Interactive bulletin board or peg board activities are engaging and a great way to practice hands-on life skills & job skills. These activities can be done on the board for a group lesson, centers, or as an independent work task. These types of activities are especially great for special education learners to get some practice before heading out in the community!

You can do a variety of activities and practice a variety of skills on the bulletin board or peg board which include practicing fulfilling orders, money math, dollar up, addition, tax, stocking inventory, sorting categories, and much more! Change out the bulletin boards every few months to work on different skills or to go with a theme.  Below are some setups I’ve had in my classroom or shared from other teachers:

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Grocery Store

The first set – students can practice shopping skills that they would need on a CBI community outing. This activity comes with worksheets practicing item identification, price identification, recognizing items “on-sale”, simple money math subtracting “on-sale” price, next dollar up method, food groups, coupons, and comparison shopping. Pair with fake money to simulate a transaction when getting items with a shopping list. Practice the dollar-up method, social skills, and more!

The second set, students can practice vocational skills of stocking the shelves according to task card orders.

Stocking Clothing Sizes

In this activity students will practice sorting or organizing clothing by sizes like you would at an apparel or department store job. They can match by the abbreviation (eg. XS), or match the abbreviation to work (eg. Extra Small). Pictured above, I’ve done this activity on a traditional pegboard but if you are limited on space, you can find a carousel pegboard that fits everything in the center HERE (affiliate).

Food Orders

With these activities, students can learn basic vocational skills like assembling food orders (either by matching visual task card orders or reading receipts) and customer service if you implement a mock/dramatic play experience.

Pharmacy

With this activity, students can practice a variety of skills including identifying prices, and identifying different types of products commonly seen at a pharmacy such as over-the-counter medications and vitamins and their uses.

Department, Shoe & Hardware Store

Here are a handful more stores that practice a variety of skills such as identifying prices, stocking items and more!

Money-Saving Bundle

Where to get supplies?

I use both a magnetic whiteboard and peg board to do these activities. You can use a traditional push pin bulletin board for some of the activities, but I’ve found it’s not as safe or fun to use push pins and the magnets are so much easier. You can find peg boards & hooks at Ikea, Michaels, Home Depot (or home improvement store) and a handful of other places! I’ve compiled a list of supplies on my Amazon page here (affiliate) where you will find a variety of peg boards & bulletin boards.

Thanks for reading!

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Functional Money Skills in the Special Education Classroom