I call this the "descriptor page"... fancy huh?

Hey everyone!

I have searched for scenery pages high and low on the internet and while there are many to choose from they are all so BUSY. I can't seem to find picture scenes that don't look like a page out of "Where's Waldo" or "Richard Scarry". If I have issues finding things on a page then I know it might need to be toned down a bit for instructional use with my students. 

I finally caved and decided to make my own. I plan on making a few more of these but for now, I am happy with this one I put together yesterday. 

This page has all kinds of uses (honestly, I think I say that about everything. but you have to be resourceful with your materials!). Since I know how much you guys appreciate my cheat sheet pages, I put together a list of sample questions (wh and yes/no), LRFFC instructions, and a labeling sheet to go with it. Right now I have a few of the "wh" questions on one of my students' data sheets since he is working on answering questions (yes, I am working all summer. we are year round over here in my neck of the woods!). 

A few examples of the WH questions:

Who is wearing a hat?

Who is standing on the table?

Where is the bird?

What is the boy doing?

Where is the dinosaur?

What is the tiger doing?

Who is eating pizza?

A few examples of the LRFFC instructions:

Show me something you can wear.

Touch a food item.

Where is the furniture?

Touch the farm animal.

Which animal can fly?

Touch something that has cheese.

Which things are yellow?

A few examples of yes/no questions:

Are there 5 clouds?

Is the giraffe standing on a table?

Is the cow wearing a shirt?

Is the tiger eating pizza?

Do you see an elephant?

Get the picture page here!

Get the sample questions page here!

ENJOY!!!

Updated Data Sheet for VB-MAPP Tact and LR 2-7

Hi Everyone!

A while back, I posted some picture cards and a data sheet for Level 2-7 Tact and Listener Responding on the VB-MAPP and I have since realized that the data sheet was just not as efficient as it could have been! I wasted too much time searching for the items on the sheet during assessment and it was seriously annoying. So I decided today that I would make a new one that was in alphabetical order (searching for one item out of 50 is too exhausting when there is no real order!) and had columns for both Tact and Listener Responding since you can use the cards for both sections on the VB-MAPP.

Hope you guys enjoy! I am crumpling up my old data sheet for this and saying goodbye!

Here is the download!!

Skill Building Cheat Sheet for Trains!

Alright guys, here is a curriculum sheet for trains! One thing I didn't include on the sheet was if you have a train table with the "community" scenery on the background. I do not have one of those in my classroom (train time is either on the regular table or the floor) but if I did, I would have a list of different receptive instructions I would do with them regarding that. For example "drive your train to the pond" or whatever cool thing you have. One thing I have done that has been fun and used multiple targets at once is having them drive the train to different colors, shapes, letters, numbers, etc. Also, if you have some more advanced learners that are using imaginary play, incorporate that as well. Get creative! :)

Another thing to keep in mind is that trains can be used for matching trials and more "table top" instruction OR in a natural play kind of way - depending on what kind of learner you have!

Here is the download!

Skill Building Sheet for Bubbles!!

I am getting emails with requests for more of those skill building sheets so I think it is time to release some more from the vault that is my hard drive. Today I grant you a cheat sheet for bubbles! Seriously, what kid have you met that doesn't just go crazy for bubbles?! They are generally a big hit in my room and often how I get a first time student who spends their first 2 weeks of school crying to finally like me!

This one came from my school system's special education department... I just tweaked it a tad. Hope you guys enjoy!

Here is the download!

Circle Time - Skill Building cheat sheet freebie!

Hi Everyone!

I have several emails from people who are asking for more of those cheat sheet curriculum planning guides like I have here for meal time.

So I am posting the one that our special education department has sent out for my program at work for circle time. It's a good one! Enjoy :)

Here is the download!!

Hot Chocolate Weather!

The past two days have been SNOW DAYS for us! So I drank about 15 mugs of hot chocolate (glorious) and decided our Friday cooking activity this week should be hot chocolate! I mean, the drink is so amazing that a song was made about it (don't you love Tom Hanks?).

 

In today's download, I give you not only a visual recipe (with ingredients needed and the steps for the cooking activity) but ALSO a skill building curriculum sheet that gives you ideas to make the activity meaningful. That way you can simultaneously run language programs AND make warm chocolatey memories (that's what my hot chocolate packets say. which is weird. but whatever.). Enjoy :)

 

Download is here!!!

