Resources Archives - Check in with Mrs G

Books for Siblings with Special Needs

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links which means we may make a small commission at no cost to you if you click and purchase something we recommend. The suggested products are ones we have tried and love! For more information see our full disclosure policy. Thank you!

Books for siblings with special needs are invaluable. As a Special Education Teacher, I love to have tools at my disposal to pass along to my student’s families. A universal trait of Teachers is that we tend to care about the families we work with well beyond the time they are in our classrooms. So, I try to keep tools and strategies at my finger tips. Books have been my long standing favorite way to do this!

Books require no prep and just a tiny time commitment. They go such a long way to teach acceptance, empathy, and understanding in the classroom and they can do the same at home. I have been known to have a picture book for every occasion (you can see my favorite books about anger or my favorites about special needs) and even make them into full lessons. Today, I am excited to share my top three books for siblings with special needs!

A Book for Students Experiencing Loss

“The Invisible String” written by Patrice Karst

One of my absolute favorites! I have read this one over the years to my social skills groups. This book is particularly helpful for students who are dealing with loss. Students who have siblings with special needs that may not live in the home will benefit from reading this book.

What I like about it: The illustrations provide a tangible interpretation of the connection between family members. It simplifies a very complex topic and has a message of hope.

A Book for Students with Similarly Aged Siblings with Disabilities

“Super Socks” written by Connie Bowman

I have to admit, I am a little bias here. When Connie heard that I was a special education teacher she generously donated two of her books to my library. She is as amazing as her books!

What I like about it: The story is about adventure and the relationship between siblings who are having fun. One of the siblings in this story has down syndrome and the other is typical. This story has a message of inclusion and celebrating individuality which is… everything!

A Book for Teens or Young Adults who will take Responsibility for a Sibling

“The Sibling Survival Guide” written by Emily Holl

I have gifted this book to more than one family in the last few years. This book tackles some challenging topics! It is written for older students (or even adults) who are helping think about long term support for a sibling with a disability.

What I like about it: This book gives siblings a blueprint for conversations they need to have surrounding guardianship, medical care, legal issues and so much more. The information is delivered in an empowering and clear way!

If you are looking for a way to increase understanding and foster a more peaceful relationship for siblings with special needs, get a book! Which books do you reccommend to support the families in your classroom? I would love for you to share them with me!

Three Books for Siblings with Special Needs

by admin

Do you know how to take Data on Community Based Instruction?

Collect data on your classroom community based instruction activities using an outing specific community based instruction rubric. When you know your students, you know whether or not they are progressing. You watch, listen, and just have an overall sense of where they are at with their goals. But, giving your “general feeling” about how they are doing simply (and unfortunately) does not cut it at IEP meetings.

Capturing a general feeling or an “overall disposition when in the community” and making it measurable is difficult. You need a rubric. Yes, I said the dreaded word. I know, it is tedious, but it is necessary and once you make yours, you can reuse it time and again.

A Community Based Instruction Rubric will:

Make your observations measurable
Highlight success and areas of opportunity
Allow you to pre-teach expectations
Involve students in their own learning.

Before our Community Outing:

I created community based instruction curriculum for the places we visit most often on our community outings. Each item aims to teach five skills necessary to be successful in a specific outing location. For my group this includes: restaurants, libraries, public transportation, stores, workplaces, and community centers. I try to pre-teach as many community based instruction ideas as possible before we ever leave the school with community based instruction curriculum. I use YouTube videos, workbooks and writing journals that help students understand what community based instruction is and how they can be successful during trips! (You can read more about how I use workbooks to teach life skills here!)

I like to show my students the rubric ahead of time so that they think about their goals and ask questions about my expectations. Also, I give students a brainstorming form that helps them create a personal and specific goal around the outing.

My students share their goals during our social group. This allows students to hold each other accountable during the outing. In general, it keeps us more on track as a group. The students take our outings more seriously when we take the time to set our intentions.

