Special Ed Summer Blog Hop: Week 3 Back to School Forms

Welcome Back for another great week of tips and information from your favorite 

special ed. bloggers!

This week we will be bringing you Back to School Forms:

I love the beginning of a new school year!  It brings me so much excitement!  I love meeting my new students and parents or getting back in contact with my kids from the previous year.  I consider myself lucky to be able to have the same kids for 3 years in a row, since I work with grades 3-5.  I get to see so much progress across those three years and build some amazing relationships!  

To get ready for the beginning of a new school year, there are several forms I like to send home and prepare for myself so I can become familiar with my students from Day 1.  

1.  A letter home to parents to introduce myself 

2.  A parent survey to allow parents to tell me about their child (including strengths/needs and goals)

You can purchase my Parent Communication Pack (which includes the letter and survey) HERE

I also set up a special education binder with each of my students' information in one handy place.  My binder includes:

• IEP at a Glance
• Copy of the most recent IEP and Behavior Plan (if applicable)
• Parent Contact Log
• Accommodation Checklist
• Copies of blank notes to send home  (I'm adding these blank notes this year as a reminder to myself to send home some positive notes everyone once in a while)

This is the cover for my caseload binder!  If you would like to have one of your own, click on the picture and download yours for free! :)  (Font by Hello Fonts and Graphics by Melonheadz)

AND...

My IEP at a Glance can be downloaded HERE or clicking on the picture below :)

I hope you are enjoying your summer and this great blog hop!  

Head on over to Pam's blog:

Communication-Teacher Collaboration

The next topic in my series in Communication is with the teachers you work alongside everyday.

Let me begin by reintroducing myself:

I am Mrs. H, I am a special education teacher, and COLLABORATION is my middle name.  :)

This year will be my tenth year teaching and I have been in special education all ten years.  Every year keeps getting better and I feel more and more confident in my ability to deliver special education services to children in their areas of weakness, all while building on their strengths.  One of they keys to make this possible is great collaboration.  I have been fortunate to work with some outstanding teachers throughout my tenure and it has made collaboration and co-teaching a joy and most importantly beneficial to students.

There are 5 Classroom Models of Co-teaching:
Below you will find pictures of each co-teaching model and my simple definition for each model:










The delivery methods and the lessons are obviously incredibly important, but the planning and outside of the classroom collaboration is as equally important.

I created Co-teaching team weekly planning forms to help you and your co-teachers plan and stay organized together.  Click on the picture to download from my TPT store.

In this pack you will find forms for making co-teaching effective and efficient.  The forms include:
Weekly Co-Teaching Planning Sheets
Classroom Teacher IEP Input Sheet
Daily Lesson Plan Planning Sheet
Note Cards (You can use these to send notes to parents, other teachers, administration, etc.)

My suggestion is to copy several copies of each sheet for each teacher that you co-teach with and place in a binder.  You will always have the binder to take with you to your planning meetings.

In my effort to go paperless and reduce the amount of binders I have to keep up with:

I have a little tutorial to share with you....

But you have to wait until tomorrow! :)

To be prepared...if you have an iPad download:
Evernote, Dropbox & GoodReader apps
        

You can find me linking up with Fourth Grade Frolics fro Monday Made It!