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Goal

Once students and staff are taught how to use task boxes, Blanton Elementary IVE students in grades K-5 will demonstrate independence with 2/3 task boxes in a 30 minute period over 5 consecutive days.

Students will gain knowledge in literacy, math, and social emotional skills, related to their individualized educational plan goals. These goals can be objectively measured and tracked during progress reporting periods and documentation in therapy service logs (OT).

Students will gain a sense of self-determination by being able to complete activities without direct adult support. They will feel confident in their skills by working within their window of tolerance and consistently experiencing success doing activities that are interactive and enjoyable.

While students are engaging in these learning activities (using the task boxes), teachers can design intensive instruction to support more challenging skills in a very small group or one on one setting. 

 

What will be done with my students

Task boxes will be labeled with letters (literacy items), numbers (math items), and shapes (social skills).

Students will learn how to complete the "do, doing, done" process by matching the visuals from their personal schedule to the corresponding task boxes. They will complete one box at a time for a total of 3 boxes completed per session.

The task boxes will start out with minimal items to be completed in each box, with low cognitive load learning activities, that are at or below students’ ability level. This will teach them the process of using the task boxes.

With practice and students demonstrating independence with basic skills, the activities in the task boxes will be changed out to more challenging tasks which may require more adult support to initiate the learning process until the students master the skills in that box.

Ongoing progress monitoring will be obtained through OT service logs, documented observations by teachers, and IEP progress reporting.

Teachers and OT will collaborate at least bi-weekly, or more frequently depending on student need, to assess student’s skills and the need to stretch their knowledge with more challenging tasks.

Task boxes will initially be used at scheduled times of the day but may also be beneficial for “downtime” when some students are finished with a task earlier than others.
 

 

Benefits to my students

Students will gain a sense of self-determination by being able to complete activities without direct adult support. They will feel confident in their skills by working within their window of tolerance and consistently experiencing success doing activities that are interactive and enjoyable.

By making these learning activities enjoyable and easily accessible, students may want to choose to complete a task box at a time outside of the scheduled classroom session(s).

Students will not only gain literacy, math, and social skills, but they will also be working on visual motor and fine motor skills.

Consistent and regular collaboration between professionals (teacher, OT, SLP) will help foster problem-solving and support all students’ ability to reach their annual IEP goals.
 

 

Describe the Students

There are 11 students in the K-2 IVE classroom. We have two students with full-time nursing care due to medical needs; one of these students wears a helmet due to self-injurious behaviors (banging head on the ground); 8 students are intellectually disabled and functioning academically around the age of 2-3 years; 3 students are autistic and are more knowledgeable in rote concepts such as letter/word identification, number identification, and color/shape identification, and need more stimulation to remain engaged in learning. 3 students have Down Syndrome and fine motor control issues associated with that diagnosis.

There are 7 students in the 3-5 IVE classroom. All students have been identified with intellectual disabilities in addition to health conditions such as Prader-Willi Syndrome, ADHD, Cerebral Palsy, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, and severe scoliosis.

In both classrooms, students struggle to remain engaged, complete tasks independently and often rely on adults to prompt and support them all day. Despite previous efforts (e.g.: consistent routines, use of visuals and schedules, etc.) to encourage independence, the students have not demonstrated much growth in this area. They struggle to follow even routine commands. Teachers are seeking out ways to support engagement, academic achievement, and independence. As an OT I want to support teachers and students to achieve their goals.
 

 

Budget Narrative

All materials can be purchased through Amazon. Pre-made materials/activities will be purchased in addition to cardstock, lamination, and Velcro to make additional and individualized activities. The materials will be used for both IVE classrooms and leveled based on student ability. Materials should be able to last us the entire year, with room to grow in the future. The diversity in task options will help keep students interested and engaged; activities may be working on similar skills but in different ways. 

 

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