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Functional Money Skills in the Special Education Classroom

January 12, 2021 by Fiona

Money skills are an important aspect to independent living.  Not only do students have to be able to identify types of money and their values, or how to budget, but also all of the hand and social skills that come with handling money.  It’s one thing to do worksheets that have word problems involving money,  but being able to transfer those skills in the community is a whole other skill to master.  Here are some ideas to practice these functional skills in the classroom to prepare your students for the community and beyond!

Digital Activities, File Folders, Task Cards > Worksheets

I am not a huge fan of worksheets, just because a lot of times worksheets are not very motivating for my students (and they kill trees), but I do use them from time to time. It depends on the student, but I’m a huge fan of digital activities and task cards, because these are visually engaging. And usually they provide a limited number of answer fields (multiple-choice), which most of my students need.  They are accessible to students that are not able to write. Digital activities are a great way to allow students to either circle the answer, or they can touch/point to it.

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Digital activities are also accessible to those who need audio. So for digital activities, you might have the question read to them, or what the answer choices are, if it’s reading comprehension, you need the whole thing read to them. The other thing that I like is that students can concentrate on one question at a time. So when you’re using a task card, it’s like having one question and one multiple-choice set of answers right there in front of you. Sometimes worksheets can be overwhelming because you have, five, six, 20 different questions on one sheet. So I like that we’re able to just focus on one question at a time.

Digital activities and task cards and file folders make for great independent work centers or small group lessons, you’re able to do that with worksheets also, but if you haven’t already hopped onto the digital activities, these are great for distance learning or back in the classroom. Check out this blog post on how to use digital activities in the classroom .

Need adapted resources for teaching money skills? Check these out:

Money & Math Digital Activities (multiple choice)

Digital Task Boxes (Drag & Drop)

File Folders

Social Narratives (Social Stories)

Why do I use these? They’re visual, and they teach direct social skills instruction that is beneficial to students with special needs or autism. A lot of the times I might do a social story that has to do with money, names and values, you know, the basics about money. And then next we can move on to talking about banking terms, what the banking terms mean, and then how we’re going to apply those in the community or what that means as far as when you’re working in earning money, like how that all correlates.

So putting it into a social story or a social narrative is a helpful way to help your students understand how and why. Some other ideas that you can use are steps to making a transaction. This is a perfect social narrative that you can write, um, how to budget, or how to use a debit card. Anything that needs requires a who, what, where, when, why, or step-by-step social stories are perfect for that.

Use Real Cash (Or fake cash that looks real)

Use actual cash when possible, I think the more realistic it is, the better, it’s easier for the students to transfer that knowledge. If you don’t feel comfortable using real cash with some activities, you can use fake cash. And I’ve found some pretty realistic looking cash on Amazon (affiliate link) CLICK HERE . Try and steer away from monopoly money or the “fake cash” that does not look anything like the real thing because it can be confusing for the student and harder for them to transfer that knowledge to the real thing.

An activity that I like to do, especially if still doing virtual or hybrid learning is you can ask the students to bring a wallet or different amounts of bills and coins with them to the live session.  Or if you’re doing this in class, you would just have all of that readily available for them.  Some simple ideas for activities using real cash:

• Money match
• Name identification
• Value identification
• Pay for an item
• Next Dollar Up
• Which is more/less

How to implement: So you’ll hold up the $5 bill for instance, then all of the students have a $1 bill, a $5 bill, maybe some quarters, you know, all the different coins or one of each thing. Then they have to find which one matches to the one that you’re holding up, and you can go through each one. Another thing you can do is counting all the different values. So they have to hand you either a $5 bill or hand you five, $1 bills, just a bunch of different variations you can work on with that. You can work on name identification, so maybe you’ll hold up the $5 bill or a quarter.

On-Campus/Classroom Jobs

I like to have my students fill out timesheets when they complete a classroom or an on-campus job. That way they are learning that their work is equating to a reward or a paycheck, much like they would experience once they are in the adult world or in their career world. So students can earn money or they can earn points towards, the minutes or hours that they worked. It depends on what type of reward system you want to set up in your classroom. Using actual money can get kind of expensive, but I like lower amounts like 25 cents or something along those lines, that’ll go towards like a snack bar or like a little reward store that they can redeem those things.

This would also provide another opportunity for students to learn how to read analog and digital clocks for when they are, clocking in or clocking out and writing that time down on their timesheet. It also gives them the opportunity to learn to count and add up their hours. So that way they can see, Hey, I worked one hour on Monday, I worked one hour on Wednesday, and I worked one hour on Friday, so I worked a total of three hours this week and that’s going to get me this reward. Having them fill out timesheets is a great way for basic calculations of paychecks.   Check out this simplified timesheet system for your classroom.

Token Economy

Token economy is also a great way to work on “earning” money. So I don’t use too much token economy in the adult transition world just because we usually try and fade out of a token economy, but it’s okay if you’re still using it. And if we are using it, I try and make it functional.  I try and incorporate money into it instead of earning stars or whatever it might be, but you know your students, so you have to choose something that’s going to work for them, especially when it comes to compliance. But if you can, try and incorporate money.  You can simply Velcro fake coins, or you can actually do real coins, which would be even better. That way the student can see it’s a real nickel or a real dime or whatever you choose to use.

