Osmo

Over the summer, I heard about and then bought Osmo. These are pieces that let you interact with the iPad in a novel way.

It was a great purchase for my classroom. I have used it with one student in particular. He loves that he can play with the iPad with toys. What is better than combining too loves, Thomas the Tank Engine and an iPad!

We started with playing with the Newton app, this is from their website:

Newton

Use your creative noggin and inventive objects like a hand‑drawn basket, grandma's glasses, dad's keys, or anything around you to guide falling on‑screen balls into targeted zones.


We started with using with the tracks. He would position them on the paper (the camera was picking up all the 'wood grain' on the table so we used the paper). He liked that the tracks would show up on the iPad screen. He was using the edges to make the balls bounce where they needed to go.

 Then we moved on to using the accessories, who doesn't love playing with a cow!

Then we moved on to the Words app, again from their website:

Words

Be the first to guess and spell out the on‑screen hidden word by tossing down real‑life letters faster than your friends. A related picture gives the clue.

 He has some trouble with beginning sounds but he persevered and continued playing. 

 

 Then we moved on to the Tangrams app, again from their website:

Tangram

Arrange tangible puzzle pieces into matching on‑screen shapes. Play with a friend or challenge yourself to more advanced levels as your handy‑work lights up with each victory.

He loved this app! He liked that he could choose which picture to work on and I liked that the difficulty increased the more we played. Once we moved on to the blue level he said "this is too hard." He did not like that he was not getting any hints if the pieces were in the correct location.

Writing Without Standards

In February, my class started to write! I had been reading about various ways to do this for my class. I decided to try it.

To start out you don't need much - just 2 things to get started.

1) Pictures are important - they help you to have a context for what your student in writing about. I used extra pictures from our scrapbooks, familiar symbols, and I would print off pictures of items that my students liked - favourite cartoon characters, apps, toys, etc.

2 ) Something to write in - I choose small notebooks as that is what I had in a cupboard.

Here are some samples from one of my students.

 

It is hard to see but she did print the letters 'sesame str.' I took those letters and wrote the whole phrase. I reinforced the letters that my student wrote by underlining the letters that we have in common.

 

In this example, she doodled but eventually wrote the word SUN. Again attention was drawn to the letters that she used and that word was turned into a sentence.

  

In this example, I used the app Abilipad to do some writing with the same student. I thought that I had created 3 pages to be written on over 3 days but she had other ideas! She went back and forth between the three pictures and would write on all of them. After I printed out the pictures, I highlighted the words that she independently typed.

Here is a one page handout to explain Writing Without Standards:

All of my students are able to use a traditional pencil to write so I do not have to use alternative pencils.  If your student/child is unable to print traditionally, use an alternative pencil. It could be a keyboard, eye gaze chart, alphabet flip chart, etc.


If you would like more information about Writing Without Standards you can access these resources.

• Erin Sheldon's Writing Instruction for Students with Angelman Syndrome, this is the handout that I used to create my one page How to
• Caroline Musselwhite's The Art of Attributing Meaning to Student Attempts

Worksheet Wednesday --- Writing Numbers

I encountered a perplexing dilemma in my class. I had a student who was able to do all of these things:
-receptively identify numbers up to 75 (for example, find 23 with a calendar)
-expressively identify numbers up to 75 (for example, what number is this?)
-count out from a larger set of 30 (for example, give me 15 bears)
-count items up to 50 (for example, how many cars are there?)

We have been working extensively on learning to add with this student.  He progressed to being able to able to add a two digit number to a single digit number (14+8=), however he would find the answer of 22 and then just look at an adult that was close by and repeat 22 over and over again. He knew the correct answer but had no idea how to print the numbers 20 onwards.

To tackle this perplexing dilemma, I created a set of worksheets where the student has to do 2 tasks but I am sure there are other ways of using these materials.

Task 1 - sequence numbers 0-30 on blank charts, there are a variety of column widths (3, 4, 5, and 6).  I have this task laminated and he arranged the number tiles to complete the series.

Task 2 - there are various grids that have missing numbers and the students in expected to print in the missing numbers.

