Autism Classroom Setup PART 2: Staff & Student Zones

We are officially on the countdown until students arrive in our classrooms. In my district, we have just under 4 weeks. I cannot believe there's school supplies on the shelves already, and so I've got to get moving and get this classroom set up. I am Jen. I am a K-1, 2 self-contained autism teacher, and I'm a blogger here at The Autism Helper. And this summer, I thought it would be fun to bring you guys along on a little series to where I set up my classroom. Last video in the series, I talked about the different zones that I create and gave you a really quick overview of those zones within my classroom. Today, we're gonna break down Zone 1 and Zone 2, and that is the student zone and the adult zone. Let's get started. In full transparency, my classroom is a bit of a hot mess right now. It was used for ESY, so we did not pack up at the end of the year. However, at the end of ESY, we grabbed anything that was on the floor, put it on top of a table, called it good, shut the door, and then here we are. We haven't come back since then, which is fine because everybody deserves a summer break, and that was mine. And now, well, I'm dealing with the consequences of all the doom piles. So today we're gonna be setting up this zone over here. This is the teacher zone. The second adult zone is over here, and this one's for my assistants. So we're going to get this all set up and ready, and we are going to tackle the student zone, which is over here, and these cubbies over here. I love to start with a fresh workspace, so I'm going to take out anything that doesn't belong there first and then see what I'm left with. We are slowly getting there. This shelf is looking a lot better and doesn't have anything shoved like in the corners. Um, so just a couple highlights of this shelf, just things that I think are useful to have in that adult space. One is a phone. Make sure that your phone in your classroom is like hidden from your students if at all possible because they love to pick up the phone and it's a great way to get attention in a negative way. So I put mine up high and I kind of hide it. We keep our emergency procedures really close to the phone. So if anybody needed anything, it's in a set spot. Everybody knows where to find that. Student data binders, I'll go through how I set those up for you. My copies for the year. Anything that I need monthly is right here. My beginning of the school year copies. Guys, I cannot stress enough, this year in August when you are making all of those copies for the beginning of the school year, create a binder for yourself with all of those copies in it. And I mean, put like everything you could possibly need in there. And I use this in May, and then I make myself a copy of everything that I could possibly need, and then in August it's ready to go. Such a smart idea. I stole it from another teacher, so, um, be smart like them and make yourself a beginning of school year copy binder so you can literally hand it to somebody in May and say, make all my copies. And you are set and ready to go for the fall. These are monthly binders. These are just handouts and activities that I do based on my centers that I do those months that I always keep in those binders. My assessment data is right here and all of my assessment tools such as the Brecken. On those bottom two shelves, I have a lot of curriculum. You'll see our PEAK ABA, and life skills. Additionally, I've got all the committees that I'm on over here, but these white binders in the middle, those are for my assistants, and I just gather them at the end of the year and then update them over the summer. Um, this is kind of what they look like. I use the Autism Helpers Program Assistant Training Manuals. I use 1 and 2. Um, this one was from a couple years ago, but I cannot stress how important it is to give your staff guidelines and give them a handbook of expectations. Like, this has been a game changer for my classroom. They have a place to look and reference without like stopping and interrupting my instruction, which if they need to ask me a question, I'm all about it, but I also want them to feel successful. This also gives us points to do staff training. So we go through all of these throughout the school year. And then I also have a spot for monthly staff notes and then student information, which is confidential. So that way we've got a leg up on, you know, hey, here's what we know about our students right now. And then monthly staff notes, I send those out and I'm like, hey, we're really rocking this, this, and this, but here's the things we're going to work on as a team here, here, and here. And that kind of leads our staff meetings as well. Now that my zone is pretty well set up, I'm going to move to the second adult zone in my classroom, and that is the assistant zone. I found when I was an assistant that it was so frustrating that there was no space for me, but yet I was such an integral part of the classroom. So I make sure that my assistants have space for their things. Let's talk about it. So to help them be successful, I try to give them a space for everything that they need. This year I think I will have 5 assistants. I found this storage, or this cubby, in storage, and so I stole it so my assistants had a spot to hang up their coats. Also, every assistant takes data on an iPad, and so that's— we create a little charging station right there. They check in on a Chromebook, and so that's up here. And then I found these file cabinets and they lock. You have to like push this over, difficult for the kids to get into, but now they have a spot for their purse and a spot for their lunch, a spot for their phone, and a spot for their keys that kids can't get into. Not only does this help the staff, but it helps the students too because there's nothing for them to get into