**I participate in the Brand Ambassador Program for Carson-Dellosa and have received this product for free to review. Task Boxes or work boxes are a staple in most Special Education classrooms. I had them in my early childhood special ed classroom and I still have them in my resource room. The problem I've had with my task boxes is that my students get too good at them or get bored doing the same skills over and over. That's where I came up with the idea to make simple, seasonal changes to my tasks boxes to keep them fresh & exciting all year. Not all of my task boxes get a make over, but I do try to freshen up several. For Fall, I am changing out materials in 4 boxes: the collating box, 2 sorting boxes, and tangrams. Here's how it will look: Collating Task BoxThe collating box will get the biggest face lift because not only am I changing out the picture cards, the task is also changing slightly. The basic box had my students just repeating paper clipping 3 different color cards together over and over. The new box has different picture combinations that they have to do. I received these Leaves & Acorns Colorful Cut-Out Accents in my Carson-Dellosa Brand Ambassador box this month. As soon as I saw them, I knew they would be prefect to update this box. Click the picture above to grab them off the Carson-Dellosa site. Next, I photographed different combinations, printed, laminated, and put the photos on a right. I added it all to the box and it was ready to go! Grab the photos below to create your own box! Sorting BoxesBullseye's Playground and the Dollar Tree make this one easy. I just swap out old materials with new mini erasers, seasonal vase filler, stickers and other small items I have found. For fall, I chose small plastic pumpkins and leaves that I found several years ago at Target and Halloween mini erasers. Once Halloween as passed, I will do a quick swap for something Thanksgiving. Pattern BlocksThis is another pretty easy one because the base of the box stays the same. You just swap out the pictures. You can also increase the difficulty by having black & white or smaller pictures that students have to free hand create instead of matching. If you don't have the plastic pieces, I have seen posts on how to make them out of felt, cardboard, and also laminated paper! Click the picture to check out my Pattern Blocks Pinterest board for great seasonal ideas.
Task boxes don't need to be boring or the same old, same old every day. They are so easy to spice up and make fresh & engaging each season or month.
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Now that you have your file folder games all printed and assembled, what do you do with them? I will admit I have talked to plenty of people who really don't like file folder games. They're too basic, they only work on matching. File folder games really do have a good purpose for a lot of different skills. They add variety, independence, and structure to tasks. They help with generalization and yes, sometimes just help kids work on complete multiple easier tasks. To be able to provide that variety, you really need a large collection. My collection has gotten quite large and I don't even have all of my copies prepped yet.
As a resource teacher, I have file folders that range from everything from basic skills to behavior to multiplication and division. When I was teaching Early Childhood Special Education, I managed my collection through cardboard magazine holders. I would label them by skill and sort my games that way. This worked out well in that environment because I could grab my ABC or colors box when we were working on those skills and go. I had a teaching friend who used a similar system but color coded her boxes and folders to match to make it easier for her students to put them away themselves. Now that I teach a much broader age group, I had to rethink how I would store and use my file folder games.
When I moved schools this year, my classroom does not have a lot of storage, but did have two large file cabinets. I designated one of them to hold my file folder games. Each drawer has a different broader area like basic skills, literacy, and math. Originally, I tried to use hanging file folders to sort and store my games. This didn't work well because the sizing was off and they ended up just sitting in the bottom of the drawer. Not practical at all!
​When this became a hassle and I realized I wasn't using my games as much, I started to look for a new solution. I found these IRIS Large Desktop File Holders on Amazon and they are perfect! They fit great in my file cabinets and hold my games upright so I can see the names and the pieces don't fall out if they come loose. I have two holders right now in each drawer. The front holder keeps games by skill and the second holds seasonal games. I think a third holder would fit if my collection grows to that size (which it probably will).
I organize within each holder by skill and am currently working on labels for each of the skills to use inside the holders. Click on the picture below to head to my TpT store to grab your own set of labels FREE! At the beginning of the day or a work session (depending on how I'm managing my time), I go, find the right category, and grab what I need.
I'm linking up with other Special Education Bloggers today! Make sure to check out all the amazing posts.
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About MeHi! My name is Kelsey & I am a Special Education Teacher in WI. I love what I do & love sharing new ideas & awesome materials. When I'm not teaching, I'm enjoying being a Mommy, cooking, & being outdoors. Archives
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