Picture Schedule

I have been in quite a few preschool classrooms and honestly the first thing that I look for in a classroom is a visual schedule.  If I find it posted, I always say to the teacher- I love your schedule!  This is an excellent visual cue that can help students of many different ages.  In the autistic support classroom, students often live by that schedule and if you stray from it they will be quick to note the difference.  At the preschool level, a good deal of teachers think that students are unaware of the schedule or they don't care.   That might be true in a very small percentage of students but for most kids, they really want to know what is coming next in the schedule and what to expect throughout the school day.  Even if your routine is the same, every single day, preschoolers love to see it it posted.   I also use visual schedules to assist with maintaining appropriate behaviors.  Take this scenario, Johnny complains while doing table top activities that he really does not want to finish his work.  4 year old Johnny can't see an end to this activity, it just seems to him that it is boring and so long.  The teacher walks over to the schedule and points to the activity after table top activities, it is play time.  She asks Johnny to just hang on a little bit longer and then it will be play time.  He hears it from the teacher and he sees it on the schedule.  If you want to reward a child, let them know where on the schedule they could have a treat or play with a certain toy.

Here is an example of a preschool schedule that also looks like a clock

Here is another example of the schedule.  The teacher is using a clothespin to mark the current activity.

Reward Chart

Giving verbal rewards to students is great and for some students that is all it takes to make them feel important and to understand that they are meeting or exceeding a teacher's expectations.  For other students, they need something more.  They may need a sticker on a paper, a little prize at the end of the week, or a high 5.  Some students need a constant visual reminder of the expectations and that they are doing a great job.  I love using star charts.

I apologize for the poor quality of the picture.  If you look closely at the top are the rules/expectations- to sit, be quiet, and to complete work.  Even if a student is an amazing reader, I encourage teachers to incorporate pictures into the rules if the student is age 10 or under.  A student that has difficulty attending or behaving likely needs an extra visual reminder to increase comprehension.  As you work through an activity, reward a student with stars given either at a timed or intermittent schedule.  Some students may need this reinforcement during every activity and some may only need one reward chart filled up for the entire day.  I like velcro charts more then sticker charts, they are reusable and I think the students often get some sensory feedback from the velcro.

Sticker charts are plentiful though on the internet so feel free to search pinterest or the cyber space for other options.   Add some picture rules, laminate and make a velcro chart out of anything you find!

The Icky Sticky Way of Learning

I love to incorporate sensory play into learning, even with my own children.  When I taught a multiple disabilities support class I loved to incorporate sensory play as a daily part of the day.  I loved combining science into the sensory play.   Studying different textures, solids vs liquids, etc lends itself to a great deal of sensory activities.  When I taught students at higher levels I found that they still loved sensory play but that I could explore deeper into Scientific lessons or other topics.

Playing with slime

Slime is an awesome way to talk about solids and liquids, sticky, soft, etc.  You can even incorporate lessons on color.  The ingredients are fairly simple- equal parts school glue and liquid starch.  Pinterest is an awesome resource for different slime recipes.  I found that I needed more liquid starch then suggested.  Please keep in mind that this is not an edible recipe!  At the right texture, this is even great for cutting practice.

Gooblek is another fun sensory play.  It is simply equal parts cornstarch and water.  This substance is fascinating.  It may appear completly liquid in the container but when you squeeze it, it turns solid.

Shaving Cream, Mashed potatoes, or Whipped Cream- This is an awesome way to practice writing, paint colors into, or simply have fun running your hands through it!

Soap Foam- I was ecstatic when I discovered this one day.  I thought that I really invented it, then I found pinterest and discovered that it had been done before.  You start with about 4 parts dish soap for 1 part water and you use a hand mixer to combine them.  Mix until a nice thick foam is created.  During play if the substance starts to liquify, simply mix some more and it replenishes the foam- good clean fun!!!

Ivory Soap bar experiment- my students love to play with the end result of the experiment!


Cooked Spaghetti Noodles, Jelly, Jello, Soap, Pudding, Water, hair gel, salt.. the ideas are limitless!  Use your imagination.

Sensory play of course does not have to be messy either.  Hide things in rice, have fun with beans, put the messy substances in ziploc baggies for those kiddos that just can't touch them.  Remember to have plenty of utensils on hand for those kiddos too!!  I have found that eventually even my trickiest sensory aversive students start to explore materials closer and closer.

Adding in sensory play to early learning concepts such as writing your name is often fun.  Write your name at a center in salt, then write your name at a center in shaving cream, then write your name at another center in paint, then make your name at another center by gluing beans on a name card.

