Tips for Teaching Music to Special Education Students

For a music teacher, they likely only see students for a limited portion of the day, and their time with students with disabilities can be much more stressful than working with general education students. If a music teacher is only giving special education students to mess around with for the music period, they're not exactly teaching, just keeping them busy. However, this link provides some very good tips for teaching students with disabilities various music fundamentals, and how to get around things like non-verbal students. I'm not a music teacher, and won't pretend that I know anything about music theory or how to teach it, but the author's credentials check out.

Using Music with Special Education Students

This site details 4 very simple ways that music can be used in everyday lessons for special education students. Music is a great auditory resource, and when paired with visual resources, or any other of your lessons, can increase comprehension and student engagement. This article also makes a very good point that when using music or a simple tune to remember phone numbers or rules, that they need to be able to remember those things without the song involved.

Health Lesson Plans for Special Education

This link leads to an entire semesters worth of health lesson plans. Lesson plans for Relationships, Communication, Exploitation, Touching, Exploring the Body, Reproduction, and STDs are all included in this one link. Every lesson leads to an incredibly detailed PDF lesson plan for that specific topic, and some of them even include PowerPoint presentations for you to use in your lessons. Extra topics like Sexual Abuse and Laws Relevant to Sexual Health can be added into the curriculum.

It's hard enough for a health teacher to teach their students about the uncomfortableness of reproduction, their bodies, and sex, so imagine how much more difficult it is for teachers with students with disabilities to teach these issues. Luckily, this resource has detailed lesson plans on how to do just that.

Special Education Student Inclusion in Physical Education / Adaptive Physical Education

This article, from Friendship Circle, goes through 7 ways a physical education teacher can include or accommodate a student with disabilities into their classes. Some can be helped, but turning the lights low, not playing loud music, or creating a schedule for every day, but others are tougher. Sometimes, students with disabilities aren't enrolled in physical education classes, so simply by doing movement breaks or creating fitness or sports routines with a student can really help.

For those special education students who are enrolled in gym classes, teachers can make playgrounds and gyms more accessible for these students, and for themselves, get certified in Adaptive Physical Education (APE), and teach themselves about Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS). Becoming a CAPE, or a Certified Adaptive Physical Educator, requires understanding of the 15 standards of adaptive physical education.

The APE link goes to a page from Wright's Law, which discusses not only the IDEA requirements for physical educators, but breaks them down and interpret them so a physical education teacher can create a strong curriculum around them.

The PBIS link is also from Friendship Circle, and is a two-part article that details the ins and outs of PBIS. The 15 standards link goes to the APENS, or the Adaptive Physical Education National Standards website and details each of the standards.

Carly Fleischmann

Just a few days ago, a young woman named Carly Fleischmann, who has been a name in the news in the past, created her own web series where she interviews celebrities. Carly, a non-verbal person with autism, on April 29th, 2016, released a YouTube video where she had a wonderful interview with Channing Tatum, and conversed with him through a iPad communicative app. It's a great story, and a very funny interview, which you can watch by clicking here.

Science Special Education Resources, Lesson Plans, Themed Units, Etc.

This link may be one of the most comprehensive and helpful links for special education teachers with science. Think back to your elementary, middle, and even early high school science classes. Earth science, weather, earthquakes, energy, rocks and minerals, space, volcanoes, water, etc., all of that and more is included in this one page! There are multiple resources, worksheets, readings, and even full themed units of these topics for teachers to use.

It doesn't only cover basic science, there are lessons on hygiene, bike safety, and tobacco as well. One of the most important things on this site, to me, is that there is are resources and a unit plan for a lesson on disabilities.

You need to sign up to use these resources, but I think it's entirely worth it.

Math Resources for Special Education

This document compiles a list of resources for teaching math for students with disabilities. It ranges from elementary to secondary education, and includes a few extra online and print resources that are available as well. The document also details proven and research backed instructional methods for math that teachers can use. Every resource includes a small introductory paragraph and a link you can follow to find more information, which have been tested for accuracy and quality.