Students can work for a prize box or reward store.  You can create a visual menu as a reminder to students of what they are working for.  This menu can consist of simple pricing on it (higher prices for more value rewards). For example, they can earn a coloring page that you set at a dollar’s worth of coins depending on how fast your student needs to be reinforced throughout the day. Another thing I like to do is on Fridays, we go off campus and we go to the dollar tree so they can work towards earning something at the dollar tree that they can purchase. And then from there, we’re using more money skills to make that purchase. So it’s a win, win all around.

Classroom Grocery Store

There’s so many different activities that you can get out of having a classroom grocery store. So what I’ve done is I’ll save up old cans and old boxes. And if you need help, you can ask your staff, or you can ask other teachers or even the parents of your students to send in old packages, after they’re done using them, as long as they’re not like dirty. So be careful about some of the jars. You want to make sure you clean them out pretty well. You can use like a small bookshelf or whatever you have space for that has shelves. Put price tags on each item and make sure to give them different prices so you can do comparison shopping skills also.  You can find these premade price stickers CLICK HERE on Amazon (affiliate link).

They’re great because they have all of the basics of the money that we’re using. So nothing too complicated, it’s all just $1, 25 cents, 75 cents, 50 cents. There’s $5, $10. So these are all the basic money skills we’re trying to target. If you want to use more accurate pricing, you could print out little tags and put down on there, this one’s $4.67 or $3.29, that way you can practice the dollar up method with some of those higher-level price tags.  Here are some of the skills you can work on:

• mock transaction scenarios
• item & price identification
• recognizing items “on sale”
• simple money math subtracting “on sale” price
• next dollar up method
• comparison shopping
• Recipe items (shopping list).

No Room for a Grocery Store? No Problem…Use an Interactive Bulletin Board

I’m not a huge fan of decorating bulletin boards. So for me, if I can make it functional, perfect. The nice part about interactive bulletin boards is they don’t take up too much space, it gets students up and moving, and you can switch these out if you want to do like a department store theme or a hardware store theme, grocery store. And that way it’s changing it up all the time.

Check out interactive bulletin boards here.

Student Businesses

This is an awesome way to practice so many different skills, as well as help fundraise money for your classroom. That way you can use money towards field trips, or you can use money towards a cooking lesson and so on. So some of the money skills that are covered when you are doing a student business is students can figure out the product costs and pricing an item to make a profit. They’re also adding prices if selling multiple products they are getting hands-on money handling when they are selling their items to customers. And they’re working on also giving change back to the customers. If the customer gives them a dollar over amount, they can also practice budgeting money towards more supplies or what they’re going to spend that money on.

Cooking Lessons

Your first thought is, okay, what does cooking have to do with money? But as I had said earlier, when you’re doing these fundraising efforts, or you’re dealing with money to raise for cooking lessons or field trips, this is how you’re going to be practicing your money and skills. So I know a lot of teachers do the cooking lessons, and sometimes they’ll go and get the supplies themselves, but you should make a community-based instruction lesson out of it. It’s an opportunity to go off-campus and then you get to practice skills of going shopping. So after you go over a recipe in your lesson, you can make a list of the items needed for the recipe.

If you are unable to go off campus, utilize your free weekly circular store ads. Then there’s a lot of stores that also have online shopping as well. Check out this shopping list activity here.

Secret Santa/Gift Exchange

Here’s a great activity for around the holidays. This is a dollar store secret Santa, or if you want to call it the secret snowflake, whatever you want to call it, I have a freebie for you (head to the blog link right below to download this freebie). This is a great way to cover basic money skills. And on top of that, the students get to experience the gift of giving.  To read more about this activity and to download the freebie, check out this blog post:  Dollar Store Secret Santa Gift Exchange

Bingo is one of my favorite things to do, and yes, I have adults, but we still play bingo. I think it’s a great way to practice names, values, vocabulary, whatever it is because you’re asking the student to basically match something. Check out these money bingo games here .

Scavenger Hunts

Another great community-based instruction activity would be a scavenger hunt. So this would be something that you can do if you don’t feel like spending any money, or you can do it with a recipe. When you’re doing a cooking lesson, it’s similar to a shopping list, but without the spending. So you’ll give students a list of groceries to find the prices for, and they can go throughout the store, looking for those items and finding the price. If you want to make it a little bit tougher, you can ask them to find the price that was the least expensive, or you can find the price that was the most expensive.  You can give students a budget and then have them pick out brands and items that they like that are within their budget. Check out these grocery store scavenger hunt activities & worksheets .

These are a great way to get students using money (or fake money) hands-on, or if you do them digitally, it is still a great way to get students using money in a functional way.  You can set up a variety of task boxes that include:

• task cards,
• sorting coins
• sorting bills
• placing money in a cash register in the correct spot
• clipping the correct amount of cash to the price tag
• clipping the correct amount of cash to the store ad (cut and laminate prices from a store ad, students will use the next dollar up method)

Need adapted task box resources for teaching money skills? Check these out:

Money Digital Task Boxes (Drag & Drop)

Money Task Box Task Card Sets

Thanks for reading!

