Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Taskbox Time: Even More Fine Motor

This is actually our fourth Taskbox Time post featuring fine motor tasks! Fine motor tasks seem to be some of the most popular taskboxes we see in our districts. Often, these activities can be taught to beginning learners and make a great candidate for independent work times because they are repetitive and predictable. Some of our students even find fine motor tasks to be calming and organizing so they can be used during unstructured time or when the student needs reduced task demands due to emotional or behavioral regulation needs. 



letter pegboards
Debi Gnau
Mad River Early Childhood Center, Mad River

plastic nuts and bolts
Debi Gnau
Mad River Early Childhood Center, Mad River

owl lacing beads
Debi Gnau
Mad River Early Childhood Center, Mad River

shape form puzzles
Jamie Minnish
Prass Elementary, Kettering

burger sequencing task
Jenna Fitch
Demmitt Elementary, Vandalia

spider ring task
Debi Gnau
Mad River Early Childhood Center, Mad River

felt Christmas trees
Rylie Jarrett
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

spider web tweezer task
Tracey Cooper
Tecumseh Elementary & Clark ESC


To see our previous fine motor taskbox posts click the links below:

Put-In Tasks

Fine Motor

More Fine Motor

Fine Motor at Home

Thursday, April 22, 2021

Super Star Schedules: Implementing an Interactive Group Schedule

Sometimes when coaching a classroom referral, the teacher expresses how overwhelming it is to implement individualized schedules for all of the students in their class. The students may lose track, forget, or mix up the schedule and students may struggle to find time to reset multiple schedules every day. In these instances, we will recommend starting with a group schedule. This works best when all students do the same scheduled activities for the majority of the day (often in a self-contained or general education classroom) but can be harder to implement when various students transition in and out of the room at different times (such as in a resource room or cross-categorical classroom).

Today's Super Star Schedules will provide information and examples for implementing a group schedule in your classroom. 




Step 1: Choose where to post the schedule

  • Find a central location that is easily visible by students for easy reference throughout the day such as on a bulletin board or whiteboard at the front of the room. 

group schedule on bulletin board
Susan Trissell
Westwood Elementary, Dayton

Step 2: Create visuals such as picture icons or written words. 

  • Any time students will be switching gears between activities or physically transitioning, there should be a visual cue. 

written group schedule
Lindsey Landis
Twin Valley South Elementary, Twin Valley

notecards in pocket chart group schedule
Kristen Gregory
Northmoor Elementary, Northmont

clothespin icon group schedule
Caroline Kinnison
Northmont Middle School, Northmont

Step 3: Choose transition cues. 

  • In middle school and high school buildings, a natural cue is the bell between periods. In younger grades, auditory cues can be helpful too! Use a timer, wireless doorbell,  or chime to signal transitions and cue students to refer to the group schedule. 

hand chime


magnetic board auditory timer



There are some great free visual timers available!

https://classroomscreen.com/


  • For students who are able to tell time, posting times can also be an effective transition cue. 
written group schedule with times
Jodie Plummer
Preble ESC Alternative Program

group pocket schedule with times
Monica Klarer
Indian Valley Intermediate, Greenon

group schedule with analog and digital times
Nicia Cook
Kenwood Elementary, Springfield

written group schedule
Kelly Holmes
Greenville Middle School, Greenville


high school group visual schedule
Annette Black
Springfield High School, Springfield

  • However, if you have students in your classroom who are easily stressed by time constraints or transition anxiety, we do not recommend incorporating times. Sometimes for these students, you can use a schedule that visually represents how long the activity will take. Or you can use a mini-schedule to communicate exactly what activities need to be completed before the transition can take place. 
activity length visual group schedule
Conscious Discipline

mini-schedule with content standard

mini-schedule with reinforcement



Step 4: Make it interactive!

  • The biggest misconception we see about implementing group schedules is that if it is posted, all of the students will refer to it consistently. For our students with autism or sensory processing differences, sometimes this is not the case because they may overlook it when filtering out visual classroom clutter or they may not see the purpose of the schedule.
  • The most effective way to make the schedule interactive is by making the actual schedule cards manipulative so that they can be removed or flipped over as activities are finished. 
pocket chart group schedule
Pam Locker
Washington Primary, Piqua

magnetic group schedule
Mandy Guilmain
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River



group pocket schedule
Debi Gnau
Mad River Early Childhood Center, Mad River

written schedule with moveable icons group schedule
Caroline Kinnison
Northmont Middle School, Northmont

  • For written or stationary schedules, you can use an arrow or word frame to move along the schedule for each scheduled activity. 
group schedule with arrow manipulative


Step 5: Incorporate your students and start implementing!

  • Assign a schedule helper job for students to take turns interacting with the schedule. It can be hard to remember to interact with the group schedule if it isn't something you have done routinely in the past so having a schedule helper can be a great reminder! This is a great job for students with autism who need more deliberate interaction with the schedule. 


