TOS Special Needs Planner

I had the opportunity to review The Old Schoolhouse Special Needs Planner.  This is set up similar to their other PDF planners but contains a variety of new information that could be very helpful to those working with special needs children.  It sells for $29 and can be found HERE.

After a basic calendar section where there are oodles of calendar types to choose from, the next section has some wonderful articles written by many authors; some you may have heard of before such as Cynthia Tobias, Melinda Boring and a personal favorite Carol Barnier.   There are many articles by lesser known authors too that are very insightful. Great stuff...

Many people with children on the autism spectrum follow a gluten and casein free diet.  The planner contains some very yummy recipes!  There is even a recipe that says, "A taste of Cinnabon®."  Now if they could just perfect that application where you click on the recipe and it appears on your counter!!!

I have last year's 'regular' planner from TOS and the forms section is unique and adapted in this selection.  There are places to work on an IEP, whether that be with the school as part of your homeschooling or one you do at home.  There are vaious ways to map out goals and objectives.  In addition, there is even a place where you can write information on your child's learning styles.

There is also a medical section that gives places to write down doctor information, therapy schedules, medical history and more.  I can't tell you the number of times I have been asked for information on a doctor form such as, "when did he first crawl" and I have no idea because I just didn't keep a record.  This might be a good place to keep track of that type of info as well.  This section of forms is quite extensive.  There are also 'diary' pages to keep track of diet or behavior.

At the end there are some very nice sequence cards for things such as washing your hands and charts that help show you and your child accomplishments they have made in these areas. Print these out on card stock, maybe laminate, and you are good to go.

At the very end is a list of picture books.  I love picture books. Even though Andrew is a great reader he still loves them.  And did you know that WORDLESS books are a GREAT way to work on READING!  It is true!  They make you think and discuss and have a GRAND CONVERSATION.  You can find one article on them here and have fun googling 'wordless books' and taking rabbit trails from the link. If you have a reader, even in middle school, and still have Hop on Pop on the bookshelf, pull it off for some good experience sharing.  I think sometimes that the older teaching the younger works so well for some because the older gets to 're-experience' some of the FUN that they missed the first time around because it was 'work' to them at the time.

You can find a sample of the planner here.  I received this planner in exchange for my honest opinion.