Monday, May 10, 2010

Special Ed Lesson Plans: Top 10 Web Resources

Special Ed Lesson Plans: Top 10 Web Resources

As a special education teacher, you have to constantly find new and innovative ways to teach material to your students. What you teach depends on your grade level and the abilities of your students, but typically, no matter what the topic, it is difficult for these students to grasp concepts or perform tasks. If you’re frustrated with creating lesson plans, there are a number of web resources you can use to help you with the work. Here are the top 10 web resources for special education lesson plans:

Teach-nology.com: This is a great resource for teachers because it aggregates lesson plans from across the Internet. There’s also a section of the site where teachers can upload their own lesson plans, which is extremely helpful to other teachers.
TeachersNerwork.org: This site has a healthy category for special education, as well as categories for other teachers, so all of your bases are covered. Even if you can’t find what you need in the special education section, you can look at other sections and modify those lesson plans for your students.
Teachers.net: Real teachers submit all of the special education lesson plans on this site, so you know they’ve been tested and actually do work well with students. They have plans for elementary through middle school students.
SpecialEducatorsWebpages.com: This site by Kay Davis has not only lesson plans for special ed teachers, but also a number of other awesome related resources as well. It’s a great website to bookmark!
LDOnline.org: This is the world’s leading website on learning disabilities, so they have awesome resource for teachers at all educational levels. It takes a little hunting on the site to find actual lesson plans, but there’s a lot of cool reading to be done on this website, which can inspire you to create lesson plans of your own.
Marc’s Lesson Plans Page (http://www.halcyon.com/marcs/lessons.html): This website includes a number of lesson plans, all modified for special needs students. Marc also lists dozens of places to go for other lesson plans, both for special education classes and other classes.
EducationWorld.com: This is a great site for lesson plans, which are sorted by type, and while you’re there, you can also read about professional development, administration, using technology in the classroom, and more.
VSArts.org: VSA is an international organization that combines special education and the arts. There are a lot of valuable resources on their site that can help you with using art, music, and more in the classroom.
edHelper.com: There are plenty of lesson plans on this site, all surrounding weekly themes, which makes the learning fun for students.
YouthFirst.org: If you search by subject matter, you’ll find resources for teachers by grade level. The great thing about this website is that it includes resources not only special ed students with disabilities, but also for gifted students.
Remember, you can also go to the website for the Office of Special Education Programs for more special education teaching resources and information.

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