Structure is a crucial component to your SPED classroom setup. This is something I learned quickly in my first year of teaching and something that worked well once structure was increased. Below I’ve listed five easy ways to increase structure in your classroom.
Individual Schedules
Whether it’s visual schedules, checklists, object schedules, or agendas, they are necessary. You can never have too many schedule supports but you CAN have too little. Schedules help us know what’s coming next. Without knowing what’s coming next, you can expect behaviors that might pair with not knowing what’s next: fear, anxiousness, worry, and restlessness to name a few. This especially important in a class where different students may have services on different days. Those moving pieces can be overwhelming without clarity.
Physical Boundaries
When setting up a classroom, physical boundaries are high on my priority list. Kids need to know where they are supposed to be in your classroom at all times. Sure you can have tape on the floor to define your spaces but I have found that physical boundaries create more clearly defined spaces. See if your school or district has extra furniture that you could use for your classroom to set up more physical boundaries. Things like, bookshelves, filing cabinets, or even partitions can be extremely helpful in increasing SPED classroom setup.
Work Systems
Work systems have so many benefits. Possibly one of the biggest benefits that I see in my classroom is that students can clearly see the end in sight. If you expect students to complete three tasks without explicitly defining the start and the stop of those activities, the work can become overwhelming. They won’t know when or if there is a stopping point near. This is why having work systems labeled with numbers, letters, or shapes can keep the work momentum going and the expectations clear.
Break Space
Defined spaces are big must in my classroom. When it’s break time, students need to know where they can take a break. I like to keep work areas and break areas physically separate so that they each serve their own purpose! This is where those physical boundaries come to play too. Here are some visual supports that can help with successful breaks too.
Independent Work Stations
Having designated work areas that build independence is critical. I like to assign each student one color. I set up a personal desk space for each student where we promote working independently with the work systems we have in place. Independent work stations also allow you to really individualize their own space. You can include their favorite characters or special interests in their areas to personalize them.
I hope you were able to take away one thing you can implement in your sped classroom setup from this blog. Even if you can’t do all five of these things, choose one! Increasing structure can be gradual and it doesn’t have to be all at once.
If you enjoyed reading this blog, be sure to check out my other blogs about sped classroom setup too.
Happy teaching,
Sofie
