Dollar store sensory finds

I am a self proclaimed dollar store freak. When you work with kids who may be rough on your things, quality is not as important. I found a bunch of fun squishy light up toys recently and my kids love them! I have a few students on the austism spectrum and these toys actually help calm them down. Surprisingly the toys are pretty durable, I haven't had one ruined yet! It also helps students with ADHD and ADD as a fidget if the toy is just in their laps and they just fiddle with it.

"Discerning Silly from Serious" Resource

Another great resource on the Autism Teaching Strategies website is their social skills "game" called "Discerning silly from serious." I have a student who does not know when it is appropriate to be serious vs. silly. This gives great tips. It has four levels with pictures and examples, and then you take the scenario cards and put them in the correct level.

It also has "act it out" cards where you show what you would do, "fix the mistake cards" where you tell what the person SHOULD have done, and "your own life" where you tell what you should do in your life.

http://autismteachingstrategies.com/autism-strategies/teaching-children-with-autism-the-social-skill-of-discerning-silly-from-serious/

 

 

A resource that kind of goes along with this is the control-o-meter post on this website. There are a variety of control-o-meters including how formal you should be, how loud your voice should be etc. 

 

Formal Control-O-Meter: 

Loudness Control-O-Meter:

 

 

Link: http://autismteachingstrategies.com/autism-strategies/control-o-meter-social-skills-tool-for-kids-with-autism-helps-with-voice-volume-other-behavior/

All visuals from autismteachingstrategies.com

Tattling/Correcting Resource

I recently found this amazing resource for social skills. It is geared toward kids with autism but I use it for kids with simply weak social skills. I will give a short overview of one of the many resources on this website.
Here is the main website: http://autismteachingstrategies.com/free-social-skills-downloads-2/

The student I have been using this with tends to tattle and correct/boss students a lot. This resource has worked EXTREMELY well with her.
http://autismteachingstrategies.com/autism-strategies/correcting-others-and-tattling-too-much-social-skills-activities-to-teach-kids-with-autism-who-have-these-problems/
It has three panels. The first panel is the "Choices Panel." You go through and decide what you think you should do.
* Say Nothing
* Ask the person to stop
* Wait for an adult to tell them to stop
* Try to tell the person they are wrong (go to correct page)
* Go right to an adult to tell (go to tattle page)

Once the student has chosen which one, discuss if it's the right idea or not. The last two, you refer to the "correct" and "tattle" pages.

On the correct page we go over the choices and I write on the page the words in parentheses. If the answer to the question is in parentheses then you don't need to correct.

Example: A boy tripped on the stairs but kept going. Correct page: Does it matter? No, it does not. Are you in charge. No you are not. Will it bother the other person? Yes, it would. Therefore you do not need to correct.

Correct page:
*Does it matter? (no)
*Are you in charge? (no)
*Will it bother the other person? (yes)

 Same with the tattle page. If the answers are all "no", then there is no need to tattle.

Example: A boy picked up a pencil off the floor and put it in his locker. Is it hurting you? No, it's not. Are you in charge? No, you are not. Did someone ask you the rules? No, no one did. Therefore, you do not need to tattle.

Tattle page:
* Is it hurting you? (no)
* Are you in charge? (no)
* Did someone ask you the rules? (no)

The cards are really awesome. They give real life scenarios. I have the student write his/her answer on the card, so it further cements the concept. There were a couple that were not appropriate for my student because she is younger, but most applied!

All visuals from autismteachingstrategies.com

/R/ Tongue Twisters

I have some /r/ students who are getting close to dismissal from speech therapy. As a challenge we do tongue twisters!

(photo courtesy of morguefile.com)

Initial R:

Reba really wants Rex to run races rather relaxingly

Rain rains really regretfully on my red roses.

Rod was riled ripping rigid rafts and raw rusty radishes yesterday.

Roy roamed the red reef after it really rained.

The round road roams regretfully right rather than left.

Ring around a rosy, ring around a rosy, roses, roses really fall down.

Rest really rocks more than running or riding runaway recycling trucks.

