Hello, and welcome to a sneak peek into my half-day preschool special education schedule! Since my program is half-day, I have an AM group and a PM group. I will only be discussing and reviewing my AM schedule in this post, since I repeat the same thing for my PM group.
Above is a quick look at my AM preschool special education schedule. You will also see a brief snapshot of me and my paraprofessionals’ responsibilities during each scheduled time.
Above is a quick snapshot of my large visual schedule! Each student also has their own individual visual schedules as well. The breakfast visual is seen next to the arrival visual on my schedule, because not all students eat breakfast.
7:30
The students start arriving at 7:30, and they go straight to the classroom for arrival routines.
If breakfast is needed, a para would go get breakfast for the student. After breakfast and arrival routines, the students grab their morning bins. Morning bins consist of fine motor bins that they have free choice of after they finish their assigned work bin for the day. The work in the workbin is typically something simple to help them work on gaining independence at an early age, such as an errorless task or simple matching.
8:15
Let’s head over to the carpet for circle time!
This is the time we wake up our bodies, greet one another, discuss calendar time, review our letter, number, and core words of the week, and much more. Head over to this blog post to learn more about how to run circle time in a preschool special education class! Want help simplifying your circle time routine in your preschool special education classroom? Check out this resource that keeps students engaged using hands-on activities and real-life images.
8:45
It’s time for students to check their visual schedule to see where they are going first in their learning rotations.
My room consists of three learning rotations, including the teacher station, the creation station, and the discovery station. The teacher station targets IEP academic goals specific to the students. The creation station is para-led, and it consists of a craft each day. The discovery station is student-led with para-facilitated, and it consists of multiple learning activities (which usually include a sensory bin) that go with the monthly theme. Below is my current discovery station set up, which was following our space theme.
9:00
Restroom/ Wash Hands
This time is when we work on very important routines! These include lining up, waiting in line, following a bathroom routine, and following a handwashing routine. All of my students are working on toilet training throughout the year, so they each went through multiple different restroom schedules according to their level of toilet training. This is the only scheduled restroom break, so the class could work on those specific whole-group routines I listed. During this time (and every potty training trip), I also use Simply Special Ed’s Toilet Training Toolkit! It’s packed with bathroom visuals, adapted books, reward charts, parent info, teacher guide, great toileting data sheets, and much more!
9:15
Read Aloud Time!
I always introduce our story with a fun song and video that engages the students and introduces them to the topic of the story in an entertaining way.
9:30
Recess Time
This time seems pretty self-explanatory, but recess is not just a time to get the students’ wiggles out and their sensory needs met. Recess, just like every other time of the day, is a time for learning! Learning can be prompted moments, such as stopping the swing to model for them to say or sign “more push.” It could look more natural, also, such as simply talking about and verbally modeling everything you are doing to encourage more language-filled learning. We also have our recess time with pre-k gen-ed peers to work on social skills in an inclusive environment.
10:00
Lunch
This is also a time of constant learning, such as the recess time spoken of above. Lunch is also eaten with pre-k gen-ed peers to work on social skills in an inclusive environment.
10:30
Centers
The centers the students can choose from include the library (pictured above), the calming center, the drama center (half of it is pictured below with a space theme), and the toy center. The students are allowed to freely roam between these four centers for the entire 30-minute duration, but they have to clean up their center before they go to the next one. For the drama center, the setup is always based on our monthly curriculum theme.
11:00
Snack
When students are finished with snack, they can grab a “morning bin,” which are located right beside the snack table. The snack table has multiple purposes, such as the morning bin table and the creation station table. This is pictured higher up in the post in the “morning bin” area.
11:20-11:30
Prepare and Start Dismissal
This is when I fill out their daily communication logs, and the paras help the students clean up the room and pack up their backpacks.
**Side Note**
Throughout my entire day, I have a slideshow on the board with visual timers of every single activity, and it continuously goes on to the next activity and timer. (I also add the set time for the activity at the top of every slide to help me and my paras stay on time during the day!) The students learn that when the timer ends, they all clean up and check their schedules for the next activity! This part takes a LOT of hard work and consistency to get the students to understand the routine, but when they do, it makes the class run VERY SMOOTHLY.
Thank you for taking a step into my preschool special education classroom schedule and following me through our day! Please let me know if you have any comments or questions. 🙂
Want to see more daily schedules in special education classrooms? Check out Whitney’s Daily Schedule in Special Education and Vanessa’s Kindergarten Autism Classroom Schedule.
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