and everything's clean, organized, and put away. The cables will be tucked back behind so there's no safety issue there. And we even have a couple assistants that keep an extra pair of shoes here because, well, you never know what's going to happen in an autism classroom. So let's get this space cleaned up. All right, so we are looking better over here. I am excited because we got all the charging going. We've made sure the computer works. Um, I don't know if I will have my same assistants. It's always a surprise for us. And so I'm just leaving their names on their cubbies as they were last year, but if I need to switch those out, I will. We don't find out until like the middle of August. Um, but their cubbies are all cleaned out, wiped down, and ready to go. And all of the junk that I sat up here, I moved and got everything cleaned. Looks much better, much more friendly, and ready to go. There are two things that I give to my assistants every year. The first one is a fanny pack. We carry everything from visuals to reinforcers to Band-Aids to Kleenex to wipes. You name it, we put it in here. It also gives my assistants a place to put their radio when they are outside of the classroom. And the second thing is this nurse's jacket. Um, these are super cheap. I got these on Amazon. I think they were around $10 a piece. but everyone gets one in their size and that way if you're painting with a child, you're doing sensory activities, if they are like super sick and snotty, if, you know, we've got a couple kids who have trouble controlling drool and saliva, this gives you a way to protect your clothing while you're working with that student. Take it off and then you can hang it up. I always wash them for my assistants whenever they are dirty and they've been used and so they're ready to go the next day. I will take these things and I will hang them up in the cubbies so they're ready to go. Every staff member has a radio in my classroom, um, and this is just a cheap little walkie-talkie that we use across the campus. Our campus is spread out over 3 different buildings, and so it's really important that we can stay in contact with everyone at all times in case we've got an emergency type situation, we've got a student who's eloping, or a student who's escalated and someone needs to get there to assist quickly. The thing is, I didn't want my staff using their cell phones because, well, that doesn't look super professional. And it's really hard to tell if somebody is texting for help or if they're doing something and not using their time wisely. So, I convinced my admin to buy these. They were super cheap. I think they're around $10 apiece. We have 6 of them in our classroom. 5 for assistants, 1 for myself. We wear them all day long. So where if you are at a special, you need help, you're on the playground, um, if you just want to radio and communicate that somebody's absent or someone's going home, this keeps our team in constant contact. Next up is the student zone. We are slowly knocking it out now that we've got our adult zones done. Let's get ready for students. We're going to start with the cubbies over here. All right, my cubbies have 3 sections. The first little top section, I got these little mini bins from Walmart and they were about 98 cents. I got one for everybody. I put names right here so we easily know. Also, I color code those names. These baskets hold everything from sensory supports to scarves, gloves, mittens, anything a kid might bring in or need throughout the day to get ready, we put in here. I would love to say that we never lose gloves, but when we were putting them in pockets of coats, we were just, we could never find them again. And so this gives us a solid place to put that. Also, I love that sensory supports are right there by their coats so they're easily accessible at the morning when the students get here, also anytime they leave the classroom. Next up, we just have a hook. We've got a spot for a backpack and a coat. And then down below, I just bought some shoebox containers. I think these came from Target, but you can easily find them at Walmart. They're about $1 apiece. They're not too expensive. This is where we put student extra clothes. I ask that each of my students bring a set of extra clothes, including socks and shoes if at all possible. And then this is just the way that we organize that. In that front little pouch, their name will go there so students know exactly where to find their belongings. I always wanna make sure that I have visuals that support my students, and this is just one example of those. I'm gonna hang this up by my cubbies Um, and I use these all the time from arriving to the classroom to going to the bathroom, washing hands, going to music class, recess. I have all of these copied, ready to go, so we've got visuals no matter where we're going. 5 zones to go. 2 down. That feels really, really good. So our next zones that we're going to be covering in our next video our technology zone, the management zone, and then our sensory zones. Finally, once all of that's in place, we're ready to focus on instructional zones. So I'm going to talk about our instructional zone and our independent work. If you've got questions or you've got something that you want to see, maybe something that you saw today that I didn't cover in depth but you've got questions about, drop them in the comments. I will definitely get to them, um, and I'm gonna go over our morning routine 2. I'm going to create a separate video for that. We've got a couple comments asking about that, so that is something to watch for in upcoming videos. I told you all about how my students unpack, but let's kind of get into the nitty-gritty of what happens in those first 30 minutes. If you've got questions, you've got comments, drop them below. I would be happy to answer them. I will see you next time.