My Halloween Book!

Happy Halloween! Today I have a treat (no tricks!) that I put together this week. I have a rather dismal collection of fall and halloween books so I figured instead of contributing my hard earned dollars to the Amazon empire, I would make my own! It took me hardly any time to come up with a quick little idea and do a Google search for images. My assistant was kind enough to finish the formatting to make the book look classroom worthy and WHOOMP, THERE IT IS. (no, not there. that's a link to a 90's classic).

But for real, HERE IS THE DOWNLOAD! Enjoy!

Happy New School Year!

Hello!

I hope everyone is having a great "back to school" time of year! I know I am all over the place making newsletters and supply lists, getting to know new students, mourning over the ones who transitioned or moved, and all of that fun stuff! I put together a fun little "back to school" art project that is simple and fun and thought I would share! It is just a printable of a backpack that the students got to color and then add pictures of school supplies that they are familiar with and use! I made sure all of the school supply pictures were cut out beforehand and then as we did the activity, we targeted a lot of language/attending/fine motor goals. This activity makes it easy to use differentiated instruction and while doing it, I thought about each student's needs. One of my students is working on matching, so she was expected to match the school supplies before she glued them on. Another student is working on labeling so he was expected to label the item before gluing it. We also went over the function of the items as we did the activity (for example, we talked about how scissors are for cutting). I like to squeeze as much as I can out of an activity so below is a list of ways you can do this! (It is important to think of all of these targets for each activity that you plan and have goals in mind for each student so that your activity is meaningful and not just a cutesy art project that will impress the parents ;-)

Here is the download!!!
(FYI- in preview mode you cannot see the backpack template. Google Drive does this often - so no worries, when you download the full file it will all be there!)

Matching:
-Match the real school supply objects to the pictures.
-Match "picture to picture" of the school supply objects.

Motor Imitation:
-Imitating by saying "Do this" or "copy me" and modeling coloring/cutting/squeezing glue, etc

Requesting/Mands:
-Requesting colors of the crayons
-Requesting the glue/school supply pictures (only expect this if it is motivating)
-Work on requesting using carrier phrases/full sentences with the higher verbal kiddos
-Requesting actions/help ("Can I glue this?" "Can you open this?")
-Manding for information (ex. "What is that?")

Receptive Skills:
-Receptive ID for colors of the crayons (ex. "Show me the red crayon"
-Receptive ID for the school supply pictures (ex. "Touch the tissues")
-Receptive ID for function of items (ex. "Which one is for cutting?")
-Following instructions ("Glue the crayons on." "Give me the glue")

Labeling/Tacts:
-Labeling colors/items
-Labeling actions (gluing/cutting/coloring) <-- ask them about what their peers are doing
-Labeling their peers
-Labeling feature, function, class of items

Intraverbal:
-Fill in the blanks and reversals with feature/function/class ("you cut with ___" or "you color with ____")
-What questions ("what do you cut with?")
-Who questions ("who is using the green crayon?")
-Where questions ("where are the crayons?")
-When questions ("when do you need tissues?")
-Why questions ("why do you need the glue?")

Other Skills and Behavior:
-Staying in their seat for duration of activity
-Attending to directions
-Modeling and following directions correctly (including imitation for your more early learners)
-Counting the items
-Keeping hands to self during activity
-Fine motor (holding crayon correctly, squeezing the glue, picking up the small pieces of paper)

one of my very talented student's work!

Sorting By Color - Free Download!

Hi Friends!
Over the 3 day weekend, I made some time to create a color sorting activity. Using the beloved Google Images, I found pictures of both cartoon and real objects for the kids to sort. I made them all into flashcards for you to download and use with your students! There are 90 cards, 10 pictures for each color. The colors included are yellow, orange, blue, green, red, brown, black, purple, and pink. (After creating them, I realized it would have been helpful to add "white" objects for sorting. Check back later for those!)

There are numerous ways to use these cards: 

Receptive ID (identification) - "touch the red car" or "which one is the yellow banana?"

