Special Education Teacher Resources
From resources for the special education classroom to accommodations for mainstreamed students with special needs, explore Lesson Planet’s reviewed and rated teaching strategies, assessment tools, apps, lesson plans, videos, resource collections, and activities designed to make learning come alive across disciplines!
Whether new to special education or an experienced veteran, starting out the year can be difficult. Here is a model you could use when developing your own weeklong schedule. There are apps to help instructors write IEP goals and objectives for all kids in your caseload. Check out this video review of one such app.
Lesson Planet has resources, lessons, and apps designed for learners on the autism spectrum, sample lessons provided by an ADHD specialist, lessons for children with moderate disabilities and/or Down syndrome, and activities for other students with profound needs. The resources in our collection are designed to make your job just a little bit easier.
Showing 3,029 resources
PBS
Career Connections | Special Education Teachers
Two middle school intervention specialists speak about their profession as special education teachers. Both hosts detail what they do during the day, how they differentiate assignments, work to create and follow IEPs, and list their many...
Curated OER
iPad Apps for Your Special Education Class
Swing into technology with these special education apps that are perfect for your learners.
Curated OER
Teaching Life Skills to Students with Special Needs
Ideas for instilling essential life skills in learners with special needs.
Curated OER
Special Education Plan
Special needs students practice completing everyday tasks such as organizing a day plan, reading a clock and completing simple math problems. They define the proper learning techniques for their disorder and utilize props in learning...
University of Oklahoma
Learning About Special Education
The lessons in the second unit in a three-unit series provide students with the historical background of disability education. After reading about events that impacted attitudes towards disabilities and how learners are identified for...
Curated OER
Engineering Lessons Adapted for Special Education
Modifying engineering lessons from NASA makes them accessible to a wider variety of learners.
Curated OER
Special Education Fitness Challenge
Make fitness a part of each and every day. Special Ed young scholars are given charts with maps and record keeping information. They are given a 20-week period (late October to late March, when the weather is cool enough) to walk that...
Curated OER
Sexual Education Assessment Tool: Special Education
The FLASH program in Seattle has put together a set of questions for special education classes covering sexual education. Some of the topics include appropriate, inappropriate, self-esteem, puberty, hygiene, reproduction, and sexually...
Curated OER
Opening a Special Ed Class
This is not just a lesson plan, it's a life saver! Here are 10 separate documents intended to assist a new Special Ed teacher. There are 4 different games, instructional tips, ways to handle documentation, behavioral modification...
Curated OER
Cooking Skills: Special Education
Using the microwave, boiling water for pasta, and using a knife to make a sandwich are all independent living skills. Prepare your special needs students for life by having them prepare three easy-to-cook items. Each skill is laid out as...
Curated OER
Mastering a Student's Personal Information in a Special Education Classroom
Your special education students can memorize their personal information. In order to master their personal information, they create a photo book to help them remember names, birthdays, addresses, phone numbers, then take pictures to...
Special needs in Music
Music Work Sheet (Special Ed)
Music is beneficial for all learners. Help your learners with special needs learn about different styles of music, as well as the ways that music is represented on paper, with 30 different worksheets.
Curated OER
Religion and Ethics: Living with Special Needs
Students explore human behavior by exploring mental and physical disabilities. In this learning disability lesson, students identify the different disabilities students have which prevent them from working at the same pace as the rest of...
Teaching Channel
Building Analysis Skills Through Art
Useful teaching strategies abound in this inspirational, informative video! Walk step by step through one teacher's two-part lesson in her special education/ELL class as they develop text analysis skills by first beginning with analyzing...
Teaching Channel
Florida School for the Deaf and Blind
Learn from teachers at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind on ways to reach students of different learning styles and ability levels, as well as how to accommodate learners with special needs in a general education classroom setting.
Curated OER
ASL Lesson 8
Another awesome ASL activity! Teach ASL to a special ed class, hearing impaired child, or for your own enrichment. This activity provides comprehensible ASL language development. Each highlighted blue area links to a video, printable...
Curated OER
Including the Disabled Student
Young scholars read and discuss the history of special education in public schools related to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Students work in groups to design ways to modify classroom activities based on the needs of a...
Curated OER
Communication Skills: Special Education
Get to talking with your special needs class. In pairs, they take turns telling each other where to go on a schematic map. They work to ask questions, answer questions, and check if their partner understands their directions, or if he...
Curated OER
Special Education Students in the Mainstream Classroom
How to prepare your mainstream students for a special education student in their classroom.
Curated OER
Environmental Awareness and Children's Literature
Use an alternative setting for pregnant teens and young mothers, as well as special education children to examine environmental topics through literature. Included in this unit is a visit to neighborhood libraries to select children's...
Curated OER
Using Poetry in Teaching Reading to Special Education Students
A series of well-written activities, these lessons prompt middle schoolers reading below grade level (at a second, third, or fourth grade level) to use poetry to practice basic reading skills. They rhyme, build words, make inferences,...
Curated OER
IEP Meetings Aren't Just for the Special Education Department
All parties involved benefit when general education teachers attend and contribute to IEP meetings.
Curated OER
Promoting Disability Awareness and Acceptance in Childhood
Create a safe and respectful school environment with the help of this special education teaching guide. Offering dozens of instructional ideas and activities for raising awareness and acceptance of children with disabilities, this is a...
Lesson Planet
EdTech Tuesdays: Signed Stories
A tablet can be a great visual tool for the classroom, and this American sign language tool could be just what you're looking for. Rich and Jennifer provide an overview of the app and point out the features that would be great for...