Students and teachers tend to sit in one position for extended periods of time especially as the children get older. Hang this handy free printable with classroom stretches to remind everyone in the classroom to take a break and stretch your muscles. Remember to complete each stretch to the right and to the left.
This free printable is from the School Sensory Motor Packet. This digital download includes 25 games, activities and puzzles to encourage playtime, visual perceptual skills, fine motor skills, and physical activity all with a school time theme!
One of the great things about the new website, is the capability to have more accurate sales reports (Ok maybe this is just super cool to me – I love reports and stats). Since back to school is a busy time of year for school based therapists I thought you all might want to know what the top 10 best sellers were for August here at Your Therapy Source. So drumroll please…..
When back to school starts, school based therapists have to hit the ground running. There is rarely time to organize supplies, review IEPs or even go to the bathroom haha! Most therapists start the school year off with scheduling. This is BY FAR THE WORST part of being a school based therapists in my opinion. Please if anyone has any tips to create super easy schedules with loads of kids, classrooms and schools I know we would all love to hear them.
STEP ONE: SCHEDULE – You get your list of students and schools and you head off feeling super optimistic. This is the year that scheduling will go super smoothly and you will be done by the end of day one making you ready to work with students day two.
STEP TWO: CONTINUE TO SCHEDULE – We all know that scheduling never comes off without a hitch. You know you try to out run all the other school based therapists and beat them to scheduling but you can’t win that race in every classroom. So maybe you are the last to schedule a child who receives almost every related service and you say goodbye to the schedule you created yesterday. Retrace your steps, quietly interrupt again in the classrooms, and change your schedule.
STEP THREE: RESCHEDULE – Just when you thought you were done and you are almost writing your schedule in pen you get an email that Johnny’s IEP is wrong and he actually gets therapy 3x/week for 45 minute sessions but all your sessions are 30 minutes long. Not only do you have to reschedule again, you probably just lost your lunch or evaluation slot. Maybe I am being dramatic, but I am 100% sure you can all relate to the nightmare of scheduling.
Here are a few tips to make scheduling easier:
1. You can start with this free schedule form to write down your schedules from Therapy Planner. You can edit it in Word or just print it out and start writing in pencil of course with a huge eraser.
2. Try sticky notes – check out this on Pinterest where the therapist uses sticky notes on a file folder. Seems pretty genius to me but knowing my luck, I will carry that in a wind storm and good bye schedule! Maybe little flag sticky notes on the printable schedule above might help when considering who to move where when conflicts arise.
3. Push in – sometimes the easiest way to make everyone’s schedules work in to provide push in therapy. Children won’t miss important academic time. You can role model for teachers and parents techniques and suggestions. Another huge bonus, is that you are seeing the student in his/her natural environment.
4. Out of ideas already… So let’s share – what is your BEST TIP for scheduling?
If you want to stay ahead of the curve, keeping organized all school year check out the Therapy Planner for 2016-2017 or watch the video to see the sample pages. It is available in 4 different styles (one being white background to save on printer ink). This is an electronic document with all the materials to stay organized this school year starting July 2016 through June 2017. More pages added this year! The planner includes the following:
General Information page
Caseload
Schedule
12 Full Page Monthly Calenders
12 Two Page Monthly Calenders
12 IEP Review/Eval/Screenings Monthly Reminder Pages
12 Attendance Records for each month
1 Daily To Do List
2 Weekly To Do Lists (print as many as you need for each week)
Lesson Planning Page
Consultation Notes
CEU Tracker
Communication Log
Progress Report Tracker
Evaluation Tracker
Notes (print as many as you need for the year)
All you need to do it print out the pages, punch holes and toss them in a binder. This planner will help you stay organized all year long. FIND OUT MORE.
Here are two free sample pages from the My School Handwriting Packet. No matter what type of handwriting instruction methodology you are using, children need practice sessions to improve their handwriting. These handwriting pages provide some simple copy work with back to school themed words and sentences. You can print them full page or half page. This is a great no-prep activity to determine a baseline handwriting sample at the start of the school year. Download the two free sample pages from the My School Handwriting Packet.
