• Activities
• Language
• Cooperation, negotiation & compromise

• Combine Verbal with Visual
• One-Step/Chunk
• Model/demonstrate first
• Limit verbal language
• Call & Response/Chants

• Visual & Verbal
• Reinforce with picture cards (PECS)
• Physically
• Consistent
• Sentence starters
• Cue cards or gestures

• Create an agenda
• Use rituals for opening, closing, transitions

• Universal Design for Learning

• Activities
• Directions
• Structures

• One Step Directions
• Multiple Modes of Communication
• Wait for Processing Time

• For the desired outcome
• For processing time

• Not open ended – this or that
• Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to (‘no’)

• Clear & Achievable
• Positive Behavior supports
• Fair, Firm, Consistent, & Respectful

• Agenda (stick to it)
• Pictures for Vocabulary
• Instructions: Written & Pictures/diagrams
• Graphic Organizers
• Sentence Starters

• Include a period of time (during the lesson) for you to observe, and assess and make in-the-moment accommodations to support a student to participate?
• Have the wiggle room to be adjusted?
• Have a backup activity to use if the students do not respond to your first activity?
• Include ideas for how to modify it on hand?
• Create a physical space for a Paraprofessional or other Classroom Professional to support a student one-to-one?
• Do you have written/clear directions for the Classroom Professionals to be able to lead or support the lesson at the student’s pace?
• Does it create space for the Classrooms Professionals to step out of a co-teaching role if needed to work one on one with a student? (See also the GIVE Resource Collaborating with Classroom Professionals)
• Offer multiple means of entry and expression? (See also the GIVE Resource Universal Design for Learning)
• Embrace all students’ neurodiversity, and other identities and provide opportunities for them to thrive? (See also the GIVE Resource Creating Stigma-Free Classrooms)

• Multiple modalities of expression and entry (UDL)
• Options for alternative roles that utilize their strengths
• Structured activities for engaging with peers & teachers
• Routines that encourage communication skills
• Gentle reminders of expectations like eye contact, greetings
• Options for eye contact alternatives (look at my nose, or thumbs up if you’re listening)
• Options for specific ways and limited choices to engage with peers/teachers (shake hand, high five, or fist bump)
• Utilize student communication devices
• Connect with the Speech Therapist:
  • To program in language specific to your residency into student’s devices
  • To learn specific strategies & Supports
• Add different ways of participating besides verbal cue (e.g., “Show one finger if you want to do this,” “Show a hand signal if you agree/disagree”)
• Sentence Starters or frames

Does Your Lesson:

• Provide information delivery alternatives such as visuals or textures and manipulatives?
• Have options for a variety of sensory experiences?
• Give alternatives for students to express themselves and their understanding of the content?
• Provide opportunities to write, draw, or physicalize instead of talking?

• Eliminate unnecessary elements (visual distractions, added noises, etc.)
• Increase your wait time:
  • For processing
  • Between repeated instructions
  • To give students time to think before responding
  • For students to achieve the desired outcome
• Repetition (of activities and tasks)
• Multiple modes of expression of learning and entry into the activity (UDL)
• Concrete (one-step) directions
• Visual, verbal and/or physical prompts
• Graphic organizers
• Utilize technology
• Simple limited choices (“this or that,” not open-ended)
• Pair students together (to work, to perform, to brainstorm resolutions for a problem/challenge)
• Begin with concrete examples before moving to more abstract ideas
  • e.g. Hop over this blue tape line > Imagine you are hopping over a log > Imagine you are in the forest—Oh no! A tree fell over; what can we do? “Let’s go over it”

Does Your Lesson:

• Give alternatives for students to express themselves and their understanding of the content?
• Provide opportunities to write, draw, or physicalize instead of talking?
• Offer sufficient wait time?
• Utilize prompts?
• Have space for Classroom Professionals to assist one to one?
• Offer opportunities for students to work in pairs or small groups?

