Spider Web

Have your class sit in a circle and roll a giant ball of yarn back and forth across the circle to create a huge spider web. This will work on turn taking and gross motor skills. Remind the kids that they have to keep their finger on yarn to keep the web in place as they roll the yarn around. After the web is complete I like to throw either small spider rings or spider toys into the web or a stuffed animal spider. Sometimes I will even drop them into their hair or laps... it is always good for a scream.  

Wee Sing for Halloween

I like to bring music into teaching when possible. Students learn through different methods and music is an excellent way to help them learn. I bought the CD called "Wee Sing for Halloween" This cd has some fun songs and chants about Halloween time. My classroom plays this music throughout October and the kids look forward to the new songs.

'Dem Bones

Have your class create Halloween skeletons. This is a great activity because if your students are lower functioning you can focus on the fine motor skills of cutting out the skeleton. If the students are higher functioning you can focus on naming the bones and placing them in the correct sequence. Simply use paper plates. Every student will require 16 paper plates to create the skeleton. I generally trace the pattern for the head, neck, ribs, pelvis, arms/legs (same pattern) then have the kids trace their own hands and feet. After all pieces are cut out we then hole punch the plates so their will connect with either brads or yarn. The kids then assemble their skeleton and draw on a face. Once their buddy is complete we use the skeleton to sing songs like "Dem Bones" "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" and other fun Halloween songs.

Articulation

I'm trying to find other ways to work on speech articulation. I found that creating flash cards and worksheets help the student to generalize these skills beyond speech instruction. I used Boardmaker pictures and an excel spread sheet to create different worksheets like the one pictured. The use of the boxes below each picture is for a small sticker. This way every time the child says the /f/ sound correctly they receive an immediate reward of the sticker and in the end the page is full of fun small stickers. This is also a great activity to have the child take home with them. I generally complete 3/5 of the trials and then the rest are completed at home to help increase the generalization.

Lunch Menu

TEACCH - Lunch Menu Words

Trying to get your students to be able to read the lunch menu or snack list. Here is a TEACCH task to help with this skill. All the words are laminated and have magnets on the back so they stick to the cookie sheet. This picture shows a cookie sheet. The students match the corresponding words without pictures to the words with pictures on the cookie sheet. This task could be done with fast food words, or any sight words. The version in the picture was for a student that needed larger pictures and words. When you are working with high functioning students you can make the words and pictures smaller so there are more items to discriminate between.

Sensory TEACCH

TEACCH - Spelling in Play-Doh

Using the TEACCH strategies is important in classrooms where there is a higher ratio of students to teachers because many of the students become prompt dependent. TEACCH is a way for the students to learn to work independently from start to finish with different tasks. Here is an idea that involves fine motor skills along with basic matching and reading. This task includes several cards with words. The task is to stamp out the word in the play-doh. Generally I have the students work on word family words for example if they had the "ug" family they would spell: bug, rug, mug, tug, lug, dug, hug, and pug. The example in the picture that I received from a co-worker has them spell out the word and there is a corresponding cookie cutter for the word. You can find bulk cookie cutters for kids at many craft stores.

1st Graders Swearing

The Chinese Emerson Teacher is currently staying in my home. She came home the other day and told me that she taught her little first graders how to say, "yes" and "no" in Chinese. The word for yes is "shi" the word for no essentially means not yes and is said, "bu shi" pronounced similar to a not so nice a word in English. Just put the 2 words together and see what they sound like... Now picture this cute little class of 6 year olds going around telling their teacher "bu shi" "bu shi"