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Special Needs for Special Kids

Providing you tools to save time and build confidence teaching students with the most significant disabilities

September 5, 2015

How to use color coded worksheets in any classroom

Using color coded worksheets is such a quick, easy, and effective way to make the same activity accessible to more students in your class. You don’t need anything fancy, just some markers or crayons. You can even use this same technique to add different levels of support using the same worksheet, crayons, or markers.

Why even use color-coded worksheets?

Our special education classes tend to have such a HUGE variety of learning levels and needs.  It can be so time consuming making different activities for different learning levels. It is also frustrating when you are dealing with exactly the same content. Using color coded worksheets allow you to use the exact same worksheet for all the students in your class. It will not only save you time, but build more independence in your students. Here is a quick way I found to take one task and make it accessible to more of my students by just adding some color.

How to make color coded worksheets

Different ways to use color in your worksheets

We did a lot of cut and paste activities in my class.  Most of my students had difficulty writing, so I needed a way to produce a product for parents to see as well as a concrete way to gather data and perform assessments.  

Sorting activities were a great way for me to assess students’ comprehension of a particular topic. For the targeted group, I would simply allow them to sort the pictures with no color added at all. I also often did this as a pre-assessment for all my students. That way, I could get a quick idea of how much support each student may need in the form of color coding.

For students who obviously needed some support, but were also starting to grasp the concept, I would simply color code the worksheet by adding an outline to the pictures and sorting symbols.

color coded worksheet using only outlines

For students who needed even more support, I would use more color, actually coloring in the picture choices.

color coded worksheet with pictures filled in

As you can see, this really did not take me much time and allowed all my students to complete the same worksheet.

What about digital worksheets?

It is actually super easy to create a color coded activity in a google slide. In fact, all the digital units I create come with this option. All you need to do is change the color of the outlines around the picture choices.

color coded worksheet for google slides

Consider trying this technique to easily make more rigorous tasks engaging and more independent for your lower-level learners while still utilized grade-level content.


If you want to learn more about differentiation and how to use the same activity in multiple ways, be sure to check out these blog posts. They have some free downloads you can grab as well.

DIFFERENTIATING: 1 ACTIVITY 3 WAYS, EASILY AND EFFECTIVELY

10 WAYS TO USE ONE CIRCLE MAP IN A GROUP LESSON

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: autism, differentiation, special education, teaching

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I'm Christa Joy

My mission is to give parents and teachers the tools they need in order to feel effective and confident teaching even the most challenging of students.
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@fantasticallyfourth so inspired me with this post @fantasticallyfourth so inspired me with this post. HUGE SHOUT OUT to the amazing lengths teachers are going to this year. Keep shining that light!!!! 💕Today was the first day my kiddos were able to see me in costume for a lesson. In a regular year it’s a somewhat usual occurance—but as we all know this year has been different. • We used @love.mrs.liebscher s Multiplicative Pizzeria where students practiced their multiplicative word problem skills as they filled orders for the pizzeria. Finally, they were able to come up with their own multiplicative recipe and creat their own pizza! • Due to our current COV!D reality, each student’s individual place was set up with a red placemat for working, their work orders, and their own chef hat (made form construction paper. One of my favorite things is seeing how many of my kiddos end up wearing their chef hat all day 😂. It’s the cutest.
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Sneak peek at the worksheet coming your way tomorr Sneak peek at the worksheet coming your way tomorrow. If you are not on my Free Worksheet Wednesday list, then sign up here: https://christajoy.lpages.co/free-worksheet-wednesday-sign-up #specialneedsforspecialkids #freeworksheetwednesday #mlkday
Share with a teacher you know!!Teaching tolerance Share with a teacher you know!!Teaching tolerance in 2021. I updated this blog post and encourage you to revisit it and rethink your definition of tolerance. Meeting students where they are in a special education setting is so critical to building a foundation that will eventually grow not only into tolerance but the ultimate goal of inclusion and acceptance. Download this social story while you are there which is a great addition to your Martin Luther King Jr plans you may already have. Read more here and download you story: https://specialneedsforspecialkids.org/2020/01/13/teaching-tolerance-as-the-first-step-to-acceptance/
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