• Structured activities
• Routines
• Visual agenda (check it off as you complete tasks)
• Concrete (one-step) directions
• Visual, verbal, and physical prompts
• Visuals (modeling, agendas, pictures, PECS)
• Limited verbal language (instruction and activities)
• Simple and limited choices (two options, not open-ended)
• Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to (“No”)
• Increase your wait time
  • for the desired outcome
  • between repeating instructions
  • to give time for students to think before they have to respond
• Use technology
• Multiple modalities of expression and entry (UDL)
• Utilize a mood meter
• Offer alternative roles that utilize their strengths
• Begin with more concrete examples before moving to more abstract ideas

Does Your Lesson:

• Give alternatives for students to express themselves and their understanding of the content?
• Provide opportunities to write, draw, or physicalize instead of talking?
• Offer sufficient wait time?
• Focus on sharing steps one at a time?
• Offer the content in smaller organized sections?
• Provide visual or physical supports?
• Scaffold in abstract concepts?

• Be transparent with how you will be changing the routine
• Timers/clear notice of upcoming transitions
• Concrete (one-step) directions
• Visual, verbal & physical prompts
• Visuals (modeling, agendas, pictures, PECS)
  • Visual agenda (check it off as you complete tasks and stick to it)
• Structured/choreographed transitions
• Repetition of tasks and activities

Does Your Lesson:

• Provide clear transitions between activities?
• Offer transparency around any changes and major shifts to schedule, routine, plan?
• Give clear guidelines and structures around what is coming next?
• Have a strong entry into the lesson and exit out of the lesson?
• Outline clearly what’s next?

• Check in with student’s emotions using mood meters
• Model positive behavior, language, cooperation, negotiation and compromise, and what to do when you make a mistake
• Low pressure activities (not competitive, or a game that can be won)
• Assign clear roles and responsibilities
• Take time to discuss emotional elements
• Allow breaks (and know where in the classroom the student can take a break)
• Invite students back into the activity at frequent intervals

Does Your Lesson:

• Give opportunities for choice-making and self-regulation?
• Have clear roles, responsibilities, and expectations in activities?
• Provide space for students to process emotional responses?
• Offer options for students to take a break?

• Clear and achievable expectations
• Remain fair, firm and respectful
• Build trust and kindness
• Model positive behavior, language, cooperation, negotiation and compromise, and what to do when you make a mistake
• Low pressure activities (not competitive, or a game that can be won)
• Assign clear roles and responsibilities

Does Your Lesson:

• Give opportunities for a student to work individually, with a partner or in a small group on part or all of the lesson?
• Offer options for students to take a break?
• Have clear roles, responsibilities, and expectations in activities?
• Model social behaviors like negotiation, compromise, cooperation, and collaboration?

• Try changing the classroom environment
• Dim the lights/use the natural light
• Play quieter music
• Eliminate unnecessary stimulations
• Offer headphones to dim the noise
• Have alternative materials
• Have gloves, or brushes available
• Plan to include tactile materials for students who seek sensory input
• Ask what accommodations they might need
• Prevent sensory overstimulation

Does Your Lesson:

• Inhibit, limit, or alert students ahead of time to the use of bright lights, loud sounds, touching/hugging, strong smells, or abrupt changes to the sensory experience that a student may be sensitive to?
• Engage multiple senses, while giving students the opportunity to regulate their own experience?

• Offer alternative materials
• Include movements that cross the midline (activate both sides of the brain)
• Move from working on tables to working on the wall (uses gross-motor shoulder muscles instead of fine-motor muscles)
• Change activity so all students are in chairs
• Use language like rise up or move (rather than stand up or walk)

Does Your Lesson:

• Have alternatives to movement-based components?
• Have alternatives for visual or audio elements?
• Honor diverse energy levels and physical capabilities?
• Have multiple entry points?
• Have multiple expression options?

• Simple and limited choices (two options, not open-ended)
• Concrete (one-step) directions
• Multiple modalities of expression & entry (UDL)
• Reward/incentive systems
• Opportunities to take breaks/exit and re-enter activity
• Let the student guide themselves at their own pace
• Fast0paced (don’t linger too long in one area, keep making it a bit more challenging)
• Recap expectations frequently (and in multiple modalities)
• Chant/call and response

Does Your Lesson:

• Provide easily understood content?
• Have simple and clear directions?
• Have clear scaffolded content?
• Provide clear framework, achievable goals, and benchmarks for students?
• Honor diverse energy levels?

