It can be very overwhelming when you are expected to teach a World Geography class with many special education students, English Language Learners (ELL), and lower level students. But don’t worry, you aren’t alone. I’ve got your back! I created a differentiated and scaffolded World Geography Curriculum for special education and ELL students.
Let’s rewind and I’ll tell you how I got here.
Developing World Geography Curriculum for Special Education Students
My first year of teaching, I was assigned a World Geography class for special education students that needed to take the state assessment but also needed more support in the classroom. Most of my students had the disability category of Intellectual Disability, Emotional Disability, or Autism.
I was really excited because I love social studies and I am licensed to teach both special education and social studies. I was happy that I would be able to draw from both of my expertise areas and create an engaging and supportive class environment.
There were not many resources available for World Geography that were appropriate for my students’ levels and still taught grade level content. So I decided to make my own.
I spent countless hours creating resources and developing my World Geography curriculum for special education students. It was very hard work, but I loved it! At the end of the year, my students did great on their state assessment!
The school asked me to teach the same class the next year, plus a US History class for special education students and ELLs.
Again, I was pretty excited, but I was also starting to get a bit overwhelmed. I knew how much work went into creating my World Geography class, and now I needed to teach that class again and develop a US History class. As prep for the new school year started, I felt okay because I had all my materials from the previous year that I taught World Geography. I thought I could handle this, but then disaster struck.
The Crash
On the second day of the school year, my computer crashed. I was stressed, but thought it would all be okay because all of my teaching materials were on the school shared drive. Except, they weren’t. Somehow I had saved all my materials that I spent hours and hours creating into the wrong folder. And just like that, they were lost forever. (Don’t let this happen to you!! Back-up all of your teacher resources. I now put everything on Google Drive and a hard-drive so that I don’t lost anything!)
I literally cried all day long because I lost the entire class that I developed last year. So then I needed to recreate the World Geography class and make a new US History class. Overwhelm was set to max and I broke down. I gave myself a day to wallow, and then I got to work.
I spent the next year barely managing to keep afloat, but I managed to create curriculum and teach World Geography and US History classes that were designed to support special education and ELL students. I made my World Geography curriculum for special education students even better by adding materials to better support my English Language Learners.
Why I Share My World Geography Curriculum for Special Education and ELL Students
I don’t want you to give up your free time to plan your World Geography course and stress over creating differentiated and scaffolded resources. That’s why I offer my World Geography curriculum! So if you want the entire year planned out for you and to regain your planning time, you can get my curriculum here.
You can watch this short YouTube video that shows what is included in one of the units of this curriculum.
What Have Other Teachers Said?
Teachers are loving this curriculum!
Meghan G. said, “This resource is the perfect curriculum for my students. I am teaching a 9th grade special education geography course for the first time and this is the perfect level for them. It is engaging and interesting! I also appreciate that the instructions on the activities are very straight forward for the students!” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Lori A. said, “I was planning on using this next year but it looked so engaging, I decided this would be a fresh way to liven up the end-of-the-year blahs. My students love it!” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Need Help Planning Your World Geography Class?
If you need help figuring how to pace your World Geography class, then this is for you. It’s also included in my curriculum. I created a free scope and sequence for World Geography that you can grab here.
If you are teaching US History, I offer a free scope and sequence for US History here.
Comment below or connect with me on Instagram or Facebook with any questions that you have about World Geography curriculum for special education and ELL students!
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