"But it's not fair!"

Sometimes someone else has already said it better than I could. What's better, she's a Regular Educator just like you are.    
Mrs. Fultz's Corner:  Fair doesn't have to be equal.
Be sure to check out her link to the poster she created.  It makes a great visual for teaching your whole class about the true meaning of fairness.  I love the wording she chose.
Lesson ideas you can use so that you are working on content *and* social skills at the same time: 

Band-Aid Lesson (adapted from another blog)

Materials: 
*several stuffed animals or 8x11 images of children or adults (between 5 and 10)
*enough band-aids for all but one of the stuffed animals.
(the other version uses each student reporting their pretend injury and leaving the last student out...just be careful who you choose to be the last kid who misses out.)

APK - "Think about one time you were hurt." (emphasis on one intended)

TIP/SAP - Let's imagine something is hurting the duck."  Choose a student to tell you about where the duck is hurting.  Place a band-aid on it's foot regardless of where the student said it was hurt.  "What could be hurting the teddy bear?"  Choose another student and place the band-aid on it's foot as well.  Continue placing band-aids on each animal's foot no matter where the injury is reported to be located.  When you get to the last animal, apologize saying "I'm so sorry, you don't get a band-aid because I'm all out."

Questions to ask:  "Will a band-aid help you if you had a sprain, or a headache?"   "How do you think the last animal felt when he didn't get a band-aid?"

Classroom Discussion points to hit: 
* My job as your teacher is to help you learn.
* Not everyone in our class needs the same kind of help.
* There are other teachers in our building who help me teach, so some students might go to a different teacher.  Other teachers have different kinds band-aids.
* What is worse than not getting the kind of band-aid you need is not getting one at all.
* Interrupting and "helping" is just like stealing a band-aid that belongs to someone else.

ISS - Have students summarize the lesson by a) telling their neighbor b)telling you (ticket out the door) or c) writing down some reasons why students might not be doing the same things in class or have the same teachers.

Here are some other resources: 
*Free Band Aid Lesson on Teacher's Pay Teachers - This free product contains 12 injury cards and instructions for a Band-Aid activity which teaches the difference between fair and equal.
*edhelper reader with vocabulary instruction - This would be great for a small or whole group literacy lesson.
*Another blogger has a great beginning of the year lesson similar to the band-aid lesson above.
*Here's more on Pinterest!

Did you use one of these lessons or create your own?  Comment below!

Alternate Grading - what does that mean?

Alternate grading as a modification is one very important way for students in special education to experience success.  The most important thing is that we expose our kids to as much learning as possible while we *inspire* them to want to learn more.

Here are a few ways to provide alternate grading:  
1.  Check Plus / Check / Check minus - if the student demonstrates a developmentally appropriate understanding of the concept, a check plus could equal a number grade of 95 in your grade book.  A check could be translated into an 85.  If there is a small grasp on the concept and improvement is needed,  a check minus could equal a grade of 75.  If they refuse the task or really don't get any of it at all, an (X) could be recorded as 65.

2.  On a test with 20 problems, instead of each being worth 5 points, make them worth 3 points each and give 1/2 credit where it is due.

3.  Create an alternate rubric for the special education student.  Talk with your Resource Teacher about what would be appropriate to expect.  One writing assignment I did as a classroom teacher had a rubric for one stufent where an A equalled 5 paragraphs on a topic, and a separate rubric for a different student had an A equalling 5 sentences on a topic.  That same student was not graded for spelling and because an IEP goal was working on beginning capitals and ending punctuation I noted how many (3/5, 4/5, etc.) sentences utilized capitals correctly and how many utilized punctuation correctly.

Do we want to hold the bar high for our students?  ABSOLUTELY!

The caution is to make sure the bar isn't unreachable and frustrating.  

How do you provide alternate grading?