Tag Archives: life skills

Task Boxes: A Hands-On Approach to Life Skills

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by Angela Mahoney

The importance of pre-vocational planning and opportunity is ever growing, yet when and where to begin can be so overwhelming for both educators and parents! Task boxes are a great way to introduce as well as develop a wide range of hands-on life and vocational activities for a range of diverse learners.

Task boxes are compartments that contain material for a certain activity. The activities are typically short and structured and they offer a nice blend of familiarity and challenge. Any activity that fits in the compartment may be used as part of the young adult’s curriculum both at school and home as well as in a therapy session such as OT, PT and Speech. Task boxes offer much more than organization for the young adult working on the activity:

  • Activities address various skills.
  • They encourage independence, as the young adult takes the task out of the box, completes it, and puts it away with minimal or no guidance.
  • They serve as excellent sequencing activities.
  • The boxes are visual, and the single-unit presentation is easy to understand.
  • They break down activities into small steps, which is an important aspect of applied behavioral analysis (ABA).

Task Boxes for Life SkillsTask Boxes for Life Skills

To create a task box you need to first gather a limited number of materials (10-20) related to the activity as well as a compartment with lid large enough to store materials.

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Next you will need tocreate a visual guide showing each step of the task in the compartment. This allows the young adult to visually see each step of the variety of task boxes and encourages independence when working.

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After the materials have been placed in the compartment, adhere the steps to the lid, number the box and add it to your task box area for future practice and success with a wide range of skills!

Below are some examples of task box ideas broken down by Module, adapted from the I Can Work! Program.

Clerical: Folding paper in thirds, Addressing envelopes, Filing by numbers or words

Task Boxes for Life SkillsTask Boxes for Life Skills

Retail: Folding t-shirts, Pairing and Sizing shoes, Buttoning Shirt

Task Boxes for Life SkillsTask Boxes for Life Skills

Food Service: Folding napkins, Setting a Table, Assembly of place settings

Task Boxes for Life SkillsTask Boxes for Life Skills

Grocery: Sorting hard and soft groceries, stocking shelves

Task Boxes for Life SkillsTask Boxes for Life Skills

By creating task boxes that apply to life, utilizing vocational materials, young adults are building a stronger foundation and confidence for future success!

File A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That!

Life Skills, ,

By Angela Mahoney

Welcome to I Can Work! The I Can Work! program is a five-module course designed to integrate communication skills with hands-on prevocational training in the areas of job readiness, clerical, retail, food service, and the grocery industry.

The I Can Work! Program was created by Angela Mahoney. I Can Work! serves to introduce and educate young adults with special needs and who are interested in working in their community. This program is geared toward middle school and high school students. Additionally, this program can support recent graduates ages twenty-one through twenty-five who are transitioning from school to the workplace.

Now let’s get filing! In Module 2: Clerical, students are introduced to a variety of tasks related to the clerical field, filing being one of them. In addition to the filing tasks presented in the program, student can practice filing in many other ways to keep the learning of the task fun, interesting and engaging.

To challenge a student who is showing success with filing by letter, have them file by two letters at a time. I encourage using words that are school and work place related.
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Traditionally when filing, students use a small bin with tabs to organize what is being filed. For certain students, it is more effective and beneficial for them to use a large box grid labeled according to what needs to be filed.
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Why not use the resources you have and create cards to file using stickers! Cards can be filed by same picture, pattern or colors to list a few. The options are unlimited and a fun change of pace for the students as well.
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If you find letters or numbers are challenging for students, use color index cards. Not only does this task build on the skill of filing, but also reinforces color recognition.
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Many students use picture supports throughout their day to support schedules as well as communication, just to name a few. Why not use those pictures as a filing task? Create dividers for each picture choice and have the student work on filing each picture in the correct section.
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To learn more please visit the I Can Work! website!

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Angela Mahoney, creator of the I Can Work! Program, currently works as special education case manager at Middle School in Danbury, Connecticut. She has worked with students of all ages in a variety of settings for the past thirteen years. Her career includes a private school where she worked with over seventy-five middle school and high school-aged students on a weekly basis, running an inclusion-based elementary program for students with autism, as well as co-teaching core academic classes as part of a team comprised of fellow middle school educators.
To learn more or to purchase the I Can Work! Program, visit icanwork.therapro.com