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June 28, 2021 ·

Functional Money Skills for Special Education

Curriculum · Classroom Structure · Helpful Tips · Technology Tools

Introduction

Money skills are one of my very favorite skills to teach. We use money every day and it is so meaningful for our students to have this experience as well. Money is fun and functional!

Financial literacy is a vital skill for individuals of all abilities, including special education students. Teaching money skills to these students helps them develop independence, decision-making abilities, and the confidence to manage their personal finances effectively. In this blog post, we will explore the importance of teaching money skills to special education students and provide practical strategies and activities to promote their financial understanding and independence.

What can we do to teach money skills?

Creating interactive, digital resources that incorporate functional skills is so important, especially for my students. I need them to help my students master and maintain important money math skills. Especially for when they go into the real world and have to access money!

This past year we have been unable to take community trips to practice our money skills, which is why interactive digital resources and activities are the next best thing. Students can simulate buying and paying for items and getting change!

Check out my best selling math resources perfect for any classroom! Perfect for students working on basic identification!

Once your students know the value of each coin and dollar, you should start putting it into practice! Knowing that if they have a $5 and a $10 and the item is worth $2, they should pay with the $5 and not the $10. Here is a perfect set to get you started!

Identifying and Counting Coins: Begin by introducing students to different coins and their values. Utilize visual aids, such as large-sized coins or picture cards, to help students identify and count coins accurately. Engage them in hands-on activities, like sorting and matching coins, to reinforce their understanding of each coin’s value.

Making Purchases: Guide students through the process of making purchases by using play money or mock transactions. Create scenarios where students practice calculating totals, making exact change, and understanding the concept of giving and receiving money. Role-play activities, such as setting up a classroom store, provide practical experiences for students to apply their money skills.

Budgeting and Saving: Introduce the concept of budgeting and saving to help students understand the importance of managing their money wisely. Teach them how to set financial goals and allocate their money accordingly. Engage students in discussions about needs versus wants and guide them in creating simple budgets that align with their goals.

Are you looking to help your students continue to build these skills? You’re in luck. This resource bundle I have created includes Interactive PDFs, Boom Cards, Google Slides and Google Forms. There are so many money math skills that can be practiced! 

Comparing Prices: Teach students how to compare prices to make informed purchasing decisions. Help them understand concepts like discounts, sales, and unit prices. Incorporate real-life examples, such as comparing prices of items from different stores or online sources, to develop their critical thinking skills and promote smart consumer choices.

Using Technology: Utilize technology tools, such as educational apps or online simulations, to enhance students’ money skills. There are numerous interactive resources available that allow students to practice counting money, making purchases, and managing budgets in a virtual environment. These tools provide engaging and interactive learning experiences for students.

Teaching money skills to special education students is essential for their personal and financial growth. By providing practical and engaging instruction, educators can empower students to understand the value of money, make informed purchasing decisions, budget effectively, and work towards financial independence. Through a combination of hands-on activities, technology integration, community connections, and continuous reinforcement, we can equip special education students with the necessary skills to navigate their financial futures with confidence.

Read more about budgeting skills!

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Life Skills Idea List

Thinking about life skills for special ed students is one of the most important parts of our job as special education teachers.

Functional life skills activities are especially important at this age because our students are getting older and we want them to be valuable and independent members of society when they are finished with school.

Want a life skills idea guide done for you for free? Put in your info below and I’ll send it to you!

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Special Needs for SPECIAL KIDS

Budgeting Unit for Special Education Managing Money Financial Literacy

Click for preview.

$ 15.00

Budgeting skills can be so challenging even for the best of us, but imagine if you were living with a disability like autism.

This BRAND NEW unit on teaching budgeting skills is meant to help students in a life skills high school setting understand what it means to make and follow a budget.

This Budgeting unit focuses on:

• Making and Following a Budget
• Advantages/Disadvantages of different forms
• Fees associated with checks and credit cards
• Wants or needs
• Goods or services
• Income or expense
• Prioritizing expenses based on a budget
• Practice scenarios
• Filling out a check

This Budgeting unit covers 3 weeks of instruction for students with autism and special learning needs. It uses picture symbols, photos, and simple text.

Each week has individual and group activities including:

• circle maps
• sorting activities
• completing sample budgets
• working with expenses
• using various forms of payment

⭐ All activities come in print and digital formats

See the preview for a detailed look at the contents.

*****************************************************************************

Budgeting Unit Includes:

⭐ This unit comes in separate zipped files.

In the zipped folder you will find:

• 14 days of lesson plans
• Budgeting activities in color
• Budgeting activities in black and white
• Making a Budget book (PowerPoint)
• Following a Budget book (PowerPoint)
• Links and directions to digital activities

Budgeting Activities: (in print and digital formats)

• Budgeting vocabulary cards and puzzles
• wants or necessities
• goods or services
• income or expense
• advantage or disadvantage of using credit
• Practice scenarios filling out a budget
• Fill-in-the-blank worksheets
• Assessment (3 versions)

Color and BW versions included

Much of what I have learned about curriculum development is incorporated into these units. For example, do not be afraid of  repetition.  It is critical that students with significant disabilities get to experience material over several days to be able to fully assimilate what is being taught. Also, adding  visual supports  to your printables and class activities helps students be able to pay more attention to the content you are presenting rather than the mechanics of what is expected. Finally, ask questions.  Good questions!!  Regardless of the material, if we can ask students good questions it will push them to think more deeply than before.

