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Everywhere you look the focus is on back to school. This review is geared to help spread the word about some incredible apps that may help your child brush up and get prepared for what lies ahead of them this school year.

I don’t want to overlook the essential organizational apps like Evernote, Keynote, or Dragon Diction. I understand that those apps may come loaded on your iPad and for many you may have personal favorites. Instead, I'm highlighting apps that give my students great voice and choice as those which can lead to deeper learning. So, with no further ado, I give you our Must Have Apps for Back to School:

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I have students who HATE presenting. Tellagami gives them a chance to do just that. It's easy for them to use and create short presentations to go with their work. Bonus: it can be up-loaded to SeeSaw.

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My students use Shadow Puppet for fluency work. They take pictures of their guided reading material or fluency center. They then pair it with audio. Shadow Puppet is also great for students to explain their thinking of math problems.

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PicCollage is used for all thing photos. During math time, my students will take pictures of their work with manipulatives and smash it with a different app lick Shadow Puppet to add their thinking before handing it in.

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At the end of the school year my students began to experiment with Chatterpix to sharing their thinking.  It works best smashed with a picture app like PicCollage.

My students do their best work with technology when they smash it with something else. App Smashing has give even my quite students a loud voice in demonstrating their thinking and showing their work.

In the world of Special Education we have to find unique ways to give students voice for them to demonstrate their learning. I hope you give them a try. These are my students favoriate. I'd can't wait to hear what your students favorite apps are.

Until next time,

I don't know about anyone else but my school district LOVES to change things all the time. Well, in this case, a major tweak for many. Last year, my state formally rolled out Present Level of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance or PLAAFP. (The soft rollout started several years ago.)

You might be telling yourself not another acronym. #not new just added too

In all the IEPs I write I always describe, tell, report my student's current level of function across all areas. In most case behavior and academic. PLAAFP adds a new layer. My building special education writes (really it's a draft) them as a team--this is the hard part but helps the team look at the whole child. It also very the student a strong voice in their IEP.

By the time the PLAAFP is finished, it informed strengths, needs, and interests. It makes things very clear and its written in a way that all stakeholders understand where the student is and where they need to go and where the student
                                                                                    what's to go.

The PLAAFP should include the following:
• The student’s strengths, interests, and preferences
• The area of concern and how it manifests academically and functionally
• How the disability impacts the student’s participation and ability to progress in the general education curriculum
• Objective data collected from testing, teacher observations, evaluations and information from IEP team members or others who know the student

A focused IEP is a much more useful than one that lacks congruity and with tons of unrelated goals. (True you can write an IEP with lots of goals to cover everything the student needs to work on but let's get real can we really target all of them with the depth needed to achieve true mastery? I myself write goals to target the root cause of those needs.)

The ability, however, to direct attention and resources to the most relevant needs the student has, in the vital context of the student’s strengths, interests, and preferences, is what gives each goal the punch it needs to meaningfully support the student in their day-to-day academic and functional pursuits.

If a goal exists in the IEP that cannot be linked back to some portion of the PLAAFP, then either the PLAAFP is incomplete or the goal does not relate to what the team identified to be the most important areas of need the student has. Cross checking each goal with the PLAAFP is a great way to check if the plan is focused and appropriate. Many times I will do this when just working formal testing data to determine strength, needs, and what more information I need to gather.

Although the term “academic” is fairly self-explanatory, the term “functional” is not as well
understood. Functional achievement speaks to the age-appropriate activities in which a student engages that are not academic: dressing, eating, grooming, working, playing, socializing, etc. These are activities and skills that will facilitate the student’s success in actively contributing to and being a valued member of his or her community.

The PLAAFP is an opportunity. It's the careful consideration in its development and the commitment to use it to guide goal writing and the identification of other supports and services is invaluable in developing the most useful and effective IEP possible.

Why does my building write them as a team--well, to get a true picture of the student. When your testing everyone does their part. Writing the PLAAFP as a team allows us to take all the pieces of the puzzle and build the puzzle together.

You can grab a copy of the template my team uses with an example here.


Until next Time,

 Hello Summer!! It's hard to believe it's time to start thinking about what I need for next year. Also be sure to sign up below. Some AMAZING Teachers Pay Teachers authors and I have teamed up to discount some of our best resources but ONLY for June 23 -June 25!

So hurry to TPT and type in #HelloSummer to check out the deals! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good Morning, today I'm linking up with Stephanie at "Forever in 5th Grade," to bring you a glimpse into my end of summer planning for my Special Education Resource Room. This year I'll be working with 2nd and 3rd grades. Many of these guys were with me last year. Most of my thinking has been around how I want to strength or change systems I had in place last year like communicating with parents and making it authentic for students.
I was cornered about Spring Break by my wonderful 1st grade team. They wanted dibs on having me at their Summer PD, co-planning, co-teaching--well co--anything!! How could I say no! This is new territory for them as the school is becoming a EL school and they wanted to create a team to move and grow students.  I should mention I love running with them as well. We did the Colfax Relay in May. Yes, all 26 miles.




I send home a monthly newsletter. This idea will help with two things--increase parent communication and two help students to write to an authentic audience.  I'm looking forward to see what they do. They will also be contributing authors on the classroom website. I'm hoping since we use Google Sites this idea will not be all drama and something everyone will see of high value. My team has been talking about creating 1 site and working with grade levels to have a column on their newsletters as well.





One thing that I added to my Data binders was a way for my students' for reflect on and take control of their learning and a perfect way to use it as a Formative Assessment. Last year to used Robert Marzano's Checking for Understanding. This is one of three versions I have in my Teachers pay Teacher store. Even though I'm keeping the same students just a grade older than last year--this version was perfect for them as first and second graders. This is perfect for students to self-assess and reflect on their learning, you can target specific skills they say they are missing or confused or speed up you instruction because they've got it. You can buy it from my store-click on the picture.