Expressive ID - "what is this?" "what color is this?" 

Matching - print two sets of each card

Feature Function Class - have the kids identify items by FFC (ex. "which one do you eat?")

Sort by Category - food, color, clothes, etc

Get creative and have the kids match the cards to buckets with a color card on the outside of each one or have the kids find the cards in a scavenger hunt game around the classroom, etc.

I hope you enjoy! DOWNLOAD HERE!

Emotion Sorting Activity - Free Download!

I made this sorting activity to go into the new independent binders that I am in the process of putting together for my students. I think this is fun because it is working on sorting skills, recognizing facial expressions, can be done independently, and could also be used as a matching activity (print 2 copies of the last page). I color coded it and used Boardmaker symbols since they are so widely used in special education classrooms and my students are likely to see them again - therefore they should have exposure to them when appropriate!

Along with the sorting board are a set of 15 pictures, 5 for each emotion. 

And yes... it was awkward using search words like "crying man" and "angry child" to look up pictures to sort! BUT my favorite find was a crying Dean from the show Supernatural. (And yes, I used the image!) Never heard of it? Oh - you mean you don't have a nerdy husband who makes you watch silly sci fi shows? Well, I do :) If you're in the mood for a corny show about brothers who chase ghosts and goblins, check it out on Netflix. 

I hope you guys enjoy the latest download... let me know how it works for your students!

HERE IS THE DOWNLOAD!

List of amazing prompts and questions - could be used for FFC!

Hello friends!

I came across this AWESOME free download on Teachers Pay Teachers that would be oh so helpful for the classroom! You can use these for ideas for feature/function/class, answering wh- questions, fill-in sentences, and more! She has them sized to print large strips and put them in pocket charts for circle activities, journal starters, etc. 
There are 180 of them. 180!

I have perused this lady's blog over at The Autism Helper and she has some fantastic ideas and freebies. 

Also, join Teachers Pay Teachers - I have found some really great things over there!

sample page!

Weather and Seasons Printable!

There are plenty of weather and season printables out there but I just conjured up a simple one to go inside an independent work binder. What's the independent work binder you say? Well, I have two guys in my class who are really beyond sitting at a table, one on one with staff, going through discreet trials. They have graduated to some pretty awesome things like simple cut and paste activities, file folder games, puzzles, etc. with little to no assistance. Yesterday I realized they absolutely need some sort of preschool journal or work binder of sorts that the kids could be responsible for, use independently, and work on typical preschool academic skills. I have a lot of fun ideas for this binder and I will be adding to it and switching things out by the week. Some of the ideas are sorting activities, tracing pages, name practice, ABC and 123 sheets, and tons more!

Right now, my morning circle is simplified and void of a lot of "typical" circle activities like weather, what you wear in said weather, day of the week, month, and whatnot. A lot of my guys are working on things like staying seated during circle, choosing the correct picture to sign in with, following simple directions, and even responding to their name. The work binders will give my guys exposure to what we might be missing out on in circle.

I laminated the following sheet and hole punched it for the binder. I'm keeping a dry erase marker in each binder so the kids can circle the right answers and cross off the ones that aren't. You could also cut each picture out and have them velcro the right ones if you made a blank sheet for them to go with it. OPTIONS ARE ENDLESS. (not really. but still.) 

DOWNLOAD HERE!

Also, check out this cool lap journal I came across. I love the idea of my guys making a journal that chronicles their learning! I might have to make a summer learning journal for each of my students now!

More VB-MAPP materials! (Level 2 - Tact)

Tonight I decided to check my email for this blog and I had a lot of emails with requests for more materials (specifically VB-MAPP data sheets). I was really touched knowing there are people out there reading this blog... and I was also completely guilt stricken for taking a 5 month hiatus from sharing with you all! 

Last night and today I spent about 7 hours in total making picture cards and a data sheet that can be used to test the Level 2-7 TACT objective on the VB-MAPP. I am pretty proud of this document because I sized each item to perfection and I am usually rather awful at anything computer related!

