Regulation Rendezvous: Purposeful Walks and Sensory Jobs

Purposeful walks are calming sensory support strategies that allow a student a brief break from demands of the classroom. They provide a student with the calming proprioceptive and vestibular input needed to help a student calm and refocus before returning to class. Purposeful walks can be scheduled proactively or used as an “in the moment” support. You can incorporate interests, embed activities as part of daily routines, or create sensory jobs that are meaningful for the student. For today's Regulation Rendezvous we have gathered some of the most creative and fun purposeful walk and sensory jobs that we have seen in our districts! 

Hallway Activities

One of the simplest ways to create a purposeful walk for students is to create a matching activity. Hang high-interest pictures in the hallway and have students go on a scavenger hunt to find the pictures and match them to a matching board.

Taylor Ruef
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Stephen Russell
LT Ball, Tipp City/Miami County ESC

Marissa Steinhelfer
Harry Russell Elementary, West Carrollton

Some teams create have students complete heavy work activities by traveling to one location, gathering weighted objects, and then traveling to another location. 

Lauren Bridgens
Driscoll Elementary, Centerville

Driscoll Elementary, Centerville

Bradford Elementary, Bradford

Pretend Play

Make these activities engaging through incorporating special interests and pretend play. In these examples, students practice raking, pushing a weighted bus to gather pictures in the hallway, and shopping. 

Marisa Hatton
Kinder Elementary, Miamisburg

Maria Dickens
Primary Village North, Centerville

Heidi Horner
Miami County ESC

Classroom Centers

If you do not have staff or space to implement a purposeful walk outside of the classroom, you can create a center within the classroom. Activities could include matching paths, 

Mad River Preschool, Mad River

Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

jug matching or sequencing, 

Heather Clark
Saville Elementary, Mad River

and colored object sorting. 

Marissa Steinhelfer
West Carrollton

Denise Campbell and Terri Dinkelaker
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Ashley McCoy
Saville Elementary, Mad River

Routine Activities

Another great way to easily embed this purposeful sensory input is to embed it into routine activities. Students can transport supplies such as lesson materials, library books, or recess toys. 

Briana Rix
West Carrollton High School, West Carrollton

Terri Wheeler
Milton Union Elementary, Milton Union

Greenmont Elementary, Kettering

Or recruit the help of cafeteria staff for students to assist during lunchtime. 

Deanna Hicks
East Elementary, Eaton

For more ideas on incorporating heavy work jobs, don't miss our previous post:

Incorporating Heavy Work into Daily Routines for Resistant Students

Around Town Round Up: More Jobs & Vocational Tasks

Many of our students begin learning essential life skills through completing classroom jobs in early years and eventually these classroom jobs evolve to more vocational and independent living-based jobs as the students get older and prepare for transitioning out of school. 

When out in our districts, we have seen a variety of classroom jobs and systems for organizing them. Today's Around Town Round Up highlights some of our favorite ideas!

Classroom Job Charts

The most traditional classroom job organizational system is a job chart listing each job and assigning a student to the job for the day/week. 

Rachel Engle
Horace Mann Elementary, Springfield

Allysson Leapley
Tipp High School, Tipp City

Rylie Jarret
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Sarah Janosik
Tipp High School, Tipp City

Visual Supports

Visual supports can be an effective, evidence-based way to help build independence when students complete jobs. 

Color-coded Visual Supports for Cafeteria Table Cleaning
Brandy Beirise 
Wayne High School, Huber Heights

Food Prep Steps Visual Supports
Bill Reinhart
Wayne High School, Huber Heights

Kitchen Storage Visual Supports
Pam Ellender
Mad River Middle School, Mad River

Dirty & Clean Laundry Visual Supports
Bill Reinhart
Wayne High School, Huber Heights

Laundry Collection Visual Support
Steve Mahle
Miamisburg Middle School, Miamisburg

Reinforcement Systems

Many of our classrooms also incorporate reinforcement into their classroom job organizational systems to introduce the concept of earning for a job well done. In Korie Jacob's classroom, students get to choose the job they want based on the job description and payment details. Each day they complete a sign-in sheet which is checked weekly by staff when students receive payment in the form of tickets to be turned in for rewards.

