Whenever You Can, Have Fun!
Let's start with the truth nobody puts on the welcome-back banner: this job can be tough. Teaching in an autism classroom asks a lot of you: your patience, your planning, your problem-solving, and every ounce of energy you walked in with (plus some you didn't know you had). Some days you'll sit in your car for ten minutes before you can face the drive home. I've been there. Most of us have.
So here's the advice I wish someone had handed me in my first year: whenever you can, have fun.
Why Fun Matters
This isn't just a feel-good slogan. Research suggests fun actually promotes learning by boosting dopamine, endorphins, and oxygen in the brain. When lessons are enjoyable, students are more likely to learn. And here's the part we forget: teaching is more sustainable when you enjoy it too. You are not a battery that can run on empty forever.
Bring Fun into Teaching
Protect your time like it's precious, because it is. Fun is hard to find when you're drowning in paperwork, so start here. Learn your deadlines now (IEP meetings, progress reports, parent-teacher conferences, observations) and aim to beat them. Write them out on one piece of paper so that you can see the whole year at a glance.
Even if it’s a rough draft, just take about an hour to make a plan for the year. Knowing your deadlines early is the new on time!
Put in the work up front. Gather materials, sketch your plan for the month, write out your routines, and decide what each team member is responsible for. Then actually share it with them! With good, specific routines, about 60% of your school year can be pre-planned. Your future you will want to send the present you a hug.
Ditch Perfection
Not many things in life are perfect, so why expect teaching to be? Be professional, not perfect. Keep everyone safe, and when the day gets a little wild (and it will), give yourself permission to laugh.
Be a Mood Monitor
We are affected by the moods of others. In a study by researcher Sigal Barsade, people who caught positive emotions from others were seen as more competent and cooperative, and they didn't even realize they'd been influenced. So set a positive atmosphere on purpose. Other ideas to do this:
- Model positive talk
- Post it on the wall. If you want a reminder you can try to use positive talk posters and hang them around the room
- Recognize the hobbies and talents of your team. See if they can occasionally let their talents shine through in an activity or a lesson. For example, if you have students in your class, who might like to play football and you have a paraprofessional that used to play football, they can use football to teach other skills. For example, throw, catch, my turn, your turn, etc. Or, if you have someone who plays the guitar, you might be able to include a few social activities where the guitar music is playing. Remember to incorporate your skills and hobbies too.
- Try a daily class mantra during morning meeting. Trying a daily mantra for the class during morning meeting can also be a time to highlight a mantra for the adults. We need encouragement too.
Bring Yourself to the Party
Check your ego at the door. Share your own hobbies, skills and interests, then weave them into lessons. For example if there are things that are fun to you, add them into the lessons as well. Who says your love for scented Mr. Sketch markers has to hide? Make sure you use them each day for a writing activity if it brings you some joy!
Don’t forget to laugh. Be a little goofy. If the movement-break song comes on and you love to dance, who says you have to sit it out? Who says you can’t join in and dance if the Gracie’s Corner Wheels on the Bus song comes on? A happy teacher, will teach better, but seriously, try one extra song in the morning that brings up your mood. They are plenty of children’s songs that are upbeat and fun for everyone. And on days when you just can't muster the enthusiasm, watch your students for a minute. They'll model it for you.
Bring Your Students to the Party
Get students involved a little more:
- Make learning visual.
- Make learning as hands-on as possible.
- Bring real objects to each subject area lesson. Be practical. Don’t bring in fine porcelain dinner plates to talk about setting a table, but paper plates can teach the skill just as good. It just makes things more relatable for the students.
- Put on a performance. Let a favorite character or puppet lead the opening or read the story. Make the lesson animated or include one of their favorite characters so that they are more interested in the lesson.
- Sprinkle in a little mystery. Incorporating mystery into your classroom may mean that you make it something where they have to guess a particular part of the lesson. Not the whole time and not every routine, but pick some type of routine where this could work. Think about having some type of a mystery box or a mystery bin and they have to make a guess what’s going to come out before each science lesson, as an example.
- Have fun things for them to do after all the major subject area work. Sensory and fine motor activities shine here: dry-erase page protectors for handwriting, clothespins on laminated task cards, cutting and hole-punching scrap paper, folding washcloths (life skills bonus), lacing cards, and twisting containers open and closed. Cheap, simple, and surprisingly engaging. Here are some other fine motor ideas from our blog: https://www.autismclassroom.com/blog/9-fine-motor-activities-that-are-easy-to-implement-in-an-autism-classroom
Bring Your Team to the Party
Your paraprofessionals and colleagues carry the same heavy load. Bring the fun to them in a number of ways:
- Celebrate them with lunch or a DoorDash day
- Send anonymous compliments on the announcements (for the team)
- Leave small, inexpensive surprises in mailboxes (pens, notepads, candy)
- Get matching staff t-shirts
- Stress relief coloring books – not to brag but we make the best coloring books for special educators and paraprofessionals
- Create a monthly snack schedule and bring in 2 or 3 fun snacks for everyone
- Give short appreciation cards or letters or stickers (for the team)
- Learn new strategies together
- Rotate important tasks so no one burns out. Rotate an important task so that no one person has to always do that task, but you tackle it as a team
Bring Your Motivation
Finally, take care of your own spark. Keep a gratitude journal. Set mini-goals. Remember your “why” as an educator. Pick a theme song for the hard days. Have each other's backs in the classroom. Then above all else, remember that confidence is a skill. It grows with time and practice, so be patient with yourself while you build it.
You've got this, enough to know you are still working on this. And on the days you're not so sure? Laugh, regroup, and come back tomorrow. We'll be right here cheering you on.
