I am a second year teacher of a class of five exceptional children, who are in the sixth and eighth grades, all fall of which are on the autism spectrum. As middle school students involved in a special education program, our main focus is on academics and behavior, really focusing on academic skills that will help them work on employable skills once they transition to high school.
My students really excel with having a variety of materials to teach academic skills, as well as struggle with being able to self-regulate their negative emotions such as frustration, anger, and sadness.
All of my students are working on skills to help them better manage negative emotions such as frustration or anger, and to be able to independently complete tasks. In order for my students to work towards being in the workforce, they must learn how to self-regulate and to work tasks independently. For this reason, it is important that I have the tools for hands on activities that will decrease in frustration, and a calm down area in the room they can request to go to when overwhelmed or upset.
My Project
All of my students fall on the Autism Spectrum and have a hard time of generalizing the skills that we are teaching them in the classroom. In order for them to learn best, they need a variety of hands on material. All of my students are currently learning to better recognize and regulate their emotions.
For this reason, all materials that I make for them need to be laminated so that they can last longer than a week in my class, and are in need of social story books to help them learn how to recognize when they are getting upset, and learning the coping skills needed to decrease the aggressive behaviors that occur.
In order to provide as much variety as I can for materials in addition to the curriculum I am provided, I buy a lot of materials and activities off of Teachers Pay Teachers. These materials include task cards, sorting activities, and file folder activities. When I print these materials, it is necessary to laminate them so that they can last as long as possible. I have also found that it is harder for the students to destroy the material when they get frustrated and begin to tear it or throw it.
I will also begin to use Teachers Pay Teachers this school year to begin purchasing social skills books in order to help my students to recognize when they are feeling these feelings of frustration or anger. The book binder will help me to better bind the books I print off and to keep them all together so pages don't get lost. The books on Teachers Pay Teachers have an advantage over buying just a book because activities will go along with the book to help the students practice recognizing and labeling how they feel.
Marigold 19-hole Letter Size Comb Ring Binding Machine Paper Punch Book Binder with Starter Kit - 100 1/4" Black Comb Binding Spines for Office Document Report (Uni-10)
• Amazon Business
$60.73
1
$60.73
Scotch Advanced Thermal Laminator, Extra Wide 13-Inch Input, 1-Minute Warm-up (TL1302VP)
• Amazon Business
$54.77
1
$54.77
Qty 200 Large Menu Laminating Pouches 12 x 18 Hot 3 Mil Laminator Sleeves
• Amazon Business
$44.95
1
$44.95
Canon PIXMA MG3620 Wireless All-In-One Color Inkjet Printer with Mobile and Tablet Printing, Black
• Amazon Business
$42.99
1
$42.99
WXBOOM 1400pcs Diameter Sticky Back Coins Hook & Loop Self Adhesive Dots Tapes 20mm/0.7” (700sets)
• Amazon Business
$12.99
1
$12.99
Fellowes 52326 Plastic Comb Bindings, 1/2" Diameter, 90 Sheet Capacity, Black (Pack of 100 Combs)
• Amazon Business
$6.02
1
$6.02
Materials cost
$222.45
Vendor shipping charges
FREE
Sales tax
$15.68
3rd party payment processing fee
$3.34
Fulfillment labor & materials
$30.00
Total project cost
$271.47
Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms
$47.91
Total project goal
$319.38
How we calculate what's needed
Total project goal
$319.38
2 Donors
-$319.38
Donations toward project cost
-$271.47
Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Hills and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