Budget Planning and Budgeting Lessons

Budgeting teaching budget lesson plans learning worksheet household family planning exercises classroom unit teacher resources activity free tutorial curriculum basics.

Lessons appropriate for: 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th Graders.

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Teaching Special Needs - Adult Education - Budgeting for Kids - Children - Young Adults

Our Budgeting section delivers an array of educational tools. Dive into our collection that comprises lesson plans, printable worksheets, instructive videos, detailed articles, and more. Our lesson plans and printable worksheets are crafted to guide educators in imparting knowledge about the principles of budgeting and the importance of financial planning. Tailored to fit various learning environments, these resources are adaptable for both group lessons and self-paced studies. Our instructive videos provide a vibrant approach to understanding budgeting, bringing to life the nuances of financial planning with compelling animations and lucid breakdowns of intricate topics. Meanwhile, our detailed articles delve into the finer points of budgeting, offering expert commentary and profound insights into managing personal finances effectively. Whether you're a visual learner, a reading enthusiast, or someone in search of structured lessons, the Budgeting section of Money Instructor is equipped with resources to ensure you grasp the essentials of financial planning and lead a financially sound life.

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Budgeting Lesson Plans for Special Education

Special education teachers have the important task of preparing their students for life after graduation. These learners may have mild learning disabilities, such as ADHD, or they may have more severe intellectual disabilities. Regardless of their level of disability, special education teachers must build financial literacy into the curriculum so students can become self-sufficient adults.

The lesson plan should include both short- and long-term objectives. Short-term objectives will help students achieve the final goal. Some examples include “explain the difference between a want and a need,” “identify how to save money,” and “analyze the cost of living in different cities.” Long-term objectives should be broad and encompass everything you want your students to learn by the end of your course. for example, “create a budgeting plan” or “plan for retirement” are good long-term objectives for a lesson about budgeting.

Budgeting lessons are important because they teach your students an essential skill. People with disabilities often have even more trouble managing money and making ends meet, so they need all the help they can get when it comes to becoming financially literate.

It’s important that you don’t just focus on one aspect of the budgeting process. There are a lot of different skills involved in budgeting and you need to be sure that your students learn about all of them:

• Determining how much income you have
• Deciding how much money you want to save each month
• Figuring out how much money will be left over for expenses
• Making a list of all your expenses (fixed and variable)
• Prioritizing your expenses from most to least important
• Allocating funds to each expense category based on priority level
• Deciding which expenses

Budgeting is an important personal finance skill, and it can be a real challenge for anyone. for people with special needs, budgeting can be especially daunting, but it’s still very important. To help students learn how to budget, you should create a lesson plan that includes a variety of activities.

The first thing that every student should know about budgeting is what it means. Budgeting is a method for planning how you are going to spend and save your income for a given period of time. It is based on the idea of controlling your money rather than letting the money control you.

Budgets should be created before the period of time begins. This is because it allows you to plan in advance instead of just winging it and hoping for the best. If you do not have a budget, then you might find yourself spending more money than you actually have, which could lead to debt and other financial issues down the road.

When creating a budget, one of the first things that needs to be done is figuring out how much money you have coming in each month. This will give you an idea of how much money you have to work with, which can help guide your budgeting decisions later on.

When it comes to financial skills, a special education teacher’s goal is to help students understand the importance of budgeting and how to live within their means. They need to understand that money is an essential part of everyday life and that they will need to manage their money wisely in order to be successful.

The concept of budgeting is complex for special education students. It requires them to understand multiple concepts at once: income, expenses, assets, and goals. Students also need to learn how to use a budgeting tool like a spreadsheet or an online calculator. Some may be able to do this independently, but many require hands-on instruction and practice in order to master even simple concepts like money addition and subtraction.

A good way to start the process is by having the class track spending on one item that they purchase regularly (such as a bottle of water). Each day, they should write down how much they spent on that item and then transfer the information to a spreadsheet. This gives them an immediate visual picture of how much money they are spending over time and helps them understand how budgeting works.

students grow into self-sufficient adults, and that includes teaching them how to manage money. But where do you start? What should you teach? How do you make it fun? Well, we’ve got great news for you: we did the research and came up with some amazing ideas for teaching budgeting lessons to your special education class!

The first thing you’ll want to do is review basic money concepts. Talk about what money is and why we use it. Then cover the basics: coins and paper bills, their relative value, and common terminology (pocket change, penny pincher). Introduce your students to the concept of credit cards by showing them various cards and explaining how they work (give examples of how they’re used at restaurants).

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How Student-Based Budgeting Is Revolutionizing Special Education

SBB gives school administrators added incentive to integrate special needs students into school life.

Student-Based Budgeting (SBB) is the fairest way to use limited resources to best help students. Nowhere is this clearer than in special education funding, where traditional models fund schools based on the adults in the system, not the kids.

The status quo in education finance keeps most parts of a school budget under district control. Based on rough enrollment quotas, the central office funds staff salaries and programs but this process does not address the actual student needs of each school. Inevitably, districts artificially create needless inequality by sending different amounts of per-student resources to their individual schools that do not necessarily reflect student needs. Staff-based funding’s problems acutely affect special education students, who need our support most but who benefit least from the current system.