PLC RATIONALE

Chester County Intermediate Unit Induction Year II: Collaborative Action Research Plan

Participants: Sue Bank, Kristin Dibler, Carrie Rozea, and Jackie Steer

Focus: Multisensory Learning – Enhancing Learning by Engaging the Senses

Rationale:

Students learn best when information is presented in a multisensory approach.  When educators provide students with a variety of sensory stimuli they are more likely to engage students in learning and maximize success. 

Inquiry Questions:

·       What does the research say about learning modalities?

·       What are the most effective multisensory strategies to meet the needs of our students?

Action Plan

Research Question	Action Item	Timeline	Evidence of Completion
What does the research say about learning modalities? Mixed findings on the effectiveness of teaching to modality.	Individual research	May – September 2013	Research shared 9/18/13
What are the most effective multisensory strategies?	Each participant will provide one example for each of the four senses (auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic).	By September 30, 2013	Share at 10/3/13 PLC meeting via Blackboard.
	Decide how to best present our research, findings, and strategies. Plan presentation.	By December 31, 2103	Presentation on January 30, 2014 to supervisors and colleagues.

Using visual recipes for independent living

Use a recipe separated into segments to highlight one step at a time, including a photo or video of each step.

Create your own using Google images or search the internet for ready-made recipes.  Visual recipe books are also available at sites such as www.amazon.com.  Recipes will range in their reading levels and required skills and can be tailored to individual students' needs. 

Fruit Salad Recipe

Prepare the fruit:  wash, peel, seed, core and cut it into small bite-sized pieces.

Place fruit in a bowl:  add fruit to bowl after cutting into pieces.

Add other ingredients: add shredded coconut, raisins, or nuts.







Add yogurt:  use enough to lightly coat fruit, and toss lightly with a large spoon.

Noise Ball Activity - Kristin Dibler

Despite what some may think, people with visual impairments can enjoy recreational activities, such as playing toss, basketball, softball, dodgeball, etc.

You can purchase a "beeper ball", or make your own "noise ball". To make your own, you just need to purchase a ball (select the ball that is most appropriate to the activity you will be doing), deflate the ball, add bells to the inside, and then re-inflate the ball.

Now let's try playing a game of toss, with a "noise ball", and with goggles that depict various visual impairments.

.... This is an example of an expanded core curriculum activity that requires both an auditory and a kinesthetic approach.

Mat Man

I use Handwriting without Tears with my preschoolers (and my own kids for that matter) and my favorite part of that program is Mat Man.  I love that there is a song that goes with Mat Man.   Handwriting without tears is a multisensory based program that teaches children handwriting.  It starts with pre-writing skills.  Mat Man helps kids not only learn how to draw a person but also helps them recognize body parts.

This is to the tune of "The Bear Went over The Mountain"

Mat Man has one head one head one head, Mat Man has one head, so that he can think

Mat Man has 2 eyes, 2 eyes, 2 eyes, Mat Man has 2 eyes so that he can see

Mat Man has 1 nose, 1 nose, 1 nose, Mat Man has 1 nose so that he can smell

Mat Man has 1 mouth, 1 mouth, 1 mouth, Mat Man has 1 mouth so that he can eat

Mat Man has 2 ears, 2 ears, 2 ears, Mat Man has 2 ears so that he can hear

Mat Man has 1 body, 1 body, 1 body, Mat Man has 1 body to hold what is inside

Mat Man has 2 arms, 2 arms, 2 arms, Mat Man has 2 arms so that he can reach

Mat Man has 2 hands, 2 hands, 2 hands, Mat Man has 2 hands so that he can clap

Mat man has 2 legs, 2 legs, 2 legs, Mat man has 2 legs so that he can stand

Mat Man has 2 feet, 2 feet, 2 feet, Mat Man has 2 feet so that he can walk

After building Mat Man, I ask my students to draw him.  I love it when I hear them singing Mat Man as they draw him!

Tactile Cues- Kristin Dibler

Tactile Cues for students with visual impairments...

Tactile Maps-

map of tactile items to represent new environments, or when an environment layout is changed

Braille Labels -

label every day items (i.e. classroom materials, food/pantry, clothing item) with Braille label tags

Money Folding Techniques -

fold various types of money is different formats to distinguish the difference between

AFB Money Identification 

Auditory Cues - Kristin Dibler

Auditory Cues for students with visual impairments...

