For the Parents: Age Appropriate Back to School Shopping Ideas

• A new backpack is something every student looks forward to at Back-to-School time
• A Trabasack is can be both a wheelchair bag and a tray (we have one in my classroom and love it!)
• ActiveCare, Caselogic and Wheelchair Gear make nice wheelchair packs (try to buy from vendors that are not disability specific for better prices)
• Or just any sturdy and cool new bag would be great!

• Functional Accessories

•  medical id is essential, probably the most important thing your child wears every day, definitely the only thing that can save lives
• These companies offer hip bracelets, necklaces, shoes tags and other options for your child's medical id needs: N'Style, Medic Alert (has 1-800 number for EMS to call) Zoo Bears, Petite Baubles 
• if you can't or won't do medical id jewelery please be sure a medical id card is in your child's bag

• Chewable Jewelry is a great way to prevent your child from tooth grinding, mouthing/biting objects and other oral stimming behaviors while providing calming sensory input.  Gone are the days of having to give children washcloths or attaching chewy tubes to clothing
• Dr. Bloom's Chewable Jewels
• Oh Plah Bracelet
• Smart Mom Jewelry
• Loose the bib.  If clothing protection is a must replace the bib with other options.
• for uncontrolled drooling multiple layers of bandanas, if needed use clips to hold in place behind the neck 
• or you could purchase or sew your own lined bandanas
• for messy eating you can try an adult cloth clothing protector, but try to pick something hip (Etsy.com has some from time to time)
• a tee shirt cut up the back and worn while eating can work
• another choice is a make-up/hair-dresser cover-up/apron or "cutting cape"
• a box of 500 disposable clothing protectors (think lobster bibs) can be purchased for about $40 and should last more than a whole school year for clothing protection during snack and lunch (restaurant stores are cheaper than medical stores)

For the Parents: Back to School Tips

It's back to school time and here are some tips a special educator wants you to think about for back to school.

• return your health forms, it sounds obvious, but because so many students with severe special needs/medical fragility stay in the same class for a few years it is easy to forget that we need the forms filled out AGAIN, sorry about that!
• on that note make sure the TEAM has the most recent contact info for you and your emergency contacts
• speaking of paper work make sure your IEP is signed and returned, loose tracking of those papers from back in May happens, but it is much easier for the TEAM is there is a current plan
• working with your team decide where a spare set of clothes will be stored, (back pack? cubby? nurses office? locker?) and send in a set of clothes that fit and are weather appropriate for the season (repeat as needed, LOL)
• send in a few back up meals (be in some Easy Mac, a few cans of formula or the cost of a school lunch)
• make sure school has plenty of supplies for all your students needs(feeding, changing, medical, communication)
• see what for of school/home communication your child's team uses and try to fit it into your day, teachers and staff LOVE knowing what is going on at home, then we can make what we are teaching so much more relevant
• consider sending in a photo album of important family, friends and places with short sentences about each, it doesn't have to be fancy, just print out pictures, hand write sentences and staple (although fancy is fine, you can even great it on an AAC device for the student to share)
• when was the last time your child's wheelchair, walker, AAC device or other equipment had a good scrub down?  Follow the manufacturers directions, toss those cushion covers in the wash and give everything a good cleaning. 
•  if your child is in a new class, program or school, or even if their is just new staff in the room consider creating "cheat sheets" or a full transition portfolio/communication passport that includes basics about health needs, feeding, positioning and communication
• label everything!

Two Weeks Until School Starts

For me at least, there is two weeks until school starts, although I know many of you have already started back and many of you have a week or so longer than that. For the first time in many years I will be starting in a new job, with all new students, new staff, new boss and so on.

Here is what I have been doing to prepare:

• reading IEPs and converting into IEPs at a Glance (aka One Page IEPs)
• creating embedded skills charts for recurring lessons (morning meeting, cooking, etc)
• making FISH (Family Involvement Starts Here) Notebooks (similar to MOOSE Notebooks) (which contain the school calendar, contact info, and where I put my daily correspondence to families.)
• reviewing and adapting Unique Curriculum's September Unit

What are you doing to prepare?

End note: you know you have been blogging for a while when you run a Google search for links to include in your post and the first several hits are all to your own blog!