Hello, I am trying to obtain information regarding the setup of a lifeskills classroom. My students are high functioning. I have been informed that I need to setup my classroom with stations or centers such as for each subject; including a daily schedule. Can someone help?
lifeskill classroom setup Life skills includes the skills the student needs to be successful in society. Students with life skills programs are often those with severe learning disabilities, autistic tendencies, developmental disorders etc. For the most part, you can't take day to day responsibility for granted with these students. They need strategies in place to help them learn the essential life skills. They need to learn to be responsible for care of property, understanding the basic social rules, how to behave under different circumstances. The details I've listed will help you set up tracking systems or work with the student to enhance those necessary skills. Once the student has some understanding, you'll want self-tracking or monitoring to occur. You may want to devise a tracking sheet for specific areas to keep the student focused
For the proper lifeskill classroom setup you can focus on Personal Accountability Routines student interaction
Life Skills I teach students with mod/sev challenges in a high school. It is sometimes called functional academics (to help them function on a day-to-day basis) or life skills. But I am a little confused because you said your students are high-functioning. Some schools are now adding a life skills curriculum as an elective. Students would go to the class to learn money management, job skills, budgeting, etc. If it is not that type of class, then I would suggest you set up your classroom as much like that of a typical high school classroom. I think the "centers" idea sounds very elementary and childish. Here is my daily schedule: Period 1: English Period 2: Math Period 3: History Period 4: PE Period 5: Science This year, I have a very diverse group. Some students are in the PreK ability range, and at the top, I have students who are more at the 4th to 6th grade level. It is very difficult to serve everyone at their individual level. So for English on Monday and Tuesday we have a whole group Scholastic News Ablenet version that has 3 ability levels. Wednesday, Thurs, my higher group works on a research report or essay about one of the topics in Scholastic News and they make a book in MOOKLET to present on Friday. The lower groups work on things like learning sight words, reading environmental print (menus, newspapers, theater bills, etc.) For math, we put together work packets for each student, and then we divide up into small groups and work on the worksheets. Things like money, counting, calendars, time, etc. Since my state does not have frameworks for history, I put together a year's curriculum that follows learning about the different holidays, American symbols, economics, laws and rights, etc. I usually try to find a book that has a theme on the subject, and base the lesson off of that. This year, since I have such a challenging group of students, we are using our history period to also work on our Character curriculum. Science starts as a whole group activity and then we break into leveled groups to work. It is a modified curriculum that follows general HS Life Science, Physical Science, and Earth Science. During the week we also have rotating small groups that shop for, cook, and serve a meal to the rest of the class. We also have a short computer lab session each day to work on keyboarding skills, internet searches, emailing, computer games, etc. Fridays we go out for community-based instruction! Yeah! Its our favorite day! We ride the city bus, go to the mall for lunch, etc, etc. I have many great student aides that help out in my classroom, which is great because there are very few opportunities for many of my students to take a general education elective. I hope this helps a little. Its very challenging to set up a classroom for "life skills" because most of the off-the-shelf stuff you can buy requires a reading level of 4th-5th grade, and frankly, its rather dull and unimaginative. I have to create almost every lesson I teach from scratch.
