Cheap No Prep Work Tasks!

Happy Friday everyone!  It's my day to post on the We Teach SPED page and since it's Friday, I thought I'd keep it light and simple!  I have been seeing lots of awesome posts on work task systems and ideas lately and wanted to share some of my favourite cheap and quick no prep, well almost no prep tasks.

Paint Chip Tasks 

Tell me I am not the only teacher who goes to Home Depot with a big purse and fills it up with paint chips!  But who can resist free materials?!  Plus, there are so many different things you can do with them!  

Here are a few ways I use them:

• colour matching tasks; use clothespins and make it a fine motor task as well
• use as colour sorting mats with paperclips, pompoms, possible sticks, erasers
• cutting practice; you can get paint chips that have a number of lines from one to five, so you can increase the work load as the students progresses

 Put-In Tasks

These are so quick and simple to put together, but are great for working on fine motor skills, such as pincer grasp.  My favourites are ones made from recycled containers such as tea tins, chip cans and spice jars.  I also love using travel games from the Dollar Store for more difficult put in tasks.  What can be easier than opening a package to make a work task???

Life Skill Tasks

I love teaching my students functional skills that they will use for the rest of their lives.  I also love it when I find cheap materials to use to teach these skills.  I love it even more when I find cheap materials that are already packaged up as work tasks!  I found these tasks at my local Dollarama and Dollar Tree.  My students are using them to practice sorting cutlery, matching and screwing on lids (a great fine motor skill), packaging toothbrushes into containers and cutting food in a safe manner.

Dollar Store Finds

I know I am not alone when I get excited over finding a great deal on items to make work tasks.  This is one of my favourites:

All three boxes of these cards came in one package for just a $1.  That means you get three, no/low prep work tasks for $1!  You could make file folder games with these or do like I did and just throw them in a baggie/bin!  There are also 3 different skills to work on:  matching identical pictures, matching number to quantity and making words.  When get three decks of cards for $1, you get what you pay for.  The number matching game is missing the cards for the number 5 !

Well, that's it for me today!  I am off to have a nice glass of wine, eat some pizza and watch Netflix!  Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!