Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Elephant & Piggy



This is from Today I Will Fly!

My current favorite picture books are the Elephant & Piggy series by Mo Willems. These books are funny. They teach lessons like playing with others, being a good friend, encouragement, and so much more. The drawings are easy for kids to understand the emotions. When they speak each character has a colored bubble above their head. Today I used an elephant puppet and a pig puppet while I read the book with one of my students. The student was the elephant and I was the pig. We read the story using the puppets. This was so much fun and created great interactions. These books are an excellent tool for talking about different facial expressions. You can discuss what the characters are feeling. The books provide problems that the kids can help predict the solutions before they are revealed in the book.



Wednesday, July 20, 2011

K12 Money

Looking for another way to reinforce money skills check out the ipod/ipad app called K12 Money. This is a free app. It will allow you to work on counting money, making change, giving money, matching amounts, and showing values of money. Within each type of activity you have the option to choose easy, medium, or hard and also coins or bills and coins. Great versatility with realistic looking money.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Social Skills Group

Social Skills Group Every Thursday

Several parents requested a longer social skills group. You have the option of 1 hour or 2 hours.

6:00-7:00 $10.00 per child
6:00-8:00 $20.00 per child

·  This week we are working on conversation skills. We will be taking turns talking and maintaining topics.
·  We will play a few games together
·  Each week will be different but all activities will revolve around language, social, and behavioral skills.

Clicker

This is a bit of a random idea however I have seen success with the strategy. Kids with disabilities, specifically autism have great difficulty reading facial expressions and vocal intonations. One of the reasons that these things are so challenging is because every face is different and we all control our facial muscles differently. Even with the same person like the child's mother providing praise or reprimand her face and intonation will change depending on many factors. Imagine for a minute that you have a full nights rest, eaten a great breakfast, and overall are having a good day. Well when you praise your child I bet the energy level and emotion is more energetic. Now let's say that your child kept you up all night, you are exhausted, you haven't had a moment to yourself but your child did something well I bet your praise will be much less energetic. How is a child, that has difficulty determining facial expressions and vocal intonations supposed to understand if what they just did was correct or incorrect? What I am suggesting is to use a sound device such as a "Dog Clicker" Every time the child produces a correct response from things like following a verbal direction, using the bathroom, looking you in the eyes, reading, etc. you provide the verbal praise but in addition to that you also add the click of the "clicker" The reason for this is because over time with paired associations the child will realize that the click that always sounds the same no matter what the circumstance = positive. Then with the help of the click the child will begin to learn that your words and facial expressions also mean positive. When the child does something inappropriate try to keep your voice monotone, lacking facial expressions, and no clicker so this should help them distinguish between a desired response and undesirable. Some nice features with using a clicker over other sound options include portability. You can attach the clicker to your wrist, wear it around your neck, or simply keep it in your pocket.   

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Writer Learning

I absolutely love the "Writer" from Writer Learning. http://www.writerlearning.com/ This is a durable, portable, long battery life keyboard with many enticing features. The Writer has so many features. I use the Writer to work on the basic typing skills using the typing program. The Writer has 16 folders for students and within each folder you can save numerous files. My students type stories, spelling lists, and notes using the Writer. When they are finished with their document the file can be beamed to the computer or printer for further editing or printing. One of my favorite features is called Word Prediction. Kids that have difficulty with motor skills to type out every word are able to use word prediction to help them type faster. Once they begin to type a word the Writers best guesses comes up with options. If the word the child was typing appears they simple press the corresponding number and move onto the next word. There are many more features so check out the website. The Writer is currently $149. The company also produces a device called the "Fusion" this device has voice output (text to speech) so somebody could hear what is being typed.

Lego Game

I have started a social skills group on Thursday evenings. I was out looking for some good social games to play. Many of the kiddos I work with enjoy playing with Legos but this tends to turn into parallel play versus joint interaction. I purchased a game called Lego Creationary. In this game you begin to build an item from a picture and then the rest of the group has to guess what you are building. I love this idea because the kids get to be creative and the ones guessing have to use their discrimination skills and descriptive skills to interpret what is being built. Now the game does not come with any direction for how to put together each object. If you are playing with kids that need directions I found many step by step directions on the following Lego web page. Now these don't go directly along with the game but you can use them instead of the pictures offered in the game. http://creative.lego.com/en-us/Familytime/buildinginstructions/BuildingInstructionsmonthly.aspx?month=August&year=2010 Happy building :)