• Provide information delivery alternatives such as visuals or textures and manipulatives
• Have options to see, smell, and touch relevant content
• Provide visual instructions and supports
• Create a space for a Classroom Professional to support a student one-to-one
• Use students’ individualized microphones
• Utilize text to speech devices
• Learn some ASL School signs or basic phrases

Does Your Lesson:

• Include visual, smell based, and tactile elements?
• Offer opportunities for multiple modes of expression?
• Provide delivery alternatives (visuals, modeling, ASL)?
• Offer space for a Classroom Professional to work one-on-one with students?
• Offer opportunities for students to work in pairs or small groups?
• Incorporate ASL?

• Incorporate diverse tactile materials
• Incorporate sound
• Offer assistive tools for materials
• Clear verbal instructions
• Use hot glue guns to create raised materials
• Create physical pathways utilizing chairs, tables, or ribbon
• Utilize New York Public Library Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library resources
• Create a space for a Classroom Professional to support a student one-to-one

Does Your Lesson:

• Incorporate tactile and auditory experiences?
• Use clear verbal instruction?
• Offer space for a Classroom Professional to work one-on-one?
• Offer opportunities for students to work in pairs or small groups?

• Students stand in a circle.
• The Teaching Artist starts by saying, “I am the sun,” and throwing a ball of yarn to a student, without letting go of the end.
• The student that catches the ball must name something that depends on the sun to live (e.g., a tree) by saying, “I am a _________.”
• They throw the cord to another student without letting go, who must name something that is either dependent on or connected to the previous life form.
• Whoever catches the yarn continues to build the web of life until everyone has answered.
• Once the web is established, the teacher places a beach ball or other soft object in the center of the web. The students are then asked to move the object around without letting it fall, by moving their yarn around.
• Reflection: The whole group reflects on the key elements of a web as a system of support. The TA can close by posing the following questions:
  • How are you supported by the web of life?
  • How is the web of life being threatened in your communities?

• Students can be standing or sitting.
• Students with fine motor challenges can loop the yarn behind their back instead of holding with their hands.
• Guided visualization of a particular ecosystem or environment may be a helpful starting point.
• An image of a spider web can be shared to guide their process.
• Passing instead of tossing the ball can support students with low vision or coordination challenges.
• Students who are less verbal or non-verbal can fill in the blank by sharing a movement or shape without naming what they are.
• Group brainstorming can support choice making.

• Can participate in the circle
• Could act as “the wind” helping the ball get from one side of the circle to the other.

• Ask students to form a circle; if needed, stagger the group’s transition with a strategy like “Anyone whose name starts with a vowel, make your way to the circle.”
• Transitioning out of the activity with movement: “Travel back to your desk as the living thing you named as part of the web.”

• Open space or space around desks to stand in circle
• Big ball of yarn or twine
• Beach ball or soft plushy (at least the size of a basketball)

• Before the game, write the names of machines on index cards (e.g., coffee maker, TV, alarm clock, microwave, computer)
• Explain that the objective of the game is to work as a group to create a machine by using only their bodies. Every student on the team must be included and students can not use any additional materials or props.
• Divide students into groups of three to six.
• Give groups time (about 5 minutes) to create their machines.
• Ask each group to present their machine to the whole class.
• After a group has presented, have the other students raise their hands if they think they can identify the machine.
• The game ends when every group has had a chance to present their machine.
• Reflection:
  • What happened during the game?
  • How did your group work together?
  • If your group were to do the game again, what would you do differently?
  • What collaboration skills did we use during this game?
  • How can we use these skills outside of the game?

• Images of the machines can be included on the index cards.
• Students can also participate by contributing a sound effect or helping direct from the outside.
• The group’s machine can be built around any students who need to remain seated or stationary.

• Can participate in the machine with a group
• Can increase participation of all group members by supporting group brainstorm and suggesting modifications if necessary
• Can create a machine one-on-one with a student if necessary

• Use a call and response to refocus students’ attention after they’ve created their machine and before they share with the whole classroom.

• Space for students to work in groups of 3-6
• Space to present group machines to the class (e.g., front of classroom)
• Index cards/paper to write names of machines for each group