Monthly Themed Autism Classroom Resources
Looking for monthly themed Autism Classroom Resources for early elementary and special ed classes that target essential skills, are consistent from month to month, and are adapted to meet the needs of students with special needs? This is just what you need! 46-page monthly units with ten units in total give you 460 pages of group or center activities to last all school year.
Monthly Units are Just What I Needed
When I first started teaching, I worked in a low income Title I school that was sorely short on materials. The students in my unit were the ones that had been removed from their elementary general ed classes. They had little consistency in the months until I started and needed some structure and academics.
I wish I had these printables when I started in that classroom. I would have been less stressed and the students more successful.
Every day I was struggling for things to use with my 8 students (most with Autism) who had significant behaviors and attention issues. I spent so much time making and adapting activities every week that my students could do without even having a good idea of what they needed.
It was a rough first year.
Have you been there?
Are you frustrated with the continual task of adapting activities? Or struggling to find what will work? Maybe you are just annoyed at the inaccessible worksheets that you can get your hands on? Either way, you know it is frustrating to not have meaningful and functional things at your fingertips.
Key Features
Here is where the monthly units shine- they already target key academic skills across the pillars of reading and comprehension as well as the building blocks you need to build good math skills.
In addition, because each unit is individually themed, but working on the same skills, you can set up your classroom centers and stations with the activities and refresh them easily every month, without having to reteach procedures or processes.
Finally, the best part is each monthly unit works on skills on several different levels. You can easily use each worksheet in multiple ways to reach your students who are lower and higher skilled. For an example of 10 ways to modify a simple worksheet to challenge and scaffold students, click here. So, while you are working on behaviors, social skills, and vocational training, you can rest assured your students are building academics.
Teacher Wins
With each of the monthly units, you will get a few reliable activities you can build upon. Every month you will get a picture supported vocabulary list plus 4 target words in a full page poster size. With that, you can implement word work activities appropriate for your students with ease.
In addition, the printable comes with 4 writing prompts with picture supports to use once per week and work through the brainstorming, pre-writing, writing, editing, and publishing/presentation stages of writing. There are also activities targeting conventions, sentence sequencing, and a cloze sentence activity to work on skills that support better writing.
There are also activities for comprehension, phonic sounds, and vocabulary to round out you literacy instruction.
With math, each monthly unit works on patterning, counting and 1:1 correspondence, composing/decomposing numbers, counting coins/bills/mixed money, telling time, mapping, graphing and word problems. Whoa!
There is no way that students will be left out of the centers you build with these activities… and as you add each monthly unit to the mix, you can continue to repeat instruction and review concepts with fresh materials.
Unit in Action
I am a lover of station rotations and centers in the classroom. I think it is infinitely easier to manage a smaller group of students as opposed to try to keep a large group of students with special needs engaged.
As I set up the entire year of materials, I preferred to get everything printed/laminated/set up in one foul swoop. I prep the entire thing and then put each month in a large plastic Ziploc baggie and store it in the cabinet. You can opt to set it up each month too… it is up to you. Just pay attention to store them in monthly units to keep things neat and ready for next year.
When I could, I skipped laminating and put the full sheet activities into plastic sleeves. I then put them at the centers with dry erase markers and it was ready to go. When it came to the task cards, I laminated and cut each one, and then stored them on a ring to keep them together. I liked the portability of putting them on a ring. To mix things up a little bit, some task cards were set up with dry erase markers and other with clips. That targets some fine motor skills along with the academic skill… and it mixes things up a little too.
Get Yours Today!
Okay, as you can see the monthly units are a game changer. They make monthly planning easier and setting up centers and stations a breeze. The skills are appropriate for students in self-contained classrooms and Autism units where academics need to be repeatedly practiced.
You can get your year-long bundle in the digital store by adding it to your cart and checking out. Not sure if you want the entire year right away? Buy the Fall Semester or Spring Semester to try it out… you will not get the full discount, but you will save a little on the 5 units together versus separate. And be sure to subscribe to the Noodle Nook Newsletter- samples from the monthly unit have been given away free in the newsletters in the past and you may be able to score this or other sweet free printables in your email inbox.
Okay… get to it. Click here to see the bundle and purchase yours today (and pin this post so others can find it too)!
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