Special_education_classroom

https://www.sidebyside.org.uk/work-for-us

With the Summer approaching & expected heat, our special needs students are struggling to cope in these conditions.
Without proper cooling, it’s extremely difficult for them to stay calm, comfortable, and focused throughout the day.

We’re launching a campaign this Wed -Thu (6 - 7 May) to bring much-needed AC to Side by Side School - but help is needed now.
We truly can’t do this without your support.
Please donate today and help us make this happen.
My Link: https://www.charityextra.com/sidebyside/284988

With the Summer approaching & expected heat, our special needs students are struggling to cope in these conditions.
Without proper cooling, it’s extremely difficult for them to stay calm, comfortable, and focused throughout the day.

We’re launching a campaign this Wed -Thu (6 - 7 May) to bring much-needed AC to Side by Side School - but help is needed now.
We truly can’t do this without your support.
Please donate today and help us make this happen.
My Link:

Side By Side At Side by Side, we support children with a wide range of complex and additional needs - children who rely on calm, predictable environments to feel safe, settled, and ready to learn.During the warm summer months, our classrooms become overwhelmingly hot.For our children, this is not simply uncomfor...

Tiny canvases, big smiles 🎨💛
Found these super cute mini canvases & watercolours on Amazon, so affordable and perfect little gifts for my amazing students ✨

Celebrating learning through a joyful SEN Sensory Story experience 🎂✨

This week we explored “It’s My Birthday” through a hands-on sensory story session. The students immersed themselves in the experience by exploring real-life props like flour and eggs, helping to bring the story to life in a meaningful and engaging way. Through touch, smell, and movement, they were able to connect with the narrative in a way that supports communication, engagement, and sensory processing.

To finish our session, the students took part in a cake decoration activity. They decorated their own “cakes,” making creative choices and proudly showing their designs. The enjoyment, anticipation, and excitement throughout the activity were wonderful to see — learning truly comes alive when it’s interactive and purposeful. 💛

Developing fine motor skills through tools and adaptations:
We used a hole puncher to create small pink circles, which the students used as “sprinkles” for their cakes. The hole puncher supports hand strength, bilateral coordination, and hand-eye coordination — all essential fine motor skills.

We also used specialised OT scissors to cut larger shapes, supporting grip development and controlled cutting skills. For students who were not yet ready to use scissors, we encouraged tearing instead, ensuring that every child could participate successfully while developing hand strength and independence at their own level.

Today in our art lesson we explored tints and shades 🎨
Each child chose a base colour, mixed their own tints and shades, and transformed them into a beautiful monochromatic painting on canvas.

I wish I could show their faces, but for GDPR reasons I can’t. What I can say is that they were bursting with pride and happiness ✨
We celebrated every piece, whether abstract or realistic, because every artwork told its own story.

The joy was real, the pride was huge, and they cannot wait to take these masterpieces home to share with their parents and carers 🖌️💛

MonochromeMagic

🎨✨ Marble Art Magic! ✨🎨

Process art at its best!
We explored marble painting using trays lined with paper and marbles dipped into different coloured paints.

Students rolled and swirled the marbles around the tray, creating:
• Unique patterns
• Colour mixing opportunities
• Beautiful abstract artwork

This activity supported:
✔️ Fine motor skills
✔️ Visual tracking
✔️ Sensory exploration
✔️ Creativity without pressure

Every piece turned out completely different — and that’s the magic of process over product 💫

🪰✨ Attention Autism – Stage 3 Fun! ✨🪰

Today’s activity combined sensory play, attention building, and early maths in the most engaging way!

We created flies using shaving foam, colourful paper to sit on it, and drawn antennae 🧡💚💙
During Stage 3 Attention Autism, students:
• Stayed engaged in a shared activity
• Took turns and followed instructions
• Made choices (how many flies to catch!)

Students used a fly catcher to splat the flies — lots of laughter, excitement, and focused attention throughout!
➕ Bonus learning: counting and number choices, bringing in a little maths without it feeling like “work”.

A perfect example of learning through play, movement, and motivation 🖐️✨

💜 Colourful Semantics – Level 5: WHY 💜

Level 5 focuses on reasoning and cause – helping learners explain why something is happening in a sentence.

✨ Level 5 focuses on WHY
At this level, learners develop:
• Reasoning and explanation skills
• Understanding of cause and effect
• More complex sentence structures

By adding WHY, children move beyond naming and describing, and begin to explain meaning, supporting higher-level language and comprehension skills.

The purple colour represents why and helps learners visually organise more advanced sentence elements.

🛒 Level 5 resources are available individually or as part of the complete Colourful Semantics bundle.
👉 Click the link in my bio or follow the link below to shop:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Special-Education-Classroom

💙 Colourful Semantics – Level 4: WHERE 💙

Level 4 adds location, helping learners give more detail and meaning to their sentences.

✨ Level 4 focuses on WHERE
At this level, children learn to:
• Identify places
• Answer “where” questions
• Create richer, more descriptive sentences

The blue colour represents where and supports understanding of sentence structure in a visual, accessible way.

🛒 Level 4 resources are available on their own or as part of the complete Colourful Semantics bundle.
👉 Click the link in my bio or use the link below to shop:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Special-Education-Classroom