November Lesson Plan Ideas for the Elementary Special Education Classroom

Can you believe it is already November?! What an exciting month to begin diving in to the holiday season in the special education classroom. 

Thanksgiving

At the end of the month, I love to throw a Thanksgiving Feast with my students. We always invite our related service providers and district administrators to join in the festivities. This is one of my favorite hands-on projects we do each year! 

We practice reading skills by following a shopping list...

grocery shopping functional file folder for special education
Grocery Shopping Functional Sight Word File Folder

math skills by following a budget and reading recipes...

Thanksgiving Dinner Shopping Activity from Thanksgiving Unit

Visual Recipes from Thanksgiving Unit

and social skills by practicing our table manners!

thanksgiving social skills visual supports for special education
Thanksgiving Feast Script from Thanksgiving Unit


Past and Present

Thanksgiving is also a perfect opportunity to introduce the concepts of past and present and to teach a little about American History!

past and present cut and paste worksheet
Past and Present Sort from Thanksgiving Unit


My students love listening to stories about the first Thanksgiving and we even created our own pilgrim ink to practice writing using a "quill".
DIY homemade pilgrim ink and quill in the classroom
Pilgrim Ink Recipe Found in Thanksgiving Unit



Find these activities and more in my Thanksgiving Thematic Unit on TPT! 

Thanksgiving thematic unit for the elementary special education classroom

And for a closer look at what my Thanksgiving Unit looks like in action check out my Thanksgiving in the Special Education post! 


Gingerbread

After Thanksgiving is over, we move full steam ahead into the winter holidays! I love starting off with a unit on Gingerbread and the Gingerbread Man. 

gingerbread man vocabulary with picture supports for special education
Gingerbread Vocabulary from Gingerbread Unit


gingerbread positional word cut and paste worksheet
Positional Word Activity from Gingerbread Unit


gingerbread man vocabulary pictures with boardmaker icons for special education
Vocabulary from The Gingerbread Man

gingerbread man cloze sentence cut and paste worksheet for special education
Cloze Sentences from The Gingerbread Man

gingerbread thematic unit for elementary special educationgingerbread man comprehension unit for elementary special education
gingerbread man thematic unit for elementary special education

For more information on how I incorporate these units in my classroom, check out my Gingerbread Activities in the Special Education Classroom post!


Literacy Instruction

My gingerbread units have some excellent activities for my Shared Reading and Shared Writing instructional times. 

The predictable text of The Gingerbread Man is always so much fun for my students. I love incorporating it into our sentence-building boards or using it as a script on a student's switch. 


gingerbread man class book worksheets for special education
Class Book from Gingerbread Unit


Now that routines are well established and classroom behavior is well managed, I am able to spend more time daily on literacy instruction so I have also introduced some phonics activities including phonological awareness activities and my letter of the day activities which I created through my research of the Science of Reading and how it applies to my students with the complex learning needs. 

compound word task cards for phonological awareness for special education
Compound Word Task Cards from Phonological Awareness Visual Supports

syllable task card visual supports for phonological awareness
Syllable Task Cards from Phonological Awareness Visual Supports

onset file folder for phonological awareness
Onset File Folder from Phonological Awareness Visual Supports

phoneme task cards for phonological awareness
Phoneme Task Cards from Phonological Awareness Visual Supports

enhanced alphabet knowledge worksheet for special education science of reading
Enhanced Alphabet Knowledge Worksheet from Letter of the Day Lessons

differentiated letter matching file folders for science of reading
Differentiated Letter Matching File Folders from Letter of the Day Lessons

cut and paste letter matching activities for science of reading
Cut and Paste Letter Matching from Letter of the Day Lessons

letter of the day lesson and visual supports for special education science of readingdifferentiated phonological awareness visual supports for the science of reading
science of reading visual support and lesson bundle for special education



For a more in-depth look at literacy instruction in my classroom don't miss my The Science of Reading in the Special Education Classroom post!