Exceptional Children’s Week 2024
Exceptional Children’s Week is an annual celebration of infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities and/or gifts and talents. The week-long celebration is a national event started by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), an international professional organization dedicated to improving the success of children and youth with disabilities and/or gifts and talents.
Dates: April 15 - April 19, 2024
Theme: Accessibility for All
Programming:
- Monday: Open Your Books to Access
- Tuesday: Assistive Tech Tuesday
- Wednesday: Wear Your Colors!
- Thursday: Door Decorating
- Friday: FriendGram Friday
Programming
Take a chance to pick out a book, story, or article that highlights inclusion and assistive technology. This is a great opportunity to showcase diverse people and perspectives to your students and to kick off Exceptional Children’s Week with a chance to learn and ask questions.
Assistive technology includes products, equipment, and systems that enhance learning, working, and daily living for people with disabilities. Use this day to teach your students about assistive technology and its impacts.
Wednesday is a chance for your students to express their support for those with disabilities by wearing the disability pride colors. Students can choose to wear:
- Green - Sensory disabilities
- Blue - Emotional and Behavioral disabilities
- White - Invisible disabilities and Giftedness
- Gold - Neurodivergence
- Red - Physical Disabilities
Get out that construction paper and tape; it’s time to decorate your door! Incorporate this year’s theme, “Accessibility for All,” in your design and get the word out to your school about Exceptional Children’s Week. Snap a picture of your door and use the hashtag #ECW2024. The Council for Exceptional Children will share it on our social media.
Check out these great doors for some inspiration:
Spread kindness and friendship around your school! There are several ways to participate:
- Have your students write kind and friendly phrases on sticky notes and hang them on your door, on lockers, or around the school
- Students can write encouraging messages about friendship and inclusion and display them in a central location, such as a bulletin board or a cafeteria.
- Students write messages of friendship and kindness and give them to others. This can be contained within your classroom, across the school, or grades (ex. 5th graders writing notes to 1st graders, etc.).
Resources
These resources can help you and your school plan a great Exceptional Children’s Week:
- CEC Exceptional Children’s Week Toolkit - Download our toolkit to plan your school’s Exceptional Children’s Week.
- Exceptional Children’s Week Social Media Toolkit - The Council for Exceptional Children put together a social media toolkit to help promote Exceptional Children’s Week.
- Exceptional Children’s Week Flyers - The Council for Exceptional Children has created flyers that can be shared and printed to promote ECW.
- Book Read Alouds - Disability Equality in Education put together a playlist of YouTube videos featuring people reading aloud from books that feature characters with disabilities.
- Lessons in Social Inclusion A Collection of 5 Mini-Lesson Units (Special Olympics Unified Champion School) - This booklet outlines 5 units of lessons that you can utilize to teach about social inclusion and disability.
- Disability Awareness Class Activity Lesson Plans- The HIE Help Center compiled a variety of lesson plans designed to help teach students about disability and inclusion.
- Disability Equality in Education Lesson Plans - Disability Equality in Education has created lesson plans for all grades that can be used to teach about disability awareness in your classroom.
If you have any questions, please contact the Council for Exceptional Children at service@exceptionalchildren.org or (703) 620-3660.