  • If you have a student who continues to struggle with transitioning after consistent implementation and interaction with the group schedule, add special picture icons that they can match to the designated location for each scheduled activity. 
group schedule with individual icons to match to location
Brandy Howard
Rosa Parks ESC, Dayton


For more examples of group schedules, don't miss our previous post:





Monday, April 19, 2021

ALIST Spotlight: Allison Clements- Intervention Specialist, West Carrollton

Allie Clements is an intervention specialist at Walter Shade Elementary in West Carrollton. We have been impressed with Allie for a long time. We have coached Allie and her team with some very challenging students and Allie has always been positive and proactive in her approach. She knows how to effectively interact with students demonstrating oppositional behavior by giving shared control using forced-choice options. She makes an effort to understand the underlying challenges for all of her students and tries to individualize her support strategies. Today’s ALIST Spotlight shines bright on Allie and these wonderful supports in her classroom.

 




Here are some examples of the strategies and tools Allie is using in her classroom:

When Allie had a student in her class using an AAC device, she hung this poster at the front of the class to model use of the AAC core page. We know how important it is to model use of AAC as much as possible. This tool also came in handy on days when the student came to school without her device.


 

In February, Allie got a new student from another school. He spends a majority of time in his general education class with an attendant and Allie is responsible for the behavioral supports. Allie created this Roblox behavior plan as well as the Zones check-in sheet that he fills out throughout his day.


At his previous school, he was using the same break card when he was frustrated or tired (he is heavily medicated), and Allie felt like he really needed to learn the difference between needing a break due to frustration levels versus being tired so she created these! The front of the cards show the feeling (he is biracial and she felt representation is important, so she used images from Google of a biracial male), and when he flips it over, it has visuals for his options such as spending time with Sammy the therapy dog or going for a walk. These are always laid out on his desk for him. 




For the younger students this year who spend a majority of their day in her room, Allie uses basic class wide supports to increase positive behavior- token boards that incorporate their interests and picture schedules.








We love Allie’s creativity when making visual contracts to motivate student engagement. She does a great job incorporating special interests to get student buy-in including individualized visual contracts with special interest themes and visual work contracts presented as special interest puzzles.

 

 

The school closures last March and continuation of remote learning this school year has been a challenge for many of our teachers. Allie embraced this challenge and was able to continue meeting the unique needs of her students not only in person but those who were remote as well.

 



As an ALISTER, we see Allie as an extension of our team. She has presented during a couple of our trainings. We love it when the information can come from a professional who is currently implementing the evidence-based practices every day.

 

Thank you Allie! We appreciate all that you do!

Thursday, April 15, 2021

Academic Area: Phonics

Across the Miami Valley, we have seen hundreds of classrooms using fun, multisensory activities for teaching phonics. We love to see all of the creativity used to engage young learners in this essential skill! In today's Academic Area, we will showcase some of these fabulous ideas. 




Letter Identification

Students with autism and low-incidence disabilities often need multiple opportunities to practice when learning new skills. We love these repetitive tasks and manipulatives for identifying letters, matching uppercase and lowercase letters, and remembering letter sounds that can be used again and again for skill practice. 


Dustin Krouse
Horace Mann Elementary, Springfield

Jamie Minnish
Prass Elementary, Kettering

Tracey Cooper
Tecumseh Elementary, Clark ESC

Katie Bigelow and Casey Lathrop
Brookville Elementary, Brookville


Heather Venters
Trotwood ELC, Trotwood

Raising Dragons

Tracey Cooper
Tecumseh Elementary, Clark ESC


Phonemic Awareness

Many students with autism and low-incidence disabilities are visual learners. Use visual supports like the examples below to assist with segmenting, blending, and manipulating letter sounds.

Tracey Cooper
Tecumseh Elementary, Clark ESC

Mary Nolan
Valley Forge Elementary, Huber Heights

Sandy Beck
Broadway Elementary, Tipp City


Hands-On Activities

Passive listening is hard for many of our students, but they excel when able to actively engage with hands-on activities! 

These are some great examples of ways to engage students in spelling activities... 

Kinetic Sand Stamping

Athenia Eversole
Versailles Elementary, Versailles

Paint Bag Spelling

Magnetic Letter Spelling

Katie Bigelow and Casey Lathrop
Brookville Elementary, Brookville



...and beginning sound activities. 
Tracey Cooper
Tecumseh Elementary, Clark ESC

Katie Bigelow and Casey Lathrop
Brookville Elementary, Brookville

Jackie Vollmer
Driscoll Elementary, Centerville

Mandy Whitfield
MCESC Learning Center-East

Debi Gnau
Mad River Early Childhood Center, Mad River


Unique Learning System Activities

Many of the classrooms we coach use N2Y's Unique Learning System (ULS) curriculum. Unique provides phonics activities that can be completed online or as printables. Some teachers use the predictable format of ULS to create repetitive, interactive activities that can be used month after month. 
ULS Rhyming Word Task 

ULS Rhyming Picture Task

ULS Phonics File Folder

Simply Visual

ULS Beginning Sound Pocket Chart Sort


The Phonics Dance

Another popular program that we see across many districts is The Phonics Dance by Ginny Dowd which combines movements, rhymes, and chants to help students learn letter sounds and phoneme blends. 

Athenia Eversole
Versailles Elementary, Versailles

Karen Shires
Valley Elementary, Beavercreek

Kathy Timmerman
Fairbrook Elementary, Beavercreek

Mallory Normile
Broadway Elementary, Tipp City


Thank you to all of the teachers who have shared these fabulous ideas with us!