Community skills are an essential topic to cover in a life skills classroom.  While it’s always best to get the hand on experience of going off-campus, sometimes it’s just not possible to go in the community for your program for various reasons: maybe it is not approved by admin, you don’t feel comfortable with taking your whole class due to not having enough support, or students need to learn pre-requisite skills before doing the real thing.  Fear not, there are activities and stations you can set up in your classroom to simulate somewhat realistic experiences to practice some essential skills that you would practice in the community!

VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS

Virtual field trips are a great way to front-load, show students what to expect at a certain location, the steps to completing a transaction or ordering (or whatever it is you do at that particular location eg. sending a letter at the post office),  and etiquette for that particular location (eg. movie theater you should be quiet while the movie is playing).

I’ve got virtual field trips for various places in the community narrated as a social story. These help ease the uncertainty and prepare students with direct social skills instruction that is beneficial to students with special needs or autism. These social narratives discuss basic procedures to expect at each destination and come with visual comprehension questions. Check out the virtual field trip social narrative bundle here.

CLASSROOM GROCERY STORE

I filled this cabinet with empty containers I had been saving up then put price tags on each item.  This classroom “grocery store” is great for prepping students on their shopping or vocational skills, and if you have students that aren’t quite ready to go off campus, this is the perfect way to bring the grocery store to you.  Students can practice reading food nutrition labels, finding items on a shopping list, sorting groceries by different categories, bagging activities, stocking shelves, money math….and much more!

If you don’t have much room in your classroom, you can even do this on a small bookshelf as well, especially for students that might get overwhelmed by too many grocery items!  Click here to shop classroom grocery store items on Amazon (affiliate link).

One of the activities in that cabinet was bagging groceries. Whether your students want to work at a grocery store or not, it is still a great life skill to have for when they have to bag their own groceries since many stores have self-checkout now!  With this activity, students can sort out foods that were light & fragile, versus heavy & sturdy, by different categories (eg. Frozen foods, canned foods, Cleaning products, Raw products…etc).

Once they’ve got that step-down, here are some ideas for bagging groceries:

• GIVE A FEW SIMILAR ITEMS THAT WOULDN’T REALLY MATTER IF YOU PLACED THEM AT THE BOTTOM OR TOP TO PRACTICE FILLING A BAG SPACE EFFICIENTLY.
• PUT A FEW HEAVY & LIGHT ITEMS (SORTED INTO PILES ALREADY) AND PRACTICE WITH ONE BAG.
• GIVE STUDENTS A FEW ITEMS IN MULTIPLE DIFFERENT CATEGORIES (SORTED INTO PILES ALREADY)
•  PUT GROCERIES IN A PILE, AND LET STUDENTS SORT THEM OUT ON THEIR OWN BEFORE BAGGING.
• ADD MORE GROCERY ITEMS, CATEGORIES, AND BAGS.
• TIMED BAGGING
• BAGGING COMPETITION
• MOCK GROCERY STORE – SIMULATE A GROCERY SHOPPING EXPERIENCE BY PRACTICING CUSTOMER SERVICE, MAKING A TRANSACTION, AND BAGGING ITEMS.
• FREEBIE: Download visuals & resources for this activity for FREE here.

You can find the bagging stand and shopping baskets on Amazon here (affiliate link).

INTERACTIVE BULLETIN BOARDS

Bulletin boards are great for putting up pretty things to look at, but if you haven’t had the chance yet, make the switch to putting up something that is functional and interactive! So I previously posted about the grocery store cabinet, but sometimes it’s just hard to find space for something like that. What I love about this bulletin board is that it doesn’t take up too much space, you can do endless amounts of activities for all level of students, it can be an individual or group lesson and you can change out the activities.

Students can work on something as simple as identifying an item color or price, all the way up to simulating a full consumer & employee shopping experience to practice money math, vocational, and social.

If you are interested in Interactive Bulletin Board activities  can find the bundle here.

The activities come with store item printable, price tags, shopping list, and coupon task cards, and tons of worksheets! I also have a grocery store version as well!

MOVIES IN THE CLASSROOM

Sometimes we watch movies on #FunFridays (whether it is in class or in the community) and I know most people’s thoughts when they think about movies being played in class – the teacher is lazy and it’s not educational.  I beg to differ though.  There are some important skills that can be taught for those few times you do decide to show a movie in class (or if you go on a CBI to the movie theater).  Click HERE to read up on the things I do to make watching a movie in class functional & educational.