Schools get the same average funding from their district based on their number of special education students. In a field where attention to individual needs should be paramount, districts that don’t use SBB limit their opportunities for flexibility and accountability and cut off possibilities for their special education students.

Benefits of SBB

Student-Based Budgeting keeps the focus of education resources where they belong: on the students. Under SBB, funding follows every child wherever they go to school and gives increased budget control for individual principals. Students with increased needs, particularly those in special education, get extra funding weights to ensure their school has the resources to help them. This way, a school’s budget reflects what its student body looks like, not how it compares to arbitrary quotas. When the money follows the child, it’s easier for parents, schools, and districts to scrutinize how their dollars are spent and ensure they’re used to benefit students at the school level.

Boston’s creation of tiered special education weights show how SBB keeps the focus on student needs. Just as a disorder like autism has a spectrum of severity, so too can districts using SBB tailor their funding weights by the degree of student disability. Boston created   11 special education categories   with weights from 1.6 to 6 times the base per-pupil funding. By devolving special education funding to its schools, Boston transferred $83 million of additional special education resources to principals with local knowledge of their students’ needs.

Hartford , like Boston, tiers its special education funding weights. Hartford has a four-tiered special education weight with the first tier receiving an extra .8 percent of the base funding formula and the fourth tier receiving an extra 4.08 of the base level. A 2012 study by Public Impact found that when SBB was fully implemented, schools in the highest-need categories, including schools with the highest number of special education students, consistently received more funding than schools in the lower-needs group as compared with the school-level funding before student-based budgeting.

The bottom line is that in Hartford, moving to student-based budgeting and attaching special education funds to the student actually increased school-level resources for those students. One school took advantage of the extra funds student-based budgeting provided to create a better-equipped center for students with disabilities to replace their previous special education classroom. The school was able to staff the room with more adults than possible before the SBB reforms.

No district has gone further than New Orleans in using student-based budgeting to more equitably meet the needs of special education students and demonstrate the potential of student-based budgeting to improve equity and transparency for special education funding. Before Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana in general and New Orleans in particular were in the national spotlight for failing to serve special education students. The city only graduated 5% of its special education population while Louisiana was 49th in the nation in its overall percentage. After the storm, the state-run Louisiana Recovery School District rebuilt New Orleans’ education landscape, making 98% of school funding follow the child via SBB.

The results have been clear. In 2013, special education graduation rates have   shot up to 48% , while special education students continue making gains in reading and math scores along with the rest of the city’s students.

In a recent second wave of special education reform, schools in the Recovery school district will now receive student-based funding according to both a student’s disability type and the amount of time he or she receives extra services.

The new formula has five tiers, ranging from $1,500 to $20,000, and is tied to both diagnosis and the total number of minutes students spend receiving services each week. For example, schools will receive either $13,000, $15,000 or $20,000 for a student with autism; for students with developmental delay, the extra money will range from $8,000 to $15,000. All students with speech/language impairments will still be in the lowest tier: $1,500. The state education board analyzed several hundred special education plans and found the service minutes didn’t vary much for students in the lowest tier.

In addition, the Orleans Parish School Board and RSD have developed a Citywide Exceptional Needs Fund to help schools share catastrophic costs across schools and fund particularly high-cost students. OPSB has contributed $5 million to the fund and will provide $1.4 million each year.

The New Orleans SBB special education funding formula offers the most decentralized funding system of special needs students in the United States and allows principals to make decisions about how best to allocate funds at the school level. As the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) explained in their comprehensive January 2015   report   on special education funding in New Orleans:

“Unlike the more prescriptive approach embedded in most traditional school finance systems around the country—which fund a specific classroom configuration or staffing set up—New Orleans grants schools the flexibility to use the resources in the way they think best supports a student. New Orleans’s move takes student-based budgeting into the special education realm, expanding the possibility of finding more innovative ways to serve students with special needs.”

As former Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education board member Leslie Jacobs explained in her feature on some of these innovative solutions:   Charter Schools Help Improve Special Education in New Orleans

“ReNEW Schools offers a program for students with moderate to intensive emotional disturbance and related disabilities. Collegiate Academies has a Special Education Transition Program to support job-skill development for students with intellectual disabilities. FirstLine Schools offer a therapeutic gardening program for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. And more innovation is in the works. Next fall, in collaboration with OPSB and Tulane Medical School, the RSD will open a therapeutic program for students with mental and behavioral health needs that affect their ability to succeed in a traditional school setting.”

Beyond anecdotal success, student-based budgeting structurally treats special education students as important members of a school community. SBB gives school administrators added incentive to integrate special needs students into school life. Schools that win a reputation for delivering special education effectively stand to attract new students and funding to use their services. This truly puts the financial focus on the needs of special education students rather than prescriptive centralized special education services—and it creates a better future for those students in the process.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Allovue works with districts and state departments of education across the country to allocate, budget, and manage spending. Allovue's software suite integrates seamlessly with existing accounting systems to make sure every dollar works for every student. Allovue also provides additional services such as chart of accounts and funding formula revisions.

