Transition2Life
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Daily Living Skills

Use “Self-Improvement Month” to get your students on the right foot for school—and life. It can often be difficult for students with special needs to keep their lives organized and efficient. This free lesson from Daily Living Skills can help your students begin the school year with a new set of healthy lifestyle choices. Self-Improvement Starts with Small Steps This free lesson begins with the basics. But these are the foundation on which all other skills rest. A healthy

You hear about the “affordability crisis” everywhere today. But what is it, and how do we teach teens with special needs about affordability? Here is a free lesson breaking down the key components of affordability for students with both special needs and the general education population alike. How to Teach This Lesson Display the graphic. Discuss each of the four components of affordability displayed on the graphic. Have students provide examples of each component. Brainstorm

It seems there’s a natural disaster every day. This makes it vitally important to teach our teens with special needs how to prepare for and react to an emergency as part of their transition skills for adult living. Help on the Web The U.S. government provides a valuable website at Ready.gov for any emergency that happens across the country. Whether you’re preparing for a flood, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, or other disaster, they have an impressive array of resources t

Budgeting is an essential skill needed for independent living. By starting with small steps, we can help our students with special needs learn this vital skill and enhance their ability to manage money responsibly and make wise choices for their lives. Buying Lunch is a lesson from Transition in Ten which allows students to practice budgeting a fixed amount of money to buy a variety of lunches. This quick lesson makes good bell-work, or easy practice during rotations or stati

It’s difficult to be financially responsible if you don’t have finances to work with! And creating an eye-catching resume is a first step towards helping students with special needs find their first jobs. September’s National Revise Your Resume Day is the perfect time to help students create that important employment tool. Getting Started For students with special needs, creating a resume is not a 5-minute project, but that doesn’t mean that their final produce can’t be impre

Teaching teens self-care is a vital skill for adult living. September is Self-Care Awareness Month and a good time to teach teens with special needs how to take care of themselves. Self-Care involves a variety of skills young people need to live healthy lives and understanding the basics of those skills can be—literally—life-saving. Increasing Awareness of Self-Care Self-Care Awareness starts with that very awareness that self-care is necessary. Many teens, especially tho

With a driver’s license comes the responsibility of obtaining auto insurance. Teens can benefit from learning how to get the best insurance rates even before they get that first driver’s license. This lesson gives teens 5 steps to take to get the best insurance rates possible. How to Teach the Lesson Discuss insurance. Explain how auto insurance is rated by risk. The more risk an insurance company thinks it has, the higher the cost or rate. The less risk they think they have,

August is National Sandwich Month and the hot weather is a perfect time to help teens explore the cooking skill of making sandwiches. Especially teens with special needs can use an extensive repertoire of sandwich recipes. With whole grain bread, a protein source and a healthy serving of vegetables, either on or with the sandwich, this simple combination can be a boon for healthy food choices. Helping Students Create Healthy Sandwiches Here is a free lesson for you and yo

We talked about personal privacy last week. But there’s more to protecting privacy than just hiding your address. Teaching young people, and especially young people with special needs, how to protect their privacy is an important independent living skill. How to Do This Lesson Read Page 260 to help students understand what privacy settings are and what purpose they serve in protecting students’ privacy. Read Privacy Setting Guidelines. Discuss each of the apps and sites discu

Selecting tasty produce is an important adult living skill for teens with special needs—or any young person. Knowing how to choose good produce can be the difference between a delightful meal and food that is inedible. Apple Week is the second week in August and an excellent time to help your students learn to pick tasty fruit. Picking Produce is a Science Apples, along with their pear cousins, are part of the pomes family of fruits. Picking Produce—Fruits is from the Dai

Hackers and scammers are everywhere. They are constantly trying to break into your personal information. Teaching young people, and especially young people with special needs, how to protect their privacy is an important independent living skill. This lesson will help students understand what information should be kept private and why. How to do This Lesson Read “Protecting Your Money.” Have students discuss any times when they or someone they know was hacked or their persona

National Smile Week is a wonderful time to address this vital role in relationship building for teens on the spectrum and other students who have difficulty with social skills. We’re Hard-Wired to Smile Did you know that even a mini-smile of as little as 4/100’s of a second can make another person smile back at you! That’s less time than it takes to blink! Helping students master the social skill of smiling at others can be a huge step towards building relationships and

Impulse buying is one of the fastest ways to blow a budget. For teens just learning to manage their money, impulse buys can be irresistible. Help young people, and especially young people with special needs, understand the psychology behind impulse buys and what they can do to avoid their pitfalls and stay on budget. How to do the Lesson Ask students to describe their last impulse purchase. List them on a chart or board and analyze if there are any common pitfalls that studen

August is National Immunization Awareness Month and a good time to help your teens with special needs learn about and get control of their personal medical records regarding immunizations. Keeping Track of Vaccines Can Be Overwhelming For any young person, keeping track of the dozens of immunizations currently recommended can be a daunting task. But, for teens with special needs, it can feel downright overwhelming. Yet, in a few short years, many of your students will be

Legal signatures are a vital adult living skill. Young people will need an identifiable, consistent legal signature to sign contracts, sign checks, complete applications and more, making it an important skill to enhance their financial literacy. With fewer young people learning cursive, it is important that students create a consistent, difficult-to-copy, identifiable legal signature. This free mini-lesson will help you guide them to creating a unique signature that will hel

Our last blog post helped you calculate how much money you’d save with a better credit score. We can see how important it is to have and maintain a good credit score. This information is especially important for young people with disabilities as they may be working with a tighter budget. Beginning the Lesson Read Page 110. This explains the five things credit bureaus look at when calculating your credit rating. Use the following page to analyze what steps you might take to im

Help students with special needs understand the value of a good credit score with this short lesson from Financial Literacy by Transition 2 Life and Daily Living Skills. We all know that a good credit score can save us thousands of dollars, but that might not mean anything to young people who are just started to use credit. This two-page lesson will demonstrate in clear numbers what a good credit score can provide. Beginning the Lesson Pass out the worksheet. As you do, expla

While we all may dream of an ocean cruise or hiking trip through some distant destination, our budget may have other plans. Helping students with special needs plan realistic vacation goals is an important adult living skill. Help students plan a summer vacation activity with this handy lesson. According to Business Insider, the average American spends between approximately $1900 and $4000 on a summer vacation. This budget might be a push for our students living on SSI or SSD

Help students learn to budget for parties and other social events with this budget comparison lesson. Staying within a budget can be difficult for students with special needs. By using a budget planner before they grocery shop, students have a better idea of what they can afford. Here, students compare similar menus with hot dogs or hamburgers—traditional 4th of July offerings to see which menu would better fit their finances. Beginning the Lesson Prepare ahead. We’re beginni

With summer right around the corner, it’s a perfect time to help teens learn some basic outdoor chores that will help them transition into adult life with useful skills. By helping teens learn responsible adulting skills, we can help them find satisfaction and, even joy, in the great outdoors. Helping Teens Be Helpful Whether your students will eventually share responsibilities in a group home, live in an apartment with a small common area, or have their own home, basic g