Rubrics for Data Collection

During the outing, I bring a clip board with a community based instruction rubric for each student. I float between students and watch them intently in each category listed. I assign a preliminary score and complete one rubric for each student.

Then, immediately following our outing, I pass out the student self reflection rubrics. Each student completes the rubric assigning a score to their own behavior on the outing. Meanwhile, I complete my teacher assessment rubric. I fill in details and make any adjustments or notes required.

How I use Data from my CBI Rubrics

I keep my teacher assessment rubric and the student self reflection rubric in my student’s data files. Students track their growth from month to month and participate in goal setting conversations. I use the data to progress monitor community based IEP goals, independent living goals and life skills goals. Also, I compare the student’s rubric to my own. This allows me to see areas of misunderstanding and address them in upcoming social lessons or community based instruction curriculum.

what is community based instruction rubric

free-community-based-instruction-lesson-plans

Community Based Instruction Data Collection Rubrics

FREE Community Based Instruction Rubrics

FREE community based instruction lesson plans: Restaurant Outings, Vocational Problem Solving, Recreation and Leisure, Job Interactive Notebook

Where does your class go on your community outings? How do you collect data for CBI? Share your community based instruction trip ideas with me on instagram @checkinwithmrs_g

by admin

The Emergency Sub Plans Every Elementary Teacher Needs

Emergency sub plans are a nice insurance policy for every teacher and every sub. Walking unexpectedly into a classroom with no sub plan is, let’s face it… terrifying. Still, I would argue that even more terrifying is getting sick and then considering how to write sub plans from bed.

Teaching in a special education resource classroom complicates this process a bit. Having students come through in groups every half hour with different needs and different IEP goals can be daunting. That is why I use picture books for read aloud in my emergency sub plans. It works with students of all ages. They are an equalizer; engaging, valuable, and simple.

Now, as much as I would love to rely on stories that are read aloud alone, I know that when it comes to emergency sub plans, worksheets are still king. Yes, I said that ugly word “worksheets”. In a perfect world every sub would walk into a room and nothing would change. They would teach the curriculum as the classroom teacher does and the day would move forward… Yep… Totally… So, anyone here ever actually worked as a substitute? I have! I can tell you, that while I am a good teacher, and while I was a good sub and this has never ever happened. You need the worksheets in the sub plans. And this is where my read aloud companion was born.

Picture Books: An Emergency Sub Plan

Books break down social skills for kids (which I always, always try to sneak in) and are high interest. Even with older students, they work! If you haven’t done a picture book read aloud with a fifth grader yet, try it… magic! That means, like every other teacher I know, I have about a 100 books for read aloud. My stories are on hand at all times lest we find ourselves with 4 minutes before the bell rings and I can sneak one in. Making those books into a complete lesson without any prep has been absolute gold in my classroom.

Make It a Lesson

This read aloud companion turns any picture book into a lesson. I print a journal for each student at the beginning of the year and bam, done. Each page of the workbook gives an extension lesson that will work with any story. Some of the pages are more creative, asking students to design a social media page for the book, others ask more basic comprehension and retell questions. This way my students are practicing standards aligned comprehension and writing strategies.

An Emergency Book for Every Subject

With the journal in place, you can switch out the picture book to meet the needs of the students in front of you.

Here are some examples of books you can use as emergency sub plans in various topics.

Sub plans for art: Uncle Andy’s : A fabulous visit with Andy Warhol
Kindergarten sub plans: Rainbow Fish
Sub plans for PE: Casey at the Bat
Health sub plans: You are Healthy
Sub plans for Music: This Jazz Man

Students enjoy the read aloud and are engaged in the workbook. Having an emergency sub plan that works with truly no prep, is seasonal and flexible with no prep beyond the initial printing of the journal is a good idea no matter what you teach. You can make your own or check out mine here. What are your go to emergency sub plans?