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Lesson Plans For Special Education

Why does it seem like when we are looking for lesson plans for special education , there is a whole lot of reinventing the wheel going on? That’s because THERE IS. As Special Educators, we are constantly looking for lessons that we can differentiate, adapt, or modify, to reach all the various levels and needs of students in our classrooms. It shouldn’t still be this difficult after all this time, to find lesson plans for special education that are usable, practical, & relevant. If you’re looking for activities and lesson plans for special education, (which of course you are, since you’re here) keep reading!! Below, I break down an easier way to lesson plan, give you lesson plan ideas, and list out lots of sites & resources that are great for special education classrooms. Let’s get to it!

When it comes to lesson planning for special education , it’s a great idea to have a general plan for each class period. Every class period should follow some kind of routine. This makes planning a lot easier, no matter what topic you’re teaching that day.

A rough breakdown could look something like this:

Warm up activity

• Depending on what class you teach, this could be a few simple math problems, a puzzle, a matching activity, or a simple vocational task the student can complete This gets the student in the mindset for learning and also gives you a few minutes to get yourself prepared.

Instruction

• I love using power points for my whole class instruction. Most students are more interested and will engage/participate more when I use power points or project stories, activities, etc., on the smart board.  Each day I find something to project (story, instructional power point). For our lower functioning learners, or learners with shorter attention spans, their attention is held by the screen and pictures (not too cluttery!). It works even better if you can find something interactive.

Group Activity/ Guided Learning

• Doing a group activity to help review the materials taught is helpful. You can do a hands on activity, a game, or even something simple like answering comprehension questions together as a class.

Independent Work

• Give your students an activity to work on that they can complete as independently as possible. Again if you can’t think of something, you could give students the same comprehension questions you just went over as a class to see how they do on their own.
• This can also be things like writing prompts, picture prompts, matching activities, sequencing, sorting, word search, crossword puzzle, file folder activity etc.

Wrap up/Closing

• Review as a class what was covered today.
• Have students do an ‘exit ticket’ of 1, 2, or 3 things they learned today, something they want to learn more about, what did they like or dislike about today etc.
• Most of our students are always looking forward to the end of class/activities so they can have break time. Sometimes it’s also hard to plan exactly to the end of the period, so a little buffer time for students to calm down and give their brains a break is well deserved.
• Students could get on the computer, their phones (if being appropriate), puzzles, play games, etc.

This is a general template for a teaching period. You can change as you see fit to meet the needs of your students. Sometimes your students may need more breaks, try to fit these into your scheduling if possible, so you can maximize instruction time.

Looking for a more detailed description of how to write lesson plans for special education? Are you looking for a template for special education lesson plans? Here’s a rundown of how to plan/write lesson plans for special education regardless of the topic.

When it comes to specific lesson planning, you can follow this template and guide. This will give you more detail on how to plan for specific units or lessons. Depending on the level of students you teach, this may be helpful, so check it out!

Sometimes we don’t even know where to start when are given a new class to teach. Looking at a list of lesson plans for special education can trigger our minds to where we want the direction of our class to go. We just need a starting point. Next, choose a unit to focus on. After you have a unit, you can break it down into smaller lessons and set lesson objectives. Then you can plan specific instruction, small group or independent activities, and more.

Are you looking for supplemental activities/sites that you can use as part of extending your lesson plans for special education ?

Here are some great websites (some free and some paid) that have great resources to use in your classrooms today.

Reading A-Z

Raz-Kids.com

Tarheelreader.org

Storylineonline.com

Specialedlessonplans.com

Superteacherworksheets.com

Scholastic.com

K5learning.com

Edhelper.com

AttainmentCompany.com

Math-drills.com

Mathplayground.com

Life Skills:

News2you.n2y.com

SpecialEdLessonPlans.com

Science/History:

BrainPop.com

Science A-Z

How Stuff Works

Nat Geo Kids

Time for Kids

Speechbuddy.com

Thespeechbubbleslp.com

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Managing money and budgeting

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Managing money and budgeting: Lesson plan

Managing money and budgeting: Presentation slides

Being able to create a budget and save money can help young people feel more confident about finances and plan for the short and long term.

The activities on this page cover creating a budget, managing bills, as well as discussing the results of not managing money effectively.

 Teaching resources:

• Managing money and budgeting: Lesson plan and presentation slides –  full lesson plan for use with a group of students in the classroom

Lesson plan

(30 - 150 minutes)

This lesson is designed to help students understand how budgeting and saving regularly can help with effective money management. It also explores the importance of prioritising bills and understanding income and expenditure.

By the end of this lesson students will be able to:

• Practise how to effectively budget
• Identify bills they may need to pay and when to pay them
• Recognise the impact of poor money management

Further support for developing financial capability in your students

Follow this lesson with further money skills lessons for this age group, which cover  'Finances in the world of work' and  'Planning your finances for the future' . You’ll also find another interactive worksheet and an online lesson film alongside the 'Financial survival skills' lesson. Why not build financial capability as a focus in your students’ curriculum? Refer to our  Content guide  to find out how this LifeSkills resource can be used in lessons.

If you want to increase your own confidence to teach young people about money, Young Money provide free e-learning training to teachers across Primary and Secondary education.  In addition, National Numeracy has a free website which helps you practise and refresh your everyday maths skills.

