Ho Ho Ho! More "Joint Action Routine" Action

Here it is on Friday night and what am I doing?  I guess it's a bit obvious.

I love my job, and love speech therapy, so here was my latest little snippet about my day at Ephesus Road Elementary School.  I have a group of children that need routines, but they also love Christmas--which is definitely out of everyone's routine.  We had a little speech group today, so prior to that, I did an internet search and came up with a paper bag puppet of Santa that was easy to make.  Why did I search paper bag puppet?  You need to read my earlier post about Joint Action Routines.  The kids have made an entire zoo of puppets---many features stay constant and are predictable, with a few changes.

     In Santa's case, he has eyes and a nose and is made from a paper bag (similar to our earlier 'Rudolph' puppet.  The changes this time were the beard, mustache and hat.  The kids understood this and a couple were significantly enthusiastic and verbal when helping to assemble their puppet.  I had a Tech Talk 32 available, and apologize here for not supplying the Boardmaker overlay---Boardmaker disk is at school right now (did I mention it is Friday night?).  The overlay was very simple---glue, eyes, bag, nose, santa, scissors, and other icons for requesting and commenting. If you need it, email me (on a weekday) and I'll send it.

HELPFUL TIPS

1.  Pre-cut the parts!!  I didn't have a pattern but this was easy to figure out.  You basically need red and white construction paper.  I just cut multiple pieces at the same time---it took about 5 minutes to prepare.

2.  I found this idea from this website---Working Mother in Zion. I didn't feel the need to add a belt on Santa.  I also did not have googly eyes handy, and the kids didn't seem to mind drawing them. 

I used my iPad to present the directions, step by step, in Pictello.  Here is a link to those directions in .pdf format.  

Prior to making Santa, we read an adapted book.  Here is the link to the book.    I basically printed it, laminated it, and used icons and velcro for each page (one icon per page).  The kids matched--lights to lights, santa to santa, etc.....  Very simple. The book was snatched, with a few changes, from Tarheel Reader. 

I hope this has helped a few of you with some last minute ideas of an activity prior to Christmas break.  Goals that can be facilitated with this are answering simple questions, sequencing,  labeling items, following directions, requesting items, seeking help,.......the list goes on.

P.S.  I know that not all kids actually celebrate this holiday.  Most of mine do---hence the Santa Claus theme here.

Number Puffs---Free Download

Here is another highly motivating recipe to share for use with kids. This comes in handy when you need an easy project that is still tied into the curriculum, but doesn't involve a lot of extensive fine motor skills.  This project can be done any time of the year, and can be repeated.  I realize that some administrations don't endorse classroom cooking, but with this, nothing is actually cooked. Everyone could wear rubber gloves, if needed. 
     Icing, cereal, crackers---all the ingredients you need!  The kids can work on requesting, number recognition, fine motor skills, taking turns---it's all there!

For the link for the free download, click HERE. 

Tutorial---getting pictures from the internet into Proloquo2Go

I received a request from a very special mom to post a tutorial on getting pictures from the internet down into the iPad.  It's a reasonable request---when I first wanted to do this, I had to make an emergency call to our assistive technology team.  So, here is a quick and easy way to save pictures, and then from there import the pictures into Proloquo2Go.


Getting pictures to the iPad from the internet is SUPER easy and no computer needed.
The iPad has wifi so you can do a google search right on the iPad. If you don't have wifi turned on, you can turn it on in the settings menu on the ipad main screen. After turning on wifi, touch the Safari icon to get on the internet.

Touch Safari to open the internet

On the top right corner of your internet screen, you will see a search window that will let you put in a word or words to do a google search. Type in some words and when your search results come up, you can go to the top of the screen and change from a web search to an image search.

search for the image

This is the result of the search--look at top left and touch 'images'

result after you touched 'images'

When you find an image you want, touch it and hold briefly on the picture.  A command window will come up that allows you to save the picture. Touch "Save Image".

Touch that, and the picture will be sent to your photo album on the iPad (there is a Photo icon on the ipod main screen that you can use to get to the picture album).

This is the picture that was saved into the iPad photo album.

Now that you have your picture, go to the photo album.  (Close out Safari unless you want to get more pictures.)

Touch the lower right flower picture to open your photos.

This is the photo album. You can see that 'Target' is the last picture.

To put the "Target" picture into Proloquo2Go, open that app.  Hopefully you know how to use this app a little and add items.  If you need a lesson on the basics, go to the online tutorial page here.

 To add a photo, once you get into 'add item' in Proloquo2Go and name the item 'Target', you touch the center part where it says 'Add photo or symbol'.  You want to 'Choose a Picture'.











Once you touch 'Choose a picture', a pop up will show your photo stream.  You can scroll through this, and then touch the picture you want.