The materials provided are for the objective that is testing the ability to tact 50 items, across 3 examples each. I thought of 50 items that are common for preschoolers, broke them into categories, and looked for 3 different pictures for each item. There are 150 pictures total. The document is almost 40 pages long so get ready to dominate the printer! 

Download the picture cards HERE!!!

Download the data sheet HERE!!! 

I hope you all enjoy! Please send more emails so that I stay connected and accountable!

EDIT: updated on Jan. 27, 2014: I have a new data sheet posted that is much better than the one included in this post. check it out here

An example of one of my pages!

A Zoo Book!

I decided to do a zoo theme for the first month of school this year and am really excited about all the fun animal things we have been doing (mainly because I participated in a life changing experience on vacation this summer where I HAND-FED A GIRAFFE which only confirmed my obsession for the awkwardly beautiful creatures).

I wanted to share a book that I made and give you some ideas on how to use this book. I saw a cutesy little song about going to the zoo where you sing "I went to the zoo one day, zoo one day, zoo one day... I went to the zoo one day and I saw a ____" and you fill in the blank with a zoo animal. What I did was print each page, laminate them, and then hole punch each at the top and bind them using a metal book ring. 

IDEAS:

- Print extra pictures of each animal, laminate them, and use adhesive Velcro on the back of each picture to have them match and attach the pictures to each page. You can do an activity where you hold up a page from the book and put out 3-5 photos in front of the student. Tell them to match the correct animal.

- Sing the song while showing the page and have the student fill in the blank by saying what the animal is

- Have them identify the animals (expressively - "What animal is this?" and receptively - "Show me the panda")

- Sing the song, filling in the animal and then have them find the correct page (or photo if you want to place the photos in an array in front of the student during a table activity)

- Have them match plastic animal toys to the pages

- Have them match non-identical pictures to the photos of the animals (you can use google images/Boardmaker and print off various pictures of the animals, including cartoon pictures, etc)

- Have them identify the colors of the animals (and even match the environment that they live in, the stripes or spots on their fur, etc. depending on the cognitive level of your student)

This is a preview page from the book... which you can download for free HERE!!!

*Just a note... I did get these images from the good ol' interwebs and saw the song idea on a site that I cannot remember the name of. If you see something included in my book that deserves to be tagged with a link to where it originated from, please leave a cordial comment or email and I will give it the rightful props!

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!

My Buttons, My Buttons, My Fooouuurrrr Groovy Buttons!

I had to make a post about this because:

a) I want to brag about the awesome staff that work in my classroom

b) You need to be exposed to Pete The Cat (if you haven't been already!)

c) Language Boards: they are so awesome!!!

We have been reading a lot of Pete The Cat ever since my sister sent me all three books for my birthday (because classroom materials are about the best gift you can get me :). I am officially in love with Pete (and if I ever get a pet cat I vow him to be a namesake) and I just can't imagine my classroom without his books now. I don't think anything has ever been a bigger hit with the students!

The original is I Love My White Shoes which is hands-down the best one of the three. Then they came out with Pete The Cat And His Four Groovy Buttons and Rocking In My School Shoes. All three books have these extremely catchy songs that you can download fo' FREE on the Harper Collins website.

My kids go crazy for them! The illustrations are great, the songs are even better, there is counting and color identification in the books... and they all have GREAT moral lessons. Win. Win. WIN.

So the kids have really been digging the Groovy Buttons book this week... so much so that yesterday when I tried to take a class picture they kept showing me their belly buttons (it's in the book!). It was so adorable! So I threw out the idea to my two assistants to possibly make a language board to go along with the book. During the summer we get extra planning time with the students going home earlier than normal... so within HOURS my two staff had drawn, cut out, laminated, and velcro-ed this sucker up. I was floored... how lucky am I to have such talented people to work with! This language board would have taken me the rest of summer to make on my own so I am quite impressed!

Since we can't get Harper Collins to sign a deal to market this (or can we?), I figured I would pass on the awesome language board idea for my readers to replicate in their own classrooms. Language boards make storytelling interactive and fun and are great to use in group instruction. I have a variety that go along with various books I read during circle time.