 

 

Embedding Targets During Meal Times

In my last post I shared how I embedded language/behavior targets for a back to school art activity. As educators, we are responsible for being intentional with our activities and knowing what our goals are for those activities. I don't write traditional lesson plans and instead use curriculum planning sheets to prepare how I want to execute a lesson. Today I am including a curriculum planning sheet for embedding targets during meal times. I keep this posted near the table where the students eat so that my staff and I have a constant reminder of what we can target during meals. It is not necessary to try and tackle every single target for every single meal (unless you are just super ambitious and have very willing students!). Pick the important ones for individual students and work from there. I have curriculum sheets for many other parts of our day but decided to share the meal time one first since I think it can often be a forgotten part of our day for useful language training. It is tempting to take a break and relax during meal times but time is everything in early intervention and we only have so much of it!

Meal Time Planning Sheet can be downloaded here!!!

 

Tact List for the VB-MAPP

This is a resource offered by the Department of Special Education at the county public school I work in. It is great and has a complete list of 1,110 words separated into categories such as Colors, Animals, Letters, Emotions, Community Helpers, Toys, and many more! Some really awesome teachers put it together so I am hoping that their hard work will pay off by having many other people share in using it!

Although the title says to use it for testing tacts on the VB-MAPP, it can also be used to think of ideas that your students can mand for. It would be great for coming up with items to use for teaching feature, function, class... and more!

For those who are new to VB-MAPP and verbal behavior lingo in general, a tact is a fancy word for "label" and mand is a fancy word for "request".

So if you were to point to a yellow fruit and say, "What is that?" to your student and he correctly answers, "banana" - he has made a successful tact! If a banana was sitting on the table and your student pointed to it and said "banana" because he was hungry and it happened to be snack time... you could probably assume he is making a mand :)

Eventually, we want those words in that list to be accompanied with other words and carrier phrases, etc. Such as this tact: "I see a monkey eating an abnormally tiny banana" (okay, if your young student with autism says this, call me and tell me what your secret is!) or a mand: "Can I have a banana for breakfast?"

HERE IS THE DOWNLOAD!!!

Edit: There were some formatting issues when putting into Google Docs. I am assuming this is because it is an Excel doc but once you download it to your own computer, it should work just fine!

Get Creative - Cardboard!

One of my cuties enjoying a cardboard box!

This is a post to encourage you to just be creative with your students. If you are in a position where you just don't have that many resources available to you and you are grabbing at air to find ideas, look at the things you have lying around your house and classroom. Think about how kids are always more excited about the wrapping than they are about what's inside at Christmas... meaning, it doesn't have to be flashy and cost a lot of money to use it as a reinforcer with your students. YOU have the power to make something exciting. The same thing goes for using materials to run your language programs.

For instance, I had this huuuge cardboard box from getting something delivered at work. First we let the kids go to town with markers on it. There were so many language opportunities here! (I had them work in groups of two and used it at the language center.)

-Requesting (the color marker they want, the part of box they want to draw on)
-Positional Concepts (color the "top", "bottom", "side" of the box - put items "in", "on top", "next to" the box)
-Labeling (label the colors, shapes they/you draw, have them label "box", label positional concepts)
-Imitation (you draw a shape or a line on the box and then have them imitate, have them imitate opening box, touching parts of the box, putting items in and on top of box)
-Social Skills (have them comment on what the other is drawing, request markers from one another, label their peers and the actions their peers are doing, i.e. "Johnny is drawing a circle!" or "Sally is next to me", etc)
-Matching (match the marker colors, match shapes that you draw, match items that you put in and on top of the box)

*You can also use this as a medium to learn their colors, ABC's, and numbers as you draw on the box. SO MANY POSSIBILITIES!

The box acted as a boat for about a week and then I left it in my office for a while. Then I came across the idea to make a Star Cave. So I poked a string of Christmas lights through the top of the box and it was like an entirely new reinforcer for my students again. I would let them have access to it after successfully participating in their table top activities and they LOVED it.

Here are some other cardboard ideas if you happen to order incessantly from Amazon (like I do) and you have some creativity and extra time on your hands:

IkatBag has some awesome ideas for mailboxes, a castle, oven, and more! (note: we made the post office mail box and it was a huge hit during circle time).
Picklebums has this super cool town/roads on cardboard that I love.
Boysgerms  has an inspiring picture list of cool ideas.

So, by no means should you be building detailed and picture perfect cardboard creations. Just pull out some tape and a permanent marker and have fun with it. Once you make it fun, the kids will join in and you can encourage them to use their language and social skills.

Not to sound cliche or be a total pun but... THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!