Special Ed Classroom Daily Schedule: from Arrival to Dismissal

Putting together your daily schedule can be a new special education teacher's worst nightmare, but I'm here to help you. I'm Michelle with The Autism Helper. I'm a veteran primary self-contained autism teacher, and this is my classroom. Today I'm going to share with you my whole day daily schedule from student arrival to student dismissal. Typical school day for my students starts outside at our arrival gates. My paraprofessionals and I all meet out at the gates every morning. The process of arrival for my students takes about 20 to 25 minutes depending on the day. And once all the students are here, all students are in the cafeteria. We give our students about 20 minutes to finish eating breakfast. Breakfast is over and it's time to line up outside and walk to the classroom. I like my students to be as independent as possible. So thankfully our school has painted these white lines throughout the school. And these are what we use to teach our students to walk in a straight line to class every day. As you can see, we have quite a long walk from our cafeteria to my classroom. So it takes us about 3 minutes every day to walk to the classroom. Once students arrive to the classroom, they know they do not just go into the classroom. We have students line up at the wall and give further instructions as to what to do when they get in the classroom. Once inside the classroom, students are instructed to go to their desk, put their backpack in their individual basket, get out their communication books and put those on a table, and then join us for circle time where we begin our day. For starters, my morning meeting at the beginning of the year, I try to keep it around 10 to 15 minutes, and then we work our way up to about 25 to 30 minutes each day. And then it's time for centers. So we always do a block of 4 centers first. And then we do snack, bathroom, and recess. My centers are 15 minutes long, and I switch centers with using this wireless doorbell. So once I press this, my students know that it's time to move their arrow and rotate to the next center. When it's time to check their schedule, that's what we will play. Students will move their arrow and go to the next center. And at this center, my students do English language arts, the Autism Helper level daily curriculum. Once the doorbell rings, my student will check her schedule and she will be going to our book center. Students are able to pick a book from the shelf to look at or read, or they can go on the iPad and we use the app GetEpic. At our fourth center for the morning, which is her orange center, And she's going to come over to the orange table and do her task boxes. Now fourth center is all done, and students are going to break for snack, bathroom, and recess. I give my students 20 minutes for snack and bathroom. This helps my paraprofessionals toilet all of the students as well as students eat their snack. After 20 minutes, we go out to recess, and students get 15 minutes to play on the playground. So it's after recess now. We're going to do another morning meeting, and then it's time to start our second block of centers. So this second part of circle time typically lasts 15 minutes depending on the students. Okay, so my student is resuming her schedule. She's now at our play center. She'll come over here, place the schedule in the basket, and review the playtime rules. Once that 15 minutes is up, she's going to check her schedule. It's time for the last center of the morning, which is the purple teacher. This is where I do the leveled daily curriculum math from the Autism Helper. Now that my last 2 centers for the morning are complete, it's time for my students to go to lunch, and it's time for me to take my lunch. So student lunch and my lunch lasts for 40 minutes. Now lunches are over. Students are coming in, they're hot, they're sweaty, they're thirsty, they're tired, and they need to use the bathroom again. So instead of diving right into instruction or circle time, we do quiet time. We turn off our lights, we get nice and quiet, and the students sit at their desk. One of my paraprofessionals will also help the students use the restroom during this time, and another paraprofessional will take her lunch during this time. And this is what my students see when they come in from recess. They will see that I have a visual that says this is quiet time. These are the choices for the students, and then I put a 10-minute timer on for the students. So that's the first 10 minutes after lunch. We're doing quiet time. I'm writing notes to parents, or I'm working on prep time. So did you hear me say that I take that quiet time to use as some prep time for myself? Well, 10 minutes isn't really a long time, so I found out over the years that I needed just a little bit more time to write notes to parents or to maybe plan for my afternoon centers, and so I have embedded another 20 minutes of leisure time for my students. Okay, so for leisure time, my students are working in 10-minute blocks. They will start at either iPad or play center for 10 minutes, and then once the 10 minutes is up, I will ring my doorbell and students will rotate for another 10 minutes. And that was difficult for the students, so I have this visual over here, and it's non-negotiable. If your name is at iPad, this is where you start. If your name is at play center, this is where you start. Another great visual to alleviate any behaviors during our leisure time. Alright, we are nearing the end of the day, but we still have quite a chunk of time to work with the students. So we come back to circle time and we do an afternoon meeting. This whole group typically lasts 10 to 15 minutes. We only have a little bit of time left for our students, but we know as special educators that if we don't keep our classroom structured and in a routine, then it kind of falls apart. So my afternoon centers, we do two 20-minute centers. For afternoon centers, students still get a visual schedule. So if this is the original morning schedule, we've just Velcroed a visual schedule to the back so that students know that this is their afternoon schedule. We've also taught the students that we do 2 centers, and then these are the 2 centers that they do the next day. So this student starts at yellow table. These are going to be more social-based, more play-based in the afternoon. So students might do Play-Doh here. Or magnet blocks, or these fun snap dinos for about 20 minutes. We're really working on language, taking turns, and asking friends to play during this time. She's done at this center. She's going to go over to the orange table. In the afternoons, my orange table transforms into an art table, and students might be doing a visual art craft. They might be doing some water painting or some cut and paste crafts over here as well. So my 2 centers are done. Students are now— they now know it's time for treasure box and go home. I show this visual for treasure box to get them excited, and then it's time to go home. That's my whole day daily schedule in my self-contained autism classroom. For more tips, resources, and tricks, like and subscribe to The Autism Helper on YouTube, and check out our website at theautismhelper.com.