Royal raccoons rescue ridiculous rabbits from reputable rattlesnakes.

Reading rainbow wrinkles like raisins recognized in Rocky Mountains.

The rath of regular racing reptiles is really rather scary.

Medial R:

The squirrel and parrot ate carrots, corn, berries, and cereal in a barrel during a hurricane.

The fairy cut the horse’s hairy mane with a sharp scissors.

The fireman nursed the burning garbage with a small watering syrup can.

The horse hurt the cart by squirting dirt on the wire tires.

The lord and lady had smart, large swords that were part of the empire.

Birds learn to turn nearby the fern and chirp after eating a worm.

The nurse has curls the nerd heard were cursed.

Burt the nerd heard a bird chirp and saw the worm squirm.

The barnyard on the farm is very carefully arranged.

Our children are smarter than an armadillo arching an army of aardvarks.

Final R:

Four doctors tore tires off cars for more dollars.

Mr. Monster is the author of Nightmare in November After October.

Heather can hear hamster singers an hour before shore.

Peter Pear was rather poor, however; his summer supper was lobster.

The corner store will offer a pepper picture for either under or over a dollar.

The fire in the tower will require far more water than before.

There are more poor people in the world than rich.

The tiger will purr if the car hits the deer in fair weather.

Cover your door with flower wallpaper and Delaware sycamore trees.

Is the conquistador from El Salvador, the U.S.S.R, New Hampshire,  or the North Star?

Dots Game

I do a lot of "drill and kill" with my kids so I like to play games too, to make it more interesting for them, and me. Here is a game that is very common, not a new idea at all. I would say it for kids in at least 2nd grade on up, some of the younger students did not understand the concept of the game.
1. You need a few rows of dots, There has to be an even number of dots across and going down, but it doesn't matter how many.

2. The object of this game is to get the most squares with your name or initials in it. Each time it is your turn you must put a line between two dots, vertically or horizontally only. You  may only make one line per turn unless you complete a box with your line. Then you make one line after completing a box.

In the end, whoever has the most boxes with their name's in it, wins. Towards the end it goes pretty quickly because if you complete a box with one line and make it possible to complete another box with your next line, you can get a whole bunch of boxes in a row.

This is what the end result looks like. My students were rather evenly matched and had the good luck to tie! 

McDonald's french fry articulation

This idea isn't originally my idea, it's been circulating around pinterest and blogs for years. I just tweaked it a little and thought I'd share!

Basically it's just popsicle sticks with artic words on it. My students today came up with a way to kind of play a game. Each student gets two dice and  when it's their turn, they roll them. How ever many it lands on (added together), is how many times they have to say their word. I don't know why, but getting to roll dice was oddly motivating for them.

TH "Would you Rather" Carry Over Activity

I have a few older students working on TH carryover. They are both artic only, and are very bright students. They loved this game, because it is slightly silly, but still school appropriate!

The last one is just a template if you want to make more and have them be the same size. To print or save to your computer, click on the image. Once it comes up full screen, right click on it and click "save as." Name it whatever you want to, and save it to your computer. Then you can go to where you saved it and print it. If you have trouble with that, comment and I'll see if I can fix that or give better instructions.

Delayed Auditory Feedback-- Water pipes

I've been meaning to buy these water pipes since I first saw them in the little hardware store. They are two water pipes put together that are the perfect length so that you can talk into them and hear it in your ear pretty well. I know Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) is commonly used with people who stutter, so they hear themselves about a millisecond after they've said it and it somehow tricks the brain into stuttering less. I don't have any fluency students so I'm just using it with artic kids. I know that a lot of kids will get into a habit where they don't even hear themselves saying phonemes incorrectly, so I'm going to see if this will help. At any rate, the kids love it and it's a fun motivator!

The board game pictured is just a minion game I made up over winter break. The board is like most board games, you roll the dice, move that many spaces and so on. The part I added to mix it up is the second huge dice. The big dice has 6 different minions and each have a one-part direction on it. For example one says " Do 7 jumping jacks." They get to roll the big dice after practicing their artic words.