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!!!

Rainy vs. Sunny sorting activity

Hello readers!

I am back after a way too long break from posting. Did you miss me?!?!? Don't be mad about the absence... I come back bearing gifts!

Today I worked on a sorting activity for "rainy" and "sunny". This is great for teaching some different examples of what rain and sun can look like (both in real life and in cartoon format - you know how I like to mix it up for those generalization skills!).

This can be used in several different ways... magnet board, file folder, sort into bowls/baskets, etc.
I hope you enjoy!

Download here!

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!!

Winter Clothing File Folder Freebie



I have another file folder I put together this past week for you guys! This one is for non-identical winter clothing matching and again, you can use this as an opportunity to work on FFC, expressive/receptive labels, and even wh questions. I am also linking you to the file folder for the book The Jacket I Wear In The Snow from Making Learning Fun which has all the clothing items and their respective "shadows". We've been reading the book and one of my students immediately recognized the file folder pieces and associated it with the book - very cool! He said, "It's just like the book!". My heart melted like a snowman in the sun...

Download for Non Identical Winter Clothes File Folder

Link to "The Jacket I Wear In The Snow" file folder

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!

Winter File Folder Freebie! (Non-Identical and Identical Matching)

 

Brrr the polar vortex has us all thankful for some time off this week at my school! In the spirit of the weather, I have two freebies for download to use with your students. One is a non-identical matching activity and the other is an identical matching activity. Although you shouldn't use the same file folder during multiple instruction sessions for matching (since the students will be able to memorize the placement of the materials rather than learning the matching skill), it is still nice to have it on hand for independent work tasks and can be a useful tool for teaching tacts for winter items. You can also use some FFC training with this! (ex. "Find the one you drink" or "Which ones do you wear?")

All you need is the coveted laminator and some velcro. Just print the identical matching pages twice :) I should also mention that I made the "non-identical" activity and my awesome co-worker made the "identical" one. Teamwork, woot!

Download for Identical Winter Matching

Download for Non-Identical Winter Matching

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!!!

 

 

Feature, Function, Class (FFC) - data sheet and target list

FFC stands for Feature, Function, Class and it is used to describe and understand objects further than just their label. For example, an apple is red (feature), is for eating (function), and is a fruit (class). Having a solid foundation of labels and FFC knowledge allows us to have conversations about things in our lives. We don't want our students to just be able to point to an apple and say "apple". We want our students to talk about how juicy an apple is, that their classmate is eating an apple for snack, that you can pick apples off of trees! I found a great article explaining the importance of FFC and encourage you guys to check it out. It is posted by a speech therapy group in North Carolina and although I do not know anything about their services, I agree with what they have posted about FFC. Here is the article. The article explains how to generalize FFC and that is essential to your students fully grasping what they are learning.

In the early stages of teaching FFC, I do work with them at the table and use an array of pictures. It is also VERY important to identify other meaningful things in their environment by FFC. I also make sure to vary my questions when probing. For example, I might ask "Which one do you eat?" or I might say, "What can you eat?". Varying your language helps them generalize -wh questions and removes the risk of them becoming dependent on the particular way a question was asked. Be sure you are also varying your pictures and the placement of your target picture. Identifying in the natural environment is the ultimate goal when probing. For example, having the student find something you can eat with and they independently search the room for a fork.

This data sheet template is from my school system and I have used it for many different types of skill testing. I change it dependent on the items I am targeting. The FFC target list that I have for download is not mine but I do not have the source. I downloaded it about 2 years ago somewhere online. If someone knows the source, please let me know and I can cite it! Remember you can use the picture cards I posted here and here!!

*VB-MAPP Level 2, LRFFC 8-M says to select the item from an array of 10 (or a book) with different verb-noun wh- questions.


Here is the download for the FFC Target List

Here is the download for the FFC data sheet



"Which one do you wear?" "Where is the animal?" "Find the one you see with"

What does the fox say!!?!?

 

Can we just talk about how a song with animal sounds is COOL right now? Too bad it would be a tad inappropriate to show that during our circle time (darn!). However - no need to stick to the classics! I have a book here with a song about farm animals and the sounds they make that ISN'T "Old McDonald"! I really do not know where I saw the idea for this song... I definitely didn't dream it up myself but I did spend some time making this fun book to share with you all :)

 

The song is to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus" and it is really a lot of fun to do with the kids. I have a student who has been working on intraverbal fill-ins (ex. "a pig says ____") and when we started using this book/song in circle, he started mastering several of them!

 

Hope you guys enjoy it! DOWNLOAD HERE!

 

5 Little Turkeys

Since this is the month of the turkey, I present you with another book produced by yours truly! It is an adapted book to go with the 5 little turkeys poem. Included are the instructions on how to put it together but it is pretty simple. I hope you all enjoy it! I am excited to show my students tomorrow.

Download here!!

My November Newsletter - includes tips for parents!

Hi Everyone!

I just finished up a newsletter to send out to my parents this Friday and thought I would share it! This week we had an open house and parents were asking about ways that they can implement strategies we use in the classroom at home. I am so excited that parents want to learn more about ABA! Having families involved in early intervention is one of the best ways to both increase and generalize the skills that we are teaching our students.

I always try to emphasize how important discrete trial teaching is when I give tips on how to use ABA in the home. This kind of approach to teaching skills works for all people, not just children with autism! However, when trying to research what discrete trial teaching is, it can be very overwhelming when you aren't familiar with ABA terminology. I crafted a simple chart and found a Google image to illustrate how ABC (antecedent, behavior, consequence) works. I am hoping that this is helpful for my parents and that it will be of use to my readers as well!

The download is a Word document so that you can edit it to meet your needs. Enjoy!

Here is the download!

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!

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!!!

 

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!

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!

Imitation Level 2 - VB-MAPP Data Sheets!

Who is excited for more data sheets?!?! You mean you aren't tired of them yet? I keep getting emails with requests for more and it makes me so excited to think that someone is waiting for me write a blog post dedicated to... a data sheet. Sometimes I think about how boring my life would have been if I was an accountant or something (spreadsheets? ew.), but people must think we are a snore, the way we ABA teachers talk when we get going on about a data sheet ("Oh girl, don't even get me STARTED!"). 

This one is another awesome resource that has floated around in my school system. It includes all objectives for Imitation in Level 2. If you are looking for Level 1 imitation, check out this post.

Imitation is a great way to start working toward increasing your student's attending and having them get the base for following instructions and increase learning skills. Most new skills are learned by imitating someone else, whether it's a new hairstyle on Youtube or watching your mom cut a pineapple. The ability to imitate others doesn't come so naturally to our guys so we need to work on it and be aware of it's importance. 

Check out the latest and greatest data sheet HERE!


*Also, just a disclaimer: I have some pretty cool, non-boring friends who are accountants.