Tapping to areas to locate specified items-

Tap on desk where you want student to sit, they can locate sound and move towards sound

Adding sound to any everyday task where we use our vision to assist us -

Add noise-makers to door handles so they can hear when someone is coming in the room, put bells in a ball for recreational activity assistance such as a simple game of toss to help better localize the ball's location, noise-making devices when pouring a drink to let you know when glass is full

Auditory Learner - Jackie Steer

 IPads and Computers are a big part of Career and Technical Education. We are very appreciative that our school has the funds to support technology in the classroom. Many of the early childhood task require the students to learn how to be independent. My students can be found typing away as they work on research papers that relate to early childhood, creating parent newsletter, or brochures on particular child development topics. The students enjoy exploring the IPads for fun, interactive games for preschool children.

I do allow my students to listen to music on Friday's when they are finishing their theory work and planning their lesson plans for the upcoming week in preschool.  When you listen to music, much more is happening in your body than simple auditory processing. "Music triggers activity in the nucleus accumbens, a part of your brain that releases the feel-good chemical dopamine and is involved in forming expectations. At the same time, the amygdala, which is involved in processing emotion, and the prefrontal cortex, which makes possible abstract decision-making, are also activated," according to Science Journal.

 A typical day in the preschool classroom! Here some of my students are helping give out directions to the game "Hokie Pokie." The students were identifying different body parts and listening to the directions given by the high school students... "that's what it's all about."

A tour of 5th graders got the chance to come into the early childhood program and participate in a lesson plan. One of the 5th graders was able to read the story, "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie"to the preschool classrooms. We followed up the reading with a writing activity where the 5th graders helped the preschoolers to if you give a ____ a ____. They came up with all kinds of cute stories for example: If you give a horse a horn, it will turn into a unicorn. The 5th graders discussed what the preschoolers wanted and wrote it for them. Together they colored their story page. I ended up making the 5th grade visit into a classroom book. The final part of the activity was to eat warm chocolate chip cookies, made by my early childhood students of course!

This is an example of an auditory lesson that involved a little bit of tactile learning as well. The math coach and I co-taught a lesson on graphing. I try to incorporate all of the learning modalities when it comes to teaching the high school students but a big part of their learning comes from direct instruction. I have to share with them the information about child development for them to be able to model, demonstrate, and apply it to the preschool students.

Tactile Learner - Jackie Steer

In the early childhood program, I teach the students how to manage a preschool classroom. The first thing that a teacher does in their classroom during the morning is their morning warm-up which usually consists of a good morning song where they sing hello to everyone, calendar, and weather. Morning circle can cover all learning modalities; tactile, visual, movement, and auditory. I chose to talk about the calendar and weather bear as a tactile activity. Each morning the students take turns manipulating the calendar pieces whether they are velcro or magnetic. They get to place the days of the week, the number, and choose what the weather is like that day. The weather bear gets the children very excited to pick out the appropriate clothing for that particular day. These two activities encourage the children to remember the days of the week and the month that they are in as well as what they should be wearing during each season.

From classroom personality to storybook hero, Mat Man is a favorite among young children. My high school students, as silly as it seems, still enjoy creating Mat Man. The high school students then take the song and introduce it to the children by showing them what Mat Man should look like. The preschool students then demonstrate that they can build Mat Man with marker and paper, on the white board, or with the wood cut-outs. Mat Man teaches important readiness skills which in turn the high school students are teaching the preschoolers 

• Body awareness
• Drawing & pre-writing
• Counting
• Building
• Socializing & sharing

The early childhood students hand drew penguins to put in the dramatic play center and also made an igloo out of cardboard boxes. The preschool children were learning about polar animals.

Here my students are teaching the preschool children how to draw "mat man" on the smart board.

A lesson plan on teeth brushing where a student is helping a child put mini marshmallows inside the mouth and then the child will brush the teeth with a toothbrush.

  

Another lesson plan where my students were teaching the students about their bones and body parts. They first listened (auditory) to a you tube video called "Them Bones" and followed it up with a tactile lesson where they glued q-tips for the skeleton body and a cotton ball for the head. 

 This was a collaboration project that won a West Chester University Educator Award between myself, the preschool classrooms, and our Wildlife Resource Management program. My students helped to teach about growing plants and then we actually went down to our small garden to plant lettuce, carrot, and broccoli seeds. The students really enjoyed digging in the dirt, planting their own seeds, and taking care of their crops on a daily basis. Each day we would go down to our garden and water the plants. The children were fascinated to see their end results! They even got to taste the vegetables that they grew.


