Fall Trees and Apples
This special education unit targets both IEP goals and adapted academic standards for Kindergarten to 2nd grade students with severe and profound disabilities. Students engage in interactive activities around the theme of fall and apples, including story boxes, cooking, science experiments, and a culminating in-school field trip to an apple orchard. Throughout the unit, students practice communication skills and fine and gross motor skills, while learning prerequisite skills for English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies standards.
Fall Trees and Apples
This special education unit targets both IEP goals and adapted academic standards for Kindergarten to 2nd grade students with severe and profound disabilities. Students engage in interactive activities around the theme of fall and apples, including story boxes, cooking, science experiments, and a culminating in-school field trip to an apple orchard. Throughout the unit, students practice communication skills and fine and gross motor skills, while learning prerequisite skills for English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies standards.
English Arts
With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.
With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.
Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.
With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.
Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 2-3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.
Mathematics
Identify whether the number of objects in one group is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objects in another group, e.g., by using matching and counting strategies. *(Include groups with up to ten objects.)*
Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem. *(Special note: more details can be found in the Mathematics Glossary, Table 1)*
Use addition and subtraction within 100 to solve one- and two-step word problems by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem. Problems include contexts that involve adding to, taking from, putting together/taking apart (part/part/whole) and comparing with unknowns in all positions. *(More details can be found in the Mathematics Glossary, Table 1.)*
Science
Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to compare the similarities and differences in groups of organisms.
Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to describe objects in terms of the materials they are made of and their physical attributes.
Social Studies
Explain how money is used to purchase goods and services.
Identify goods that people make and services that people provide for each other.
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About the Teacher
Jamie McFarland
Rock Springs Elementary
Gwinnett County SchoolsJamie McFarland is currently a Kindergarten through 2nd grade special education teacher for students with severe and profound intellectual disabilities at Rock Springs Elementary in Lawrenceville, GA. Ms. McFarland received her bachelor’s degree in Birth through Five Special Education from the University of Georgia. Her best piece of teaching advice is to believe in every student, no matter what their abilities or disabilities may be – believe that each student is capable, each student is valuable, and that each student has something incredible and unique to offer.
