Designing a life skills classroom can be fun! There are a few "must have" stations you should set up in your classroom. Having an area to teach self care skills is one of the many stations you can create. Make an area to teach your students the skills of dressing and bathing. For dressing, create areas to teach your students the skills of folding,putting away clothes and sorting clothes. If you could get a washer and dryer donated, you could implement teaching the skill of washing and drying your own clothes.
Here is an example of a station designed to teach your students the task of sorting laundry into darks and lights. Make sure both baskets are labeled.
Many life skills classrooms have areas to teach the skills of grocery shopping. This area may include grocery items listed with pricing and then an area for students to pay for the items. Not only are you teaching a skill to your students to make them more independent, you are also helping them with their mathematical skills.
Here is an example of a "grocery board". Common grocery items are listed categorically and have the prices listed beside them. Here, they also used fake money to correlate the number cost with how many dollar bills are needed to pay for the item.
Creating a life skills classroom can be fun and so beneficial for your students. What station do you suggest implementing in the life skills classroom?
I found this idea on Pinterest:
ReplyDeleteMoney Task Cards
These cards are really a great idea to work with students on learning money skills. They will introduce coin value, counting money, and making change. The cards are set up so the coins are the same size as real coins. Students are to match real coins to solve the problems. You can find an example of these task cards by simply putting in money task cards in your search on Pinterest.
I feel teaching life skills to students with special needs is important. It is essential to teach job functioning skills to these students. A great deal of these students have a hard time gaining employment because they lack the skills needed to perform certain jobs. It is important for special education teachers to help these students be able to live and work in the community. Tasks such as washing clothes, ordering off a menu, crossing a street, money skills, and much more are important to teach these students. These tasks are considered daily living skills, personal/social skills, and occupational skills and these are areas that need to be addressed in the classroom.
Janie, thanks for the great idea! I have never set up a life skills classroom before but know how beneficial it can be for our students. The money tasks cards sound like a wonderful way to teach students money skills. I also like how the coins are set up as the same size as real coins. The more realistic something can be, the better it is for the student and the easier it is for the student to use that skill in the real world.
DeleteLife skills are necessary instruction for these students. Having a recreational area where they can practice social skills by playing games, or learning to have quiet time by coloring or reading, or manipulating objects for fine motor skills can be just as important as learning to sort laundry
ReplyDeleteJoy, I do like your idea of having an area for students to help develop their fine motor skills. This can be done by various tasks. One of my favorite tasks is called spooning, it is something that we use in the Montessori classroom and can be easily implemented in any classroom.
DeleteGreat ideas Candice! I love checklists and find them very helpful and can see how they could be beneficial for students to use as well.
ReplyDeleteI think communication manners and skills are very important. You could a have station where students can use toy phones to call each other. They can also learn about the using the phone to call 911 in case of an emergency. They can practice dialing the numbers, speaking when the person on the other end says "hello," and how to end a conversation appropriately. I teach special education and although this task may seem so simple to us, some students need plenty of practice with it.
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