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Why not try one of these next?

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Explore careers with primary aged children and teach them about workplace skills with this free lesson plan from Barclays LifeSkills.

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Chicago Public Schools shares student-to-teacher ratios used in new budgeting formula

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news.

Elementary schools will get one teacher for every 26 students next year and high schools will get one teacher for every 21 students, according to details about the new budget formula replacing student-based budgeting shared by Chicago Public Schools officials.

Those ratios will decline for higher-needs schools — potentially providing them with additional teachers — and all schools will be staffed with at least 10 classroom teachers for the 2024-25 school year, officials told Local School Council members Thursday night.

The numbers discussed by CPS officials shed additional light on how the switch to a new position-based budget formula that’s partially based on needs will affect schools, teachers, and students. However, the student-to-teacher ratios outlined by officials are not necessarily equivalent to class sizes.

Principals are slated to get detailed school budgets with actual positions and dollar amounts on Monday.

Officials said the total amount of funding that is allocated to schools “will not be cut,” but “individual schools’ funding levels may change.”

The $9.4 billion budget for the current 2023-24 school year categorized $4.8 billion as school-level funding.

CPS plans to use a recently updated Opportunity Index , which was created during the pandemic, to measure a school’s need and distribute resources more equitably. It’s based on how many students with disabilities, English learners, and students from low-income households are enrolled, and the socioeconomics of the surrounding neighborhood, among other factors. Schools with higher scores are considered to have higher needs.

Every CPS school will get a principal, an assistant principal, a clerk, at least one counselor, and at least one part-time school assistant. The number of counselors and assistants will increase at schools with more students or more needs; elementary schools will get an additional counselor for every 600 students, while high schools will get an additional counselor for every 500 students. High schools with more than 300 students will also get an athletic director.

Special education teachers and paraprofessionals will continue to be funded centrally.

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Elementary schools will be allocated at least three “holistic” teachers for specialty classes, such as art, physical education, or foreign language. The formula will provide one specialty position for every five core classroom teachers at schools with more students.

“We believe that the daily experience for our students will be joyful, affirming and meet students’ social and emotional needs, and prioritizes historically underserved students,” said CPS Chief Budget Officer Mike Sitkowski.

Principals will still get flexible or discretionary money in addition to the base number of positions, officials said. Elementary schools will get at least $365 per student and high schools will get at least $1,095 per student. More money per student is added based on a school’s Opportunity Index score.

The switch away from budgeting money to schools based on student enrollment to a system that promises minimum staffing based on need and enrollment isn’t the only big fiscal transition coming up for CPS.

Next year’s budget will be the last to benefit from federal COVID money, and officials have said there’s about $300 million remaining for the coming school year. Those relief dollars will be used to help plug the district’s projected budget deficit and will help reduce the shortfall to $391 million , officials have said.

In order to further reduce the budget gap, the district is looking for cuts at the central office level, instead of making cuts to schools to balance the budget, officials said. CPS is also seeking a larger funding increase from the state.

Sitkowski said principals will receive their school budgets next week. Local School Councils will need to vote on them so principals can submit them back to the district’s budget office in early May.

Reema Amin contributed.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at [email protected] .

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Arlington parents urge board to fully fund program that helps special education students

by Kellye Lynn

ARLINGTON, Va. (7News) — When 13-year-old Colton Clark was four years old, his parents told 7News he began to wander off.

"He would literally wander from our house down the street, over our busy neighborhood, and just stare at the stop sign and we had no idea why he was doing that," Luke Clark said.

The Clarks received assistance from the BIS program, which stands for Behavior Intervention Services . A behavioral specialist observed Colton, who has autism, and provided the necessary support.

"It was providing strategies. I can't say enough about how many strategies they helped provide us with," Clark said.

"I probably referred 50 families to this program over the last couple of years. They were so beneficial for us. This is a program that directly benefits a lot of students with disabilities so the fact that this could potentially be cut is problematic," explained Colton's mother Kathleen.

7News reviewed the County Manager's more than 1,000-page proposed Fiscal Year 2025 Budget and found the request for the elimination of two behavioral specialist positions.

We also called and emailed County Manager Mark Schwartz to find out why he wants to make the cuts and what other options might exist. We're still waiting to hear back.

At a budget hearing on April 2, residents urged the Arlington County Board to keep the BIS positions.

"There is no comparable service available. We have checked," said Cecilia Kline of the Arlington Special Education PTA (SEPTA).

Kathleen, who's now running for the Arlington School Board, told 7News she's urging county leaders to maintain the positions.

"They are truly amazing advocates and they look for the students and the families first," she said.

"Without intervention services like this, I don't know where we would be as a family," Luke added.

The Arlington County Board adopts its budget on April 20.

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Off the page, into the water: UC alum and seventh-grade teacher teaches through canoe building

The delhi middle school teacher initiated a special learning program in her middle school classroom..

Emily Hohlefelder knows the importance of digital platforms in today’s learning environments. A seventh-grade teacher at Delhi Middle School, Hohlefelder has experienced the impact of digital connectivity on education both in the classroom and during her own time as a student at the University of Cincinnati.