You can get more details on the complete My School Handwriting Packet here. This copy booklet is easy to encourage handwriting practice. The five types of font/layout include: 1. Dotted line Zaner-Bloser® type font, 2. Dotted line Zaner-Bloser® type font with highlighted lines 3. Double line Handwriting Without Tears® type font, 4. New South Wales (NSW) Foundation Manuscript and 5. Cursive font. FIND OUT MORE INFO.
Perhaps you have already started back to school or will be shortly. Here are a few tips to make sure you are ready for those first few days back at school providing therapy:
1. Stay calm during scheduling. If you work as a school based therapist you know how stressful scheduling can be. Just try and remain calm and remember that it will get better. Sooner or later you schedule will fall into place and you will be able to get started with treatment sessions. First and foremost, respect the student and teachers schedule. Remember students are at school to be educated and learn - related services sometimes is not the top priority. When all else fails, practice your deep breathing exercises.
2. Keep your equipment organized and clean. When we start the school year off, the therapy rooms or therapy travel bags are organized, toys are clean and paperwork is fresh. Somehow that usually derailed for me rather rapidly and I was unorganized and spread out. Try to maintain that initial organization - it will make it much easier in the long run.
3. Be prepared. Have your lesson plans set and ready to go. If you don't use formal lesson planning, jot a note down for what you will do during each treatment session.
4. Have a few ideas in your back pocket. Ever notice sometimes what you think will take 30 minutes takes 5 minutes? Or perhaps a student is not motivated at all by your activity suggestion. Make sure you a few ideas ready to go when the initial idea does not work out. Toss some Mini Movement Break ideas or Motor Minute Challengesin your bag just in case.
5. Review IEPs and background information on your students. If possible, before school starts, review important IEP info such as goals, present levels of educational performance, modifications in place, etc.
Some of you have already started the school year and some of you will begin over the next few weeks. Get to know your new students with these ideas:
1. Write a letter to your students telling them about yourself.Perhaps let them know your favorite food, color, movie and more. Tell them about a summer vacation you took. Tell them your favorite things to do outdoors and your favorite type of exercise. Explain to them some of the things that you use or will do during therapy sessions. Request that the student write you back answering some questions that you have asked. Some examples would be: What did you do over the summer? What are your goals for therapy? What is your favorite way to exercise? If the school year has already started just start off the therapy session with a quick interview of each other.
2. Happy and Healthy Hands. Have each student trace around one hand on a piece of the same color paper. On the hand, write different things that make the student happy and healthy. Hang the hands on the wall. Have the children go around the room. Do wall push ups on different sets of hands. Can you guess whose hands matches whose print?
3. Getting to Know You Charades. Have the student's act out their favorite things in different categories. For example, some categories could be favorite sport, favorite book and favorite outdoor activity.
4. Motor Match Up. Create a matching set of cards with various movements such as crawling, dancing, jumping, walking and marching (or download Locomotor Games - http://www.yourtherapysource.com/locomotor.html or Action Alphabet - http://yourtherapysource.com/actionalphabet.html). Pass out one card to each student. The students must move around the room and find the other student moving the same way that they are. Once the pair is matched up they introduce themselves.
5. Silly Name Game. Stand in a circle. Pick one student to go first. This student says his/her name and adds a movement (i.e. shakes head yes). The next student says the first students name and shakes head yes, then introduces himself adding a movement (i.e. claps hands). The third student says student #1's name and shakes head yes, then says student #2's name and claps hands. Student three then says his own name and adds a movement. Keep going around the circle. Check out 25 Instant Sensory Motor Group Activities - http://www.yourtherapysource.com/instant.html for more group games that require no equipment. 6. Name Exercises. Make the children's name into an exercise. Go to http://www.yourtherapysource.com/freenameexercise.html for all the details. 7. Favorite Exercises. Work together to make a poster with all the children's favorite exercises or warm up activities. Find out how here http://www.yourtherapysource.com/freeposter.html 8. Social Red Rover. Play a game of red rover trying different greetings. Find out how to play here http://www.yourtherapysource.com/redrover.html Need more back to school activities? Check out Sensory Motor Activities for Fall -http://www.yourtherapysource.com/fallactivities.htmlandPrint and Create Fine Motor Project Back to School - http://www.yourtherapysource.com/fmbacktoschool.html .
Seated Classroom Stretches – Free Printable