Click here for the data sheet that I use in my classroom, it is not very fancy but it works for what I need it for.

If you would like to try this 10 page pack out for free you can go to:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fill-in-the-Numbers-1-30-1209995

I am linking up with Worksheet Wednesday through The Teaching Tribune.

Touch Math Cards

This school year I have been using Touch Math extensively in my classroom with a lot of success. So I thought I would share how we have made our own materials.

I had each of my students in my class make their own flashcards to use to learn the Touch Math system of touching dots.  You will need:

• Colour Coding Labels - small circle stickers
• White Reinforcements - before starting the activity I coloured them with various Sharpies to have them stand out on the white paper
• Flashcards for #1-9 - you can see a set here (you need a free membership to access)

I gave each student a set of flashcards that I had pre-cut for them.  Then each student had the chance to choose which colours they wanted to use, my only rule was it could not be the same for the dots and the reinforcements.  Luckily it all worked out and everyone received the colours they wanted.
I then showed my set of cards and I had the students copy me in placing the dots and rings for each number.  I laminated them and we have been using them all year.

 One student came into my class just starting to add using Touch Math.  This week he has been using Touch Math strategies to add 3 digit numbers with and without regrouping and to subtract two digit numbers with and without regrouping.  

Two students came into my class never having used Touch Math and through the Touch Math App, by creating our own Touch Math Flashcards and using flashcards without the dots.  Both of these students are now adding numbers up to 18. 

Very Hungry Caterpillar and Days of the Week

In January we are learning about then and now but I decided to start the new year learning about the Days of the Week. I thought it would be a great way to start the new year, a new topic but something that my students were familiar with.

On Pinterest, I found a days of the week caterpillar made from paper plates.  You can see the original pin here.

From that original pin, we created this bulletin board for the hallway.  During the snow day, we pained all the paper plates and then we finished it today.

 

Here are some close up views of the bulletin board:

We also created a "life and paste days of the week activity" to go along with reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  We read the book a number of times during the week and talked about the different days of the week.  I had the students use the lift and paste activity to identify the various days as we read the book.

You can get your own copy this activity from Making Learning Fun.

Predictable Charts

Over the summer, I read a blog post from Jane Farrall about using Predictable Chart Writing: Group Writing for All. This was an idea that I had first heard about when I attended a workshop presented by Karen Erikson.  She created a handout that addresses how to use Predictable Charts with students with disabilities. The handout is called Predicatable Chart Writing, you can find it here:

http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds/files/how-to-handouts/PredChartWriting.pdf

I realized that I needed to increase our writing in the classroom, so I have started to do predictable charts. We are using the book "Look Up!" from October's Elementary Unique Learning System.   We were working on the sight word 'see' so they had to use see in a sentence about what they saw in the book. 

Day 1 - Each student dictates a sentence to me from the book.  I write it on chart paper, and we will read all the sentences together and then try and find the item in the book. 

Day 2 - I have typed the sentences and printed them off.  Each student will then cut the sentence up, we will recreate the sentences, read them, and then repeat.  (you can see the cut up sentence in the second picture at the bottom of the page)

Day 3 - I photocopy extra copies of the book and the student then needs to find the picture that matches their sentence.  We then write out our sentences in a class book, paste the picture and add our cut up sentence to the page.  

 Our Title Page:

A page from our class book:

From Predictable Charts we moved on to creating personal books.  I found Carson Dellosa clipart that matched the vocabulary words from the book "Look Up!" so I created a book for each student so we could practice using sight words and vocabulary words to create books to take home.

This was the title page and students had to add their name as the author.

  This is an example of what each page looked like:

While doing this activity we started to use our "Word Book" to look up words to know how to spell the various vocabulary words.  I will write a post about the visual supports that my students are learning to rely on. 

Day and Night Sorting

This week we were working on Reading "Look Up!" and we talked about what you see during the day and at night. I created a sorting activity, were we had to find the word, add the correct sticker, and then sort it into the correct spot.  Here is what 2 of final products looked like:

These are posted in the hallway just outside my classroom, each child has a spot to display their artwork for the year.