Break Cards for Special Education

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 23 pages, 244 type-in fields

• 3 request cards, 2 inches square: break, wait, all done — the steps of one request, shown large on their own page with what each one says and where it lives
• 12 break-choice cards, 2 inches square, sized for velcro dots: walk, drink, headphones, slide, puzzle, read, bed, tent, snack, outside, bubbles, bike
• Every card twice: a full-color set for a laminated board and a black-and-white ink-saver set for the photocopier
• A Break Request Board with a BREAK slot, a MY BREAK slot, and an ALL DONE pocket, plus two desk-size boards on one sheet for a folder or a second setting
• 12 blank break-choice cards with a type-in word line, for anything the printed set does not cover
• A how-to page: before the first day, the three moves every time, choosing a break activity, when the answer is wait, writing down what changes, what to do when a break runs long
• A Break Log (16 rows: date, time, requested how, break chosen, duration in minutes, returned to task Y/N, initials)
• A weekly roll-up (8 weeks) with a percent-returned-to-task-on-own graph
• A filled example — an invented student, one day on the log and three weeks on the roll-up, every percent re-counted from its own row
• A family page with a kitchen-size board and six home break choices on one sheet
• A hand-off page so a paraprofessional or another classroom runs the same system the same way
• A phrase bank: 26 lines in 6 groups (spoken lines for the board, written starters for the log, the roll-up and the note home)
• A storage and binder label sheet: 11 labels and a spine strip
• Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, and a "what's next" back page

A request-a-break card that comes with its own data. Most break-card sets stop at the picture; this one adds the log, the weekly roll-up and the phrase bank behind it, so a break returned to on their own each week turns into a line on a page a case manager can bring to a meeting.

The Cards

• Request cards (3) — break, wait, all done: the ask, the not-yet, the return to work
• Break choices (12) — walk, drink, headphones, slide, puzzle, read, bed, tent, snack, outside, bubbles, bike

Every picture was chosen to be named in one word by a young child, in color AND in the black-and-white set; a word that failed in either set was left out of both — a fidget/squeeze toy and a stretch pose were both dropped because no Unicode picture names them without guessing. Cards are 2 inches square; the board slots are 2.25 inches so a card sits inside with room for a velcro dot.

The Board

• Break Request Board — a BREAK panel and a MY BREAK panel with a name line, and an ALL DONE pocket along the bottom for finished cards.
• Two desk-size break boards — two boards on one sheet, cut apart, for a folder or a second student.

The boards carry no pictures, so they print the same in color or black and white.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the board's name line, the log, the roll-up, the family page, the hand-off page and the blank cards, or print and use a pen. The card pages print on cardstock or plain paper and cut along dashed lines. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document.

It is a way for a student to ask for a break in pictures, and for that break to end the same way every time. It is not a behavior plan, a point system with rules or a program of any kind, and it promises no outcome. It carries no prompt hierarchy, fading schedule or mastery rule; how the system is used with a student, and for how long, is what your team's plan says. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number. The log counts one thing: whether the student returned to task on their own.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers and paraprofessionals who use request-a-break systems with early, pre-reading or emerging-language students, case managers who need that use to show up as data, and the families who get the home page sent home.

More In The Collection

This is the second set in the Visual Supports Collection, alongside First-Then Board and Activity Picture Cards; more picture-card sets — schedule cards, routine strips, choice boards, calm-down cards — are being added to the collection regularly, all on the same cards-plus-data shape.

Pictures (color pages): Noto Emoji by Google, Apache License 2.0. Pictures (ink-saver pages): Fluent Emoji, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, MIT License.