Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Special Stamps

 Check this out:  Circle Stamps, Checkmark Stamps, Yes and No Stamps are available at Giving Greetings/Say-it-with-Symbols.  We have all of them, plus Personalized Name Stamps for most of our class and we LOVE them!  We use them everyday!




Monday, July 4, 2011

ESY and the Wizard of Oz




Here are some ideas for an integrated thematic unit on the Wizard of Oz! (The movie Wizard of Oz, not the book which has a more complex plot.)  Alicia Odom of SMD Teacher will kind enough to share with me her resources from when she did a Wizard of Oz Unit.  Here is a week-by-week outline of what we will be doing.  Monica from Eliminating the Box did a similar unit and shared resources as well.  Some of the resources we will be using are the Wizard of Oz Free Printable Pack, an old issue of News-2-You and Pete Well's Sensory Story.*

*As you can see below we will be basing much of the unit on Pete Well's Wizard of Oz Sensory Story, which sadly is no longer online; so I will link to a copy of each section in my Google Cloud for reference.  Unfortunately it is just for reference because the Power Points loose something in their move to the cloud.  

Week One

Week Two

Week Three


Week Four


Week Five
Week Six
    Paper House Cardstock Stickers - The Wizard of Oz
  • Sensory Story Part Five: Melting Witch through The End Power Point and Script
  • Art: Scrapbooks (of what we have done this summer)
  • Science: Will It Melt? Experiment
  • English/Language Arts:  Choosing quotes from the movie for our scrapbooks and "There's No Place Like Home" Adapted Writing (students complete sentences describing their home using symbols)
  • Math: Survey and graph of favorite characters
  • Cooking: Flying Monkey Ice Cream
  • Life Skills:  Planning a Party
  • Leisure: Wizard of Oz Party

Through out the entire unit we will have the Power Point and related activities on the computer for use with switches and the following apps on the iTouch and/or iPad:

Friday, July 1, 2011

Free Switch Activities for Learners with Severe or Profound Special Needs

Updated 11/18/2012
New: 
Doorways OnlineSensory StoriesFisher Price Infant GamesIan Bean

This is an update of the post listing online switch activities for learners with multiple or significant special needs. The activities listed are chosen because they can be used with switches, they are simple and they are enjoyable. The activities listed are free. Some activities may require set up by an assistant before switch use. Although care has been taken not to include switch activities with any violence or graphic images teachers and others still need to check activities for age and general appropriateness before use.

Cause and Effect (and Press to Play):
Single Switch Scanning/Timed Single Switch Response (sites may include some cause and effect games as well):
Two Switches (unless otherwise noted you must click in the area of the game and then use tab and enter to play):
Subscription Sites with Free Trials
  • Busy Things is a switch accessible site for young children out of the UK.  You can try it out for free for two weeks.
  • Help Kidz Learn has moved to being a subscription service except for 10 games in the Early Learning.  Subscriptions are $16 for home or $159 for schools.  They DO take PO's.
  • Switch Climber* (costs $14.95 a month and you can "try-before-you-buy" with a free two week subscription.) 
Also be sure to check out Game Base and One Switch for other (usually more advanced) switch games.

*Those sites with a star have multiple activities to try out!  Wednesday's With Sam lists these by activity instead of website if that is useful for you.

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