Lesson Planning and Feathered Ducks

It takes time to plan activities for my students.  First, you actually need to think of something from an infinitesimal number of things to do with children.  The activity needs to be functional and specific to their IEP needs, appropriate for their age level, motivating, and based a little on the students' prior knowledge.  It has to be something that can be accomplished in a 30 minute therapy session, and inexpensive.  Ideally, it should fit in the classroom curriculum.  Ideally, you can work on multiple goals at once, and use the activity with several different levels of children's language skills. 

Once the planning is done, then materials need prepared, and assistive technology needs programmed, pictures made, communication boards printed, and sometimes an example of what you need the child to make needs to be made prior to the therapy session.  (Students need to see what the goal is!) This is where my daughters have been very helpful.  On Memorial Day, I asked Andorra to make a 'feathered duck', and she obliged.

I got the duck idea from a wonderful website that TJ, my co-worker and speech pathologist, pointed me to.  (No Time for Flashcards).  There are about a million pictured step-by-step directions of all types of crafts, and these all can be adapted for the Pictello App that I wrote about earlier.  Andorra assembled the duck, took pictures of each step, and we both programmed Pictello to make a beautiful sequenced set of directions for our little duck.  Below are a few of the steps that are presented to the child in Pictello.  The really nice part of the program is that the iPad also says the directions.

  I think the kids will be thrilled.  I next need to match this activity with a children's book.  An Eric Carle book, "!0 Little Rubber Ducks", comes to mind.

I'll let you know how this all goes tomorrow when I have to actually use the lesson with children and work on their language goals!
Thanks, Andorra, for your help! You will be a wonderful OT someday!
  And thank you, TJ, for showing me the website and always inspiring me!