Korie Jacobs
Mad River Middle School, Mad River

The students in Lindsey Landis' class also practice real world earning and exchanging classroom money for items in the class store. 

Lindsey Landis
Twin Valley South Elementary, Twin Valley South

For more examples of jobs and vocational task we have seen in our districts, don't miss our previous posts:

Organization Station: Jobs

Taskbox Time: Vocational and Life Skills Tasks

Taskbox Time: More Vocational and Life Skills Tasks

Taskbox Time: More Vocational and Life Skills Tasks

Earlier this week we discussed Vocational Tasks and School-based Jobs to help students prepare for life after graduation (Find that post here: Around Town Round Up: Vocational Activities at School). Sometimes students are not ready for jobs that require a sequence of multi-step tasks. They may still need to focus on completing a multi-step task in a structured work format. Luckily we see lots of examples of these tasks as well so we have gathered them in today's Taskbox Time.


Food Service Tasks
ALIST partner Brittany Wendling at Valley Elementary in Beavercreek shared some of the food service tasks her students practice. including organizing food on a lunch tray, sorting foods by food group, and sorting utensils.

Clerical Tasks
Brittany also shared a variety of clerical tasks including filing index cards by date, creating packets, and stuffing envelopes.

A very special thank you to Brittany Wendling for sharing these awesome vocational tasks with our team!



For more vocational task ideas don't miss our previous post:

Taskbox Time: Vocational and Life Skills Tasks

And check out our favorite book of vocational tasks: 

Tasks Galore for the Real World

Around Town Round Up-- Vocational Activities at School

Often when we work with our middle school and high school teams they are planning ahead for their students' vocational needs. It is important that students have a variety of opportunities to explore and practice vocational skills before they graduate in order to determine their career-readiness. Most of our teams implement a mix of community and school-based vocational activities. Today's Around Town Round Up will focus on some of our favorite school-based activities.

When first implementing vocational activities, many of our teachers use a rotating system where they provide a pre-determined number of activities or jobs and students take turns each week completing the assigned tasks. 

Lisa Bauer's students at Northmont Middle School collect and organize box tops, prepare crayon baggies for Frisch's, and crush cans for recycling. 

While the students in Allysson Rudnicki's classroom at Tipp High School work together to run their classroom coffee cart. Each student wears a lanyard which provides the steps one needs to complete for each job. 

As students become proficient in the vocational tasks, some teachers begin an interview process where students are allowed to choose what they want to do based on a provided job description. This further develops their independence and prepares them for life after graduation. 

At Tri-Village High School, Karyn Smith provides her students with job descriptions that can also serve as task lists once the student is hired. 

In Robbie Whorton's class at Trotwood-Madison High School, job descriptions are posted for students to interview. Then, each day they need to check off their time sheet to ensure they are paid for the work they complete. 

The team at Springfield High School recently implemented the Practical Assessment Exploration System (PAES) Lab which is a highly structured, pre-made system of tasks and assessments to determine career readiness in a variety of fields including: Construction/Industrial, Processing/Production, Consumer/Service, Business/Marketing, and Computer Technology. Student progress is tracked and used to create employment profiles that can be used during an interview with a potential employer.

Each task is color coded in a designated box. Inside each box contains all necessary supplies as well as a task card.

For more information about the PAES Lab visit their website: Practical Assessment Exploration System (PAES)


For more ideas on vocational tasks and classroom jobs, check out our previous posts:

Organization Station: Classroom Job Displays

Taskbox Time: Vocational and Life Skills Tasks

Taskbox Time: More Vocational and Life Skills Tasks (accessible 1/30/2020)