Once your picture is aligned correctly, touch "use" in the upper right corner

Touch "Add"

Now your child can ask to go to his favorite store!!!!

If you have Proloquo2Go, I encourage you to look at the online trainings---videos, website tutorial, and occasionally there is a Webinar.  This app has lots of potential for helping kids, and there are many tricks and techniques for customizing it to fit your child's needs. 

Sharing---Winter Materials--Please download for free!

A couple of years ago, my colleagues and I assembled a Winter Unit.   Here are a few items from that unit for your download pleasure.

Making a Snowman--Step by Step

1. A cute powerpoint book on how to make a play-dough snowman.  This is wonderful for those kids who can use pictures to guide play, thus playing with play-dough more productively.  I can't take credit for it.  Heather Byrnes, a great SLP who now works in Maryland put this together.  One of my kids was able to follow this meticulously!

2.  I made a simple recipe for 'Snowfolk Faces' out of rice cakes, raisin, and carrots. The powerpoint recipe is accessible here.This was a lot of fun to make, and mildly nutritious--great if you are talking about snowmen. The kids also have a little product at the end to chow down.

Snowfolk Faces

3.  Cinnamon Ornaments----This last one is a project that takes a few days.  It's great if you work with a special education classroom and can involve the staff a bit.  Here is the link.  The kids can potentially end up with a gift for their parents.

Christmas ornaments

Learning to share with Google Docs---The Ocean Book Packet

I feel that with pre-made materials from catalogs being so expensive, the internet is being used more and more as a sharing house--and I'm jumping in.  This product is not exactly seasonal, but last summer, we taught an ocean life unit, along with a jellyfish craft.  I created a packet from that, and posted it on Teachers Pay Teachers---now I'm posting it free here through Google Docs.   This packet consists of a book (adapted from Tarheel Reader), and a jellyfish craft activity. Communication boards and icons are included using Smarty Symbols. I took the plunge and bought a commercial license for Smarty Symbols---well worth it!

So, go for it!   If you want to download this for free, click on this link---- The Ocean Book Packet!  21 pages of ocean fun great for special needs kids!

Holiday Mail for Heroes from Troop 1033

 Christmas time is here---so the girls of Troop 1033 made cards for the servicemen and women who won't be spending the holidays with family.

Thanks to Diane Leusky, Meg, Sarah, and Grace Repass who organized this! They have been leading a troop that meets at Abbey Court for a while now!  The troop includes two Blue Ribbon mentees, and is awesome!

Check out the sweet cards!  I hope these make some service person's holiday a bit more cheerful!

The iPad as a Portable Word Wall

I work in the primary grades, and often assist/instruct my speech kids with reading and written language.  Most have high needs in this area (which makes sense---reading and writing are language based, so if the kids have language or phonological difficulties, they will have academic issues).

One of the key features of every primary grade classroom now is a 'Word Wall'.  Essentially, the alphabet is arranged on a wall, and underneath each letter are words that the students are expected to learn how to read and spell.  Here is a teacher's blog about her word wall. (I'm not sure who this teacher is, but she explains a lot about how she manages it.)  

I do appreciate word walls, and see the importance they play in the classroom.  Children refer to the words when they write, and when they are trying to find rhyming words, opposites, sound clusters, or anything else the teacher is teaching at the time.  I'm sure there are about a thousand other uses, but this blog is about my iPad, and not about the merits of Word Walls.

Sometimes I pull children into my room  (unfortunately, no word wall there).  In the past, I've copied the words with an actual pencil onto paper (seems a bit dated, right?) for use in my room.   This takes time, especially when the kids get older and classrooms have more words. Some days, I forget about word walls which is not great for the kids in terms of generalizing skills.  Today,  I worked with a couple of language impaired first graders who really needed to access a word wall, and learn how to pronounce and read the words.   I had a brainstorm---I walked around the classroom prior to speech and simply took pictures with my iPad---not only of the word wall, but of the 'morning message'.  My iPad became a portable word wall!  Simple, but soooo wonderful when I took my two first grade students to speech.  We practiced reading and pronouncing (final consonants) all of the words, and then attempted the morning message (they couldn't read it--good for me to know).  I was at least able to read the message to them, and have a conversation about the field trip which was mentioned. They weren't sure what 'field trip' meant.

The morning message carried into my room via iPad!

photo of word wall in first grade

photo of word wall in first grade

  The kids were drawn to the iPad screen, and easily scrolled through the word wall pictures, taking turn reading them....enthusiastically!  What is it about an iPad screen that engages kids so much?  For future activities, we plan on working on writing simple sentences--this portable word wall will be an immense help!!!  A simple use of the iPad, but one of the best uses I've found so far.