We Work Hard for the Money...

We work hard for the money- in actuality, we work hard at our school jobs because it's going to get us where we need to be by the time we reach adulthood.  Ask any Lifeskills teacher, and he or she will tell you without hesitation that the number one goal we all have is for our kids to learn and practice the skills they need across environments (at home, at school, out in the community, on the job...) to help them become as independent as they can be. This is what drives ALL of our instruction, whether it be a lesson on identifying coins in the classroom or asking a store clerk where to find a specific size. To help guide our students towards independence, we set aside a good amount of time (about 30 min/day) to practice classroom and school jobs.

To track progress, I created a self-graphing data sheet for each classroom and school job. The person recording watching their designated student records the level of prompting used. For example, if a student needs their peer or aide to tell them how to complete a step, the data collector would record a V to indicate a verbal prompt.  I'm proud to share that one of the coolest things about this sheet, is that my general education peers (6th and 8th grade) have been AWESOME at taking data on student progress!

Here's what it looks like after it's been completed. You can see in the chart below how the graph appears.

When the kids are ready to start their jobs, the clock in by moving a digital picture of themselves from "OUT" to "IN". They grab their name tags (special thanks to our central office staff for making each student an official school ID to wear on the job!) and head off to work. 

 Here are some of my boys breaking down boxes outside the cafeteria.

 They break each box down then place it in the dumpster.

 

We also focus on household jobs like washing dishes and doing laundry. Hopefully these skills will be transferable to students' home environments (I know their parents are hoping!) and will help them live as independently as possible after high school. Whether our kids end up living in an apartment with support, at home with family or in a group home, these home living skills will not only increase independence, but they will also boost self-esteem.

Sometimes we even have a special, time-sensitive job to work on during our vocational period. Below is one of my favorite pictures from the past week- in it, my students is working on stuffing Veteran's Day letters. Can you believe our team sent out well over 100 this week?!

 We also practice tasks that involve following directions and a routine. Here is one of our students wiping down personal information cards. The kids practice writing their name and address with a marker every morning, so one of our classroom jobs is to clean the cards and return them to each student's desk.

 The job below is a new one for us the year. We are responsible for running the school bookstore every morning before the bell rings. This is a BIG job, and we're so excited to be in charge of it!

 The Lifeskills students working in the bookstore are responsible for everything from locking/unlocking the door, signing in, keeping track of items that have been sold, handling money for purchases to making sure that the cash box is returned to the office at the end of each shift. We're also very lucky to have our peer helpers around to help us do all of the steps of our job!

We change our job assignments either at the grading period or semester, depending on progress. Our goal is to have students experience a variety of classroom and school jobs during their middle school years. When our kids get to high school they will continue to participate in school-based work experiences and will, by the last few years of high school, begin to participate in either paid or volunteer work experiences in the community. If you're a frequent reader, you know that our program is based on the idea that we must teach, practice, and apply all of these incredibly important LIFE SKILLS in order to help our kids be everything we know that they are capable of being.

HAPPY FRIDAY!