Teaching students with special needs using no curriculum and lack of funding to create my own materials. Keeping things fun so they remain motivated is my everyday challenge.
I teach K-2 special education in a public school.
My littles are students whom have learning disabilities and need materials presented in multiple ways, multiple times, from multiple people because it takes each of them that much longer to acquire skills. I have found that the more manipulatives and center activities we use, the more motivated they are to learn. Because motivation is a key indicator to success, I have found my students' skill levels increase significantly since using more manipulatives and math and literacy centers in my teaching. I have tried printing the center packs in black and white and then on colored paper, but truly the kiddos were not as excited as when the activities were in bright colors.
My Project
This past year, I spent 100s of hours creating centers for use with my kiddos. These centers all address common core standards that students need to acquire. A kindergarten teacher and myself used the centers I created last year and the improvements our kiddos showed was remarkable. In the first 4 years I taught kinders in special education, we ended the year still working on letters and letter sounds. Last year, with the implementation of so many hands-on activities, 90% of my kiddos were beyond letter skills and beginning to read whole words. The kindergarten teacher that used all of my centers had all but 1 student reading on grade level. These kiddos are benefiting big time. However, our school has had major budget cuts and colored printing is closely monitored and so I am requesting my own ink cartridges to print the new ones out that I have made. Once they are printed, I do laminate them and store them so that they can be used year after year.
I have spent 100s of hours creating math and literacy centers for my kinders and 1st graders but have no means of producing them because of budget cuts.
I went out and purchased a printer but didn't realize how expensive it would be to print each center pack. It takes about 3/4 of an ink cartridge to print one center pack that includes 10-20 differentiated activities(which averages 100-200 pages each). I have several ready to be printed but need ink.
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