 I have him with several other language boards hanging on my teacher's easel that I use during circle time. You can find the easel at Lakeshore

Everything on Pete is velcro-ed on so each student can participate and have a turn to engage in Pete's story.

And of course we cannot forget to show Pete's belly button when his shirt is removed!

Practical Autism Resources

We live in such a wonderful time to be working with kids who have special needs. Not only are educational laws, funding, and resources at an all time high for providing the best service to our students... we have the INTERNET right at our fingertips!

Now, there are some cons to this... such as having misinformed people creating websites about special education, but if you really dig around you can find some pretty incredible sites that are very helpful in creating materials for skill building in the classroom. And if you follow my blog, I will do all that digging for you. (Isn't life grand?)

I especially like Practical Autism Resources because they have a big list of materials you can print and laminate to use for several language programs (matching, receptive/expressive identification, teaching categories, feature function class, etc.) They are sorted into different folders and even give examples on how you can use them. I initially found the site while looking for anything that might help me administer the VB-MAPP (The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program). I will talk more about the VB-MAPP in other posts but if you are working with young children with autism and have not heard of or used the VB-MAPP you really should look into it because it is specifically used to assess milestones in language. This is a great tool for determining skill deficits and will direct you in what areas are most important to write IEP goals for.

Practical Autism Resources is a huge time saver (which I think we can all agree is invaluable), let's us take a break from over-using Boardmaker, and provides other great resources such as reviews on iPad apps that work well with our population (if you're into that sort of thing), data sheets, and parent resources.

Have fun exploring this site! It isn't the most flashy, but oh my is it helpful!

Here is an example of one of the printables. You can use this for virtually ALL language programs. (We will talk more about how to do this in the future)

Free Materials = GREAT Materials

If you are a teacher, you are already aware of how often we use our own money to provide items in our classrooms. (--If you are a college student studying education/related services, just be prepared for this. Yes, you will be "underpaid" and still be using that paycheck to buy things for your job - take comfort in knowing you love your job and to be honest, having better materials equals a better day at work, so it's worth it! --If you are the parent of a student with special needs, you should consider donating to your child's classroom if you are able. Many of you already do and we appreciate the heck out of you, but just keep it in mind! :)

I frequent the Dollar Tree and Target dollar aisle for things I can use as reinforcers and skill building. I also ALWAYS say yes if someone asks me if I want something (bubble wrap? a cardboard box? yes please!). Yesterday morning my husband and I saw a sign for a yard sale and decided to walk over to check it out. I spotted this laughably large stuffed Sulley from the movie Monsters Inc. from the other side of the street and got pretty excited. Once the people hosting the sale realized I was a teacher, they were all about giving away things that I might be able to use and happily offered me the ridiculously over-sized Sulley. I also got a gallon bag full of plastic dinosaurs of all sizes and a bag full of toy cars - and not just regular cars either... the real Cars cars, like the Pixar movie ones! (Cars and Thomas the Train are unbeatable with my group)

Moral of the story is: hit up the "free" section on Craigslist, go to yard sales, check out Goodwill and other thrift stores, sign up for www.donorschoose.org, send cutesy letters home to your parents listing items you need... do what you can to fund the materials you need in your classroom. Materials are very important and they can get rather expensive.

So thank you generous neighbors for the lovely addition to my classroom! I can't wait to see the look on my students' faces on Monday when I use Sulley as a reinforcer.

my husband got conned into carrying him in the 98 degree heat for the 1/2 mile walk back to our apartment

they became good friends by the end of the walk (despite the odd stares and funny comments from the occasional passerby)

*Just a side note: I do not recommend having a collection of stuffed animals in the classroom since they can easily carry germs and are not easy to clean. I plan on keeping Sulley out of the classroom for the most part (stored in my office) and using him sparingly for reinforcement during circle time and table top activities. This means the students will be in full supervision when they are with Sulley so I will be preventing any kind of germ inducing behaviors (licking, biting, etc).