Michelle from The Autism Helper shares how to run field trips for special ed students. She preps for months with skill practice and social narratives, equips each student with a sensory backpack, uses radios for staff coordination, and funds supplies through principal approval and parent wishlists.
Let's talk about setting up your students for success when going on field trips or any out-of-school outings. I'm Michelle with The Autism Helper. I'm a TK through 2nd grade self-contained teacher, and this is my classroom. Today I'm going to show you what I do for my students to set them up for success with a field trip. This school year, my students and I are going to a huge Olympic-style event at one of our local high schools called School Games. This is likely going to be a very long day full of unpredictability for my students, and it's probably gonna be a little bit hard on staff, but we want to make it as easy on our students and staff as possible by preparing the students for the unexpected. So with that being said, my students have been practicing for months on how to do a meter run, how to throw a ball, and how to do a standing long jump. I've also been preparing them on what they can do if they're feeling nervous or worried, and what they can do while they're waiting. So let's take a look. Something that has been incredibly helpful when preparing my students for our school games event is this social narrative that I created using images from Google. And here we talk about being a great participant, what we are doing, who might be there. Here's the events that my students are going to take place in. Talking about waiting and letting my students know that this is what they'll be able to do while they're waiting. When it's over, they may win a medal. Then talking about going back to our school and getting pizza. I've been telling my students that they can get a pizza. Then we watch a video that I have linked here. This is a video of a school games event so that students can see exactly what is expected. Staff and I are also trying to be very mindful of how my students are going to be feeling on this day. And all of these emotions are very possible for my students to be feeling if maybe they don't win or if they come in last or all of the feelings. So we are going to be taking these visuals with us. We've already been reading them and showing students what it is that they can do when they're feeling these feelings. While we're at the school games, communication with my team is going to be absolutely vital. So my team and I, we have these little radios that we found on Amazon and and this is how we communicate with each other while we're at school games. I want my students to have as much fun as possible, but I know that waiting is incredibly hard. All of my students are going to be getting these— one of these backpacks with their name on it, and I have all different colors over here. And what these are is I used some iron-on vinyl for my Cricut machine, and I have this little iron/steamer here that I purchased on Amazon. I actually keep this in my classroom because you never know when you're going to need a steamer or an iron, and it's come in super handy for things like this where I use iron-on decals. So in each individual backpack, students are going to be getting a variety of musical instruments. Here's a squishy stress ball, snacks for each student, drinks, a light-up wand so students can cheer, and then these cool erasable boards that all the students do is they draw and press this and it disappears. Students love these, they keep them super entertained. Then we are also going to make sure that we pack baby wipes and headphones for our students because that's gonna be super overstimulating for some of our kids. And because we don't have a ton of hands, we are going to bring the wagon so that we can help carry things, or we, the wagon is also a tool that we can use to help students get to, from our waiting area to where their activity is. Students are having a hard time. The wagon is magical. I highly recommend getting you one. This one I got from Costco, but they have them all over. And I know you're wondering, where do you get the money to buy all of these things? These were purchased by my principal. I have an amazing admin staff and they are willing to purchase things that we need, but I know other teachers asked for parent donations, and making an Amazon wishlist is incredibly helpful. And all of these things were purchased on Amazon, so it is easy for parents to go and purchase these and give donations. Parents like to help. It's, it's for a good cause, so that's an idea as well. For more tips and resources to help you help people with autism, like and subscribe to The Autism Helper on YouTube and check out the blog at theautismhelper.com.