“There are so many platforms!” says Hohlefelder, pointing to the lasting impact COVID-19 and remote learning had on teaching and learning. “So many different ones, all asking students to present their information in different ways: recording themselves, recording just their voice or having to create some sort of digital image.”

Students in Emily Hohlefelder's seventh-grade class work on the frame of the skin-on frame canoe. Photo/provided

None of this is news to the 2023 graduate of the College of Education, Criminal Justice, Human Services, and Information Technology, who was introduced to future-forward teaching tools during her first year as an undergraduate in the  Middle Childhood Education program . Specifically, it was an educational technology class with School of Education professor Sarah Schroeder that opened Hohlefelder’s eyes to the possibilities of instruction and learning in a hyper-connected, always-on world.

She also honed in on how platforms, especially interfaces for creative student work, can cause anxiety in some students, leading Hohlefelder to complete and submit a project on reducing student anxiety around technology use. Schroeder was impressed with Hohlefelder’s insights and invited the first-year student to present her research at the Ohio Undergraduate Technology conference in Columbus. 

“I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll go with you!’” laughs Hohlefelder, who went on to become dual-licensed in middle childhood and special education with a certificate in digital learning design. “I felt pretty underqualified – I was 19 and in my first year, but she took a chance on me.” Schroeder subsequently helped Hohlefelder publish her work as well, co-authoring a paper titled  “Reducing Student Anxiety About Creative Digital Work”  for publication in  Edutopia , an online outlet for educational news and insight.

“I ended up doing a grant-funded project on reducing student anxiety with technology while I was an undergrad. It fueled a lot of great new information, especially coming out of COVID, on how technology can cause a lot of anxiety when it comes to different methods of learning for students.”     

Building Life Skills (and a Canoe)

Proven expertise with technology and insight into digital platforms might make Hohlefelder an unlikely champion for hands-on, nature-focused learning. But for a person with a lifelong ambition to help all learners reach their potential, she works to stay alert to opportunities that expand her ability to reach pupils – which is how she ended up bringing a canoe-building project into her classroom.

“The director of the program is one of my good friends,” says Hohlefleder. “I had watched him go into schools for the past three years, so why wouldn’t I want to bring this into my own school?” The Urban Wilderness Program , she goes on to explain, is a Cincinnati-based non-profit that delivers wilderness experiences to schools with kids who, demographically, don’t enjoy easy access to outdoor enrichment.

“A lot of my students had not been in a canoe before. They had not been on a body of water.”

Emily Hohlefelder, Seventh-grade teacher at Delhi Middle School

Seventh-grade Delhi Middle School students shape parts for the classroom canoe build. Photo/provided

The STEM-based project saw students construct a skin-on frame canoe as part of their daily classwork, which Hohlefelder was able to tie into traditional areas of study such as math and science, as well as social studies and language arts. “At the same time, they were able to learn teamwork, critical thinking skills and how to work together to pursue a common goal,” she says. “And it always helps students, especially in middle school, when that goal is tangible. So fostering that kind of community was truly the goal we were looking for here at Delhi with the canoe build.”

Another significant benefit of the classroom canoe project? The collaborative build provided a holistic means to reach students who sometimes struggled to engage with learning material. “It was fun to see kids who were usually reserved or not interested in the academic setting of the classroom really come out of their shell when it came to getting to use their hands for something,” explains Hohlefelder. “The build takes about two weeks, so it becomes routine for them. A lot of them really enjoyed it.”

A Risk Worth the Reward

The canoe-build project was, admittedly, a big swing – especially for a teacher so early in their career (this is, in fact, Hohlefelder’s first year teaching at Delhi Middle School). But that same spirit she found during her first year, when she said yes to the conference opportunity in Columbus despite feeling underqualified, spurred her to take the chance.

 “As teachers, we already have a million things going on,” she says. “And trying something for the first time? I’m like, this could fail – this could go very badly. But it’s worth taking the risk if it’s going to benefit the students.”

A student connects planking to one of the ribs on the canoe frame. Photo/provided

The canoe is currently on display (alongside a pair of oars carved as part of the program) in the school, but Hohlefelder envisions this canoe build as an annual seventh-grade project that, in time, populates a nearby pond with a fleet for public use.  And though the students didn’t know it when they initially built the canoe, there is a part two to this project they recently learned about – a May field trip in which they themselves will take the canoe out for some freshwater fun.

“We have to teach them, at the end of the day, that it’s not about the tests,” says Hohlefelder. “It’s not about the data. It’s really about what kind of people we are teaching here. How are we teaching them to serve the community when they’re older?

“Projects like these are the ones that I know they’ll remember past middle school.”

Featured image at top: Emily Hohlefelder stands next to completed skin-on frame canoe built as a seventh-grade classroom project. Photo/provided. 

• Next Lives Here

CECH’s School of Education is highly regarded for preparing the next generation of educators. The program is led by a team of experienced and qualified faculty who are dedicated to teaching students to meet the demands of modern classrooms and address the educational needs of diverse student populations. The program offers a variety of courses and experiences that will help students develop their understanding of child development, instructional methods, and classroom management.

For more information about the School of Education,  please visit the school’s website.

Contact the College of Education, Criminal Justice, Human Services, and Information Technology . 

• School of Education
• Alumni Association
• College of Education, Criminal Justice, & Human Services

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