Michelle, a special education teacher behind The Autism Helper, shows the physical tools she uses daily: a thermal laminator, Velcro dots, coil-binding machine, and numbered Bluetooth headphones for iPads. She built her classroom inventory over nine years using district funds and wishlists, and recommends newer teachers do the same gradually.
Let me help you take the guesswork out of what resources you need in your self-contained classroom to help create an effective and inclusive learning environment for your students. I'm Michelle with The Autism Helper. I'm a TK through 2nd grade self-contained teacher, and this is my classroom. Special education resources can be quite expensive, and we tend to go through them pretty quickly. That's why I'm thankful that my school district provides me with a yearly budget so so I can purchase things for my classroom and replace things for my classroom that have been broken or damaged throughout the school year. In this video, I'm going to show you my most recommended and most used special education resources that help me run a very effective self-contained classroom. Let's go! In the special education world, you know it's vital to laminate everything, and my first recommended product is a really good thermal laminator, and this is my favorite. This is the GBC, also known as the Swingline Fusion G100L. This one is great because it allows me to laminate 3ml, 5ml, and 7ml. It also allows me to laminate different sizes all the way up to menu size. And if this for, for any reason jams, it's going to sound an alarm and it's going to allow you to, um, it's going to automatically stop, but it's also going to allow you to reverse the paper out. This one is going to last you a lot longer than one of these inexpensive Amazon laminators. I have replaced so many of these inexpensive Amazon laminators over my years of teaching that all of the ones that I have replaced have accounted for the price of this one that has lasted me 4 years. It's amazing. You're also going to want to invest in some good laminating pouches. I recommend using the 5ml sheets because it's just a little bit thicker. They're going to last a little bit longer for your students. If you're new to the Autism Helper channel or if this is the first video you're seeing, that's okay. I'm going to show you my task box center here, and as you can see, I have these schedules on the wall. Now, something I suggest you investing in is this colored paper. These are Astro Brights paper, and everything here has been laminated using 5mm lamination so that things are lasting, they're more sturdy, because students are using these every single day. Also, over here on my task boxes, I have these labels which have also been laminated using the 5mm lamination. The next resource I highly recommend investing in for your classroom is this coil binding machine. So if you're going to invest in the Easy Matching Weekly Workbooks from The Autism Helper, you're going to want to use a coil binding machine. And so, as you can see here, I've used the 5 ML Sheets. We have it bound with the coil ring. These resources are going to last us a lot longer. You're also going to want to invest in a ton of Velcro dots, especially if you're a newer teacher and you're really creating your classroom. You cannot have enough Velcro dots, I'm telling you. Get as many as you possibly can with your budget. So here you can see it's just easy to peel off the Velcro dot and stick it on to this, the resource. I am a huge fan of Lakeshore resources, and these resources help me quickly pull things for students to use maybe when we're having an extra busy day in the classroom, or if I have a substitute teacher, I can easily pull things like this from Lakeshore and students are engaged, they're content. These also work for the beginning of the school year when you're working on just creating that relationship with the students. I highly recommend investing in some Lakeshore items. They can be pricey, so just a couple every year and then keep building your classroom inventory is really helpful. Here are some more of the Lakeshore resources I have purchased throughout the year. You cannot have enough of these easy pull fun centers for students, especially on a day that maybe you're short-staffed or you have a substitute teacher. In my classroom, we use iPads for learning for our students, and it's way less distracting to other students when I use headphones in the classroom. So I highly recommend investing in some good headphones for your classroom. These headphones I like because these are flexible. Students can bend and twist and they're not going to break. They're amazing. And so to help stay organized when pairing our Bluetooth headphones to our iPads, you You can see here that I've numbered the headphones and I've numbered the iPad so that when we turn these on, these headphones are only going to pair to this iPad. One important thing that I want to stress with you is that this is not something that happened overnight. I've been teaching for 9 years. It has taken me 9 years to build this classroom. So with your time and your effort, it can happen too. Maybe you don't get a school budget, that's okay. You can create an Amazon wishlist, share that with your family and friends, Share that with your students' families. Slowly you will build your classroom inventory. For more tips and tricks on running an effective autism classroom, like and subscribe to The Autism Helper on YouTube and check out our resources at theautismhelper.com.