JOB SKILLS

As I mentioned above, sometimes it’s just not possible to go in the community for your program to participate in work experience for various reasons: maybe it is not approved by admin, you don’t feel comfortable with taking your students due to not having enough support, or students need to learn pre-requisite skills before doing the real thing.  While there’s nothing quite like off-campus work experience, there are alternatives to practice job skills that students can work on in the meantime.

Think of it as an opportunity to really master the ins and outs of what a job really entails, diving deeper into different skills outside of the oh-so-popular curriculum of job etiquette and job interview.

There is so much more to a job than that and I’m going to share some ideas and links to some great activities to practice these skills! Click HERE to read about ideas for practicing job skills remotely or on campus.

STUDENT BUSINESSES

Having a student business has SO MANY benefits.  Depending on what your product is, you have the opportunity to practice independence, money math, cooking, responsibility, and so much more!  For classrooms that do not have to focus on academics as much, this is the perfect place to start!  You can make it something as small as a once a year event if your class is unable to take too much time off for the business. Or, you can make it a daily business!  The possibilities are endless, and it really just depends on what resources you have access to, and what your students are interested in doing!  Click HERE to read about different ideas for student businesses as well as personal experiences from various teachers on how they got their student businesses started.

FUNCTIONAL SIGNS

Before you head out into the community, something to work on in the classroom includes an overview of the places you plan on visiting, as well as community signs! There are tons of community signs that you can spot just by taking a quick walk in the nearby neighborhood.  Pointing these signs out in the community helps bring to life what students have been learning in the classroom.  Check out some community signs resources:

A great way to prep for community based instruction is to do virtual field trips!  Being in the community can be overwhelming, so help prep students by letting them know what to expect, what etiquette rules to remember and so on.  Check out Virtual Field Trip social narratives & comprehension here.

Another thing you can do in your classroom is post community signs similar to how you would see them in the community.  This is a super easy & functional idea for your classroom sink especially if you have on or off-campus jobs, classroom jobs, or do cooking in the classroom!! All I did was searched for the images on Google and then print them. It’s the perfect way to practice reading a community sign on a daily!

Pictured above is an. “Employees Must Wash Hands Before Resuming To Work” sign I placed at our sink.  This is an age appropriate visual that reminds students they should wash their hands before “returning to work” or before doing a cooking lesson…etc.

Often times you will see “push/pull” signs for doors.  Not only is this idea functional, but it is helpful for staff or students that may not know which direction the door opens/closes.

If you have several doors into or out of your classroom and you only want students to use one of them, hang an “emergency exit” sign above the door to make this functional and help drive the point across that this door should only be used in emergencies.

RESTAURANT

If you are fortunate to have a kitchen or space for tables, set up a makeshift restaurant or bistro!  Incorporate a cooking lesson and split students into two different groups: one group is the restaurant staff, and the other group is the dining guests.  Have students work on setting up table settings, ordering off of a menu (or practice asking for the specific food item you are cooking) and taking orders, hygiene and serving food, restaurant etiquette, paying for the bill, tipping, and cleaning up.  Check out this restaurant virtual field trip social narrative to work on restaurant etiquette and the steps to order a meal.

ONLINE OR STORE AD SHOPPING

Shopping online is one skill, but many stores have online catalogs or weekly circular store ads (that you receive in the mail each week) that can be helpful for community skills.  Here are some skills that can be covered by using online catalogs or store ads:

• Shapes & Colors
• Identifying prices
• Food Groups
• Store Aisles
• Meal Planning
• Finding Coupons & calculating discount/money saved
• Creating a shopping list
• Comparison shopping
• Recycle sorting
• Different types of containers/materials
• Food Storage (does it go in the freezer, refrigerator or pantry)
• Appliances to use with cooking certain foods
• Next dollar up
• budgeting

Check out these this Store Sads Life Skills bundle of over 30 differentiated activities to practice all of the skills listed above, using store ads!

DIGITAL ACTIVITY SIMULATIONS

Visual and Functional life skills activities for special education and autism. Students will practice step by step using a variety of common items used in everyday life: Microwave, Phone, ATM, Vending Machine and Elevator. Many of these activities require multi step directions which can be overwhelming implementing in the community without any prior instrution or directions.  These activities help you work on each step and repeat practice in problem areas.  Once you are ready to head out into the community, your students’ transition will be that much smoother to apply what they’ve learned.

Pictured above is a vending machine simulation activity.  Students are asked to order certain items in the vending machine by clicking on the correct letter/number combination.  After they select the correct item, they will select the correct amount of money to make thier purchase.

Elevators are common in the community and its important students know the correct buttons to push in order to get to their destination.  This simulation practices selecting if they need to go up or down according to the floor they are on, and then to push the correct buttons according to where they want to go.

Thanks for reading!

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