In this product‑preview video, Sasha from theautismhelper.com walks viewers through the All About the Restaurant Life Skills Unit, a multi‑level instructional package designed for learners on the autism spectrum. The unit is part of a broader community‑skills series (restaurant, grocery store, park, mall) and a household series, totaling eight themed units. Sasha explains that the materials are suitable for a wide range of ages and settings – from elementary to high‑school classrooms, para‑run centers, and community‑based instruction – and can be used as a monthly thematic focus. The package includes a printable table of contents, three levels of pre‑ and post‑tests for data collection, an anchor chart, a life‑skills word wall with visual‑definition cards, parent‑note handouts, three levels of homework (each with two assignments of five activities), three social‑story cards, three adapted books (following directions, ordering, filling orders), five file‑folder activity sets, and three sets of worksheets (20‑25 sheets per level) with multiple versions per skill. Sasha highlights how each component targets specific functional and academic skills such as vocabulary, prepositions, association, sight‑word recognition, inference, reading comprehension, sequencing, and writing, often aligning with IEP goals. She also demonstrates how the adapted books and worksheets can be used to generalize learning to real‑world restaurant contexts. The video serves as a comprehensive overview of the unit’s contents, instructional flexibility, and the pedagogical rationale behind its design.
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Hi, this is Sasha from theautismhelper.com, and this is a product preview of my All About the Restaurant Life Skills Unit. So there's a ton included in this unit, so I wanted to make sure to get— do video previews for all of these so you can see everything that's included. If you have a multi-level classroom where you have a lot of different skill levels within your group of students or caseload, this is really perfect for you because there's activities for students working on foundational skills all the way through more academic skills. If you've checked out my other life skills units, this is in a similar structure. The community series has restaurant, this unit here, plus grocery store, park, and mall. And then the household unit has 4 different units in it as well. So there's 8 total. I love the idea of doing 1 unit a month. This would be great as an overall theme for middle school, high school class. This would be great for a center in an elementary or high school class, para run. You could use this for a lot of different grades and ages. As kids get older, it's really important to increase the emphasis on functional learning, but for our younger learners, these are also great vocabulary words to work on because a lot of these concepts might not be getting targeted at home, so it's a great way to tie this all in. So anyways, let's check this out. There's table of contents included so you can print what you need when you need it very easily. 3 levels of pretest and posttest depending on the level of difficulty of your students. Get some little— get some data on levels pre— pre doing all the activities and post doing all the activities. Anchor chart, you could blow this up, you could put this in each student's binder, post in the front of your room. If you're doing multiple units, add each one as you kind of complete the new unit. Next, there is the life skills word wall. There's labels, instruction for use, there's some blank cards if you want to create an extended word wall. There's descriptions of how to do that. Each vocabulary word has a visual and then a definition card. This would also make a great just like matching or memory game too. It would be really fun. Next is homework. I love having homework prepped ahead of time because last minute it never works. This is especially great to have homework on because these life skill units are working on concepts for the household or community. So we wanna make sure that we're tying those actual locations into the learning. So there's 2 notes for parents depending on which version you'd like to give. And then there's 3 levels of homework dispense— depending on the skill level of your student. Each level of homework has 2 homework assignments with 5 activities. So you could assign this with, you know, for a month because some of these activities might take some time and several trips to a restaurant or store, etc., to get completed. So 3 different levels of homework, 3 social stories which you could send home. I think this would be great to use with parents or your community-based instruction. 3 adapted books, directions for setup are here. These Adaptbooks I really, really love because it's a great way to kind of start to generalize some learning in like a contrived, real way. So the first one is following directions in a restaurant. So you are going to find the items and put them in the correct spot in the restaurant. This is great for those IEP goals for prepositions, positional words. You're going to really, really target this in a nice functional way. Also, that's kind of fun. Because it's about fast food and restaurants and things like that. I recommend putting multiple pieces of Velcro. I say this in the directions so students aren't relying on the Velcro prompt but on the preposition and following those directions. So a great one here. Next is Ordering at the Restaurant. Um, my first year teaching, I made so many food and restaurant books because my students were so engaged and motivated by food. So this kind of reminds me of some of those books I made when I started teaching. So this one, you're looking at a few different things. I really, really like this book because it targets a lot of skills at once. So first off, you're going to look at— you're working on association. So the pieces that are included are food pieces and word pieces. So you're gonna have to find what goes with the hamburger because there's no clue here except the hamburger. I'm not telling you that it's french fries. You need to figure out that association and find the french fries and put them on the plate. Then you're gonna have to find the word french fries, so it's also working on some Sight Word Vocabulary. So this is really tying some inferences because if I'm saying dessert, it means I want another dessert on the plate. If I'm saying breakfast and I'm giving you eggs, it's giving you like a cue on what type of food I want to get. I'm at a healthy restaurant, what goes with carrots? I'm at a pizza restaurant, so it goes through all these different kind of categories of restaurants and the other food item on the plate is going to give that clue of what other food item to get, and then you'll be matching it with the word as well. So this is a fun one to really tie in a ton of different skills, but I think a lot of our kids would really surprise us on doing this, so it's a good one. Um, and then Filling the Orders, I also really, really like this one. So each— there's a little ordering pad like what the waitress would have, and then you're gonna fill the order. So kind of being the job of the waitress. So what did they order? Putting the 2 coffees on the table. What did they order? Putting the chocolate cake and the donut. Um, so putting each item that the people ordered on their table and matching those foods. So great for sight word reading comprehension. You could also tie some sequencing into this if you wanted. Then there are 5 file folders: Non-Identical Sorting, Associations, Matching, Sort by Function, Label Parts of Items, and then Label Parts of the Restaurant. Then there are 3 sets of worksheets. There's about 20 to 25 worksheets in each level. And each worksheet has 5 different options, so you don't have one worksheet of one type, you have 5 different versions of it. So this first Level 1 set is mostly matching, tracing, copying words to really target and reinforce this vocabulary. So some different options on matching, tracing, copying words. Love having 2 options when we're copying words here to kind of give extra practice. The next level works on some basic restaurant item to word, so some sight word comprehension, filling in the missing, missing word. Great for inferencing, reading comprehension, context clues. A lot of skills tied into these ones. Wh-questions with 3 visual responses. Love these ones. A lot of our kids have wh- goals. Next, writing the definition, writing the sentences. Great for independent work or guided practice. The next level kind of increases the difficulty on comprehension, inferencing, and writing. So writing 3 sentences on each picture, so expanding what we're writing, reading a passage and answering 5 questions, true/false, making a list for each restaurant prompt, so creating some categories, and writing 5 writing activities here. So there's a ton included if you have a multi-level class, which— or caseload, which many of us do. There's a lot in here for every level student. So I wanted to make sure it's really comprehensive and really bringing all of the different important aspects of each location in, into each activity. So this was a product preview of my All About the Restaurant Life Skills unit from theautismhelper.com.