A student created a lesson plan to go with the story book, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." They made the caterpillar head and cut the mouth open so that the children were able to place the food that the caterpillar ate from the story into the caterpillars mouth.  The students had a lot of fun trying to identify the food that the caterpillar ate on each day. It is a good hand-eye coordination activity for the preschool children.

 Here the students are learning about dinosaurs. They were trying to measure how far they could throw the pterodactyl dinosaur. They flew the dinosaur and put tape where it landed. Then they determined who flew the dinosaur the farthest.

Food groups is a fun way to help the students gain more knowledge and experience with new, healthy food. In this particular food group, we were teaching our autistic support class about farm animals in which the cheese and fruit were cut into different farm animals. They were able to touch new textures and explore different tastes. Most of the students had no problem eating the introduced food however; there are some students with sensory issues. It is a big accomplishment to simply get them to touch the food!

This turkey activity was a game that my high school students created. It follows the rules of "pin the tale on the donkey" instead it is "pin the feather on the turkey." Each preschool classroom came into my classroom and the high school students ran the game. We had the preschool children sitting in sits as they waited for their turn. When a child came up they were to close their eyes, take the feather, and move toward the door where the turkey was. Each child had a blast sticking on the feather in silly places! This activity could be done in any season, "pin the snowflake on the snowman," "pin the hearts on the smiley face," and many more.

Before the Thanksgiving break, the preschool students were also asked to make a textured turkey. The high school students helped them glue all types of materials to their turkey. The feeling of different materials like sand, buttons, shaving cream and glue together, is an activity that allows the children to explore their sense of touch.

Visual Cues - Kristin Dibler

Visual cues that assist students with visual impairments...

High Contrast Materials -

 Yellow on Black, Black on White


Lightbox - 

lights up materials placed on the box for students with attention difficulties

Page Blocker - 

piece of paper, fold paper in half

Tracking Devices - 

colored popsicle stick, colored tracking bar

Magnifiers

Large Print, Bold Font, Bold Lines

Visual Learner

Visual Learner - Jackie Steer

If you are a visual learner, you prefer using images, pictures, colors, and maps to organize information and communicate with others. You can easily visualize objects, plans and outcomes.

This is the Early Childhood Task List. The students are able to identify the tasks that they have accomplished and see the ones that they still need to work on. It is a visual tracking guide for them.

The preschool early learning standards are located on the walls for the students to refer back to when they are developing their lesson plans. They also have the preschool standards books to use as a reference.









Every morning I list on the white board what they need for the day. Their journal is listed on the board, their task number from the task list, the objective for the week, and what the theory members and the field member need to turn in that week. The picture on the right shows the preschool classrooms and the students that will be in field for the two week rotation.

Ov

In my classroom, I provide many visuals for these types of learners. Front and center of my white board, the students see their Task number from their Early Childhood Task List and the objectives they will be learning while exploring the chapter. Each morning we have a specific warm-up for each day of the week. Everyday the students know what their journal will be. I also list the theory work for them to accomplish throughout the time they are in their theory rotation. On the other side of the board, I have listed each preschool teacher and the students that will be rotating for those two weeks. In a pocket chart, students will find all the necessary papers they are required to fill out for field. I also keep missed work for absent students as well as enrichment activities in there if a student would like extra work. The two bulletin boards in my room have information regarding their program, Students Occupationally and Academically Ready (SOAR) as well as important dates they need to be aware of. The other bulletin board is to show case the student’s hard work and effort on projects. The early childhood standards for preschool are hanging up around our room so they can always refer back to them when they are developing their lesson plans. Open-ended questions are listed above my white board for the students to keep in mind how to increase language comprehension in the preschool children.

On one corner of the room you can find a vocabulary word wall that has the vocabulary words and chapters the words come from. On the back is the definition of the vocabulary word.  Students are encouraged to test each other in a vocabulary review game.

We take advantage of the fact that we have mac laptops and Ipads in the classroom. These tools help the visual learners design and create lessons and projects.  I try to incorporate youtube videos that relate to what they are learning about.

When we take notes, I either have a powerpoint with guided notes or I use the ELMO in the classroom to project important information. When we go over our math journal every Wednesday, I have students come up to the white board, smart board, or ELMO to show the class how they solved their answer.

One of the most important visuals is the preschool classroom itself. The students take on the role of a teacher assistant and have to scan the classroom for behaviors, student needs and requests.

Other things to take into account for visual learners are:

·      Add diagrams to your notes whenever possible.

·      Dates can be drawn on a time-line

·      Organize your notes so you can clearly see main points and supporting facts and how things are connected.

·      Connect