, and put it right here. So, numbers, numbers, and they would sit. This is also another teacher-directed table. I forgot to mention that there’s me, as the lead teacher in the classroom, and I have two assistants working with me in the class, and that is a really good partnership. Each big table in my room is where a teacher stays. We transition, and the kids rotate. The easiest that I have found is rotating them counter-clockwise or clockwise, however you want them to go in the room. That way they are not crossing paths, and it is a smooth transition from one station, or one center, to the next. And so, the timer would go off. Pick it up. Numbers is all done, time for blocks. Then, they would march it over to blocks. Blocks, blocks, and then they match up, and then they play. And then, the timer would go off. We are going to pretend that we have gone through my whole center rotation across my classroom. We are all done, all done, all done, all done. So, when all of these are turned over, we know, centers time is all done. We have been everywhere it told us to go. Now, it is time to go put our schedule up. They take their schedules back to where they got them from. Then they know to come and sit on the carpet. Once everybody is back over here, we all look at our big classroom schedule again, and say, “Centers time is all done, time for music and a story.” That is just one way to implement different picture schedules for different times of your day and different parts of your classroom. Thanks.
3st Video Segment:
Another way to use pictures as visual cues is that I carry this around my neck, that way it is easy access to me. But I have different pictures on here that cue children in to what I would like for them to do, that way I am not always having to give a verbal prompt. I can just give, you know, a pointed prompt to a picture, and they can get the clue as to what I am looking for them to do. This one I use all the time, and this one is… quiet or indoor voices. This one is really helpful when we are about to exit our classroom, and the expectations of this school is that you’re quieter in the hallways than in the classroom. So, this is one that I have first. You just flip it over, and another here is listening ears. If I want them to listen to what I am saying, sometimes I will just do this and I will pair it. But it is a good way to just have a quick visual with you. This is stop. So, stop sign. If someone is doing something and they are not listening to me, I can go over and pair it. Stop. Stop. You can do that. I got different ones in here, and a raised hand one. This one is very popular for my room. But you can have pictures of whatever it is that you find, that you want to teach your kids, so you can really make this personalized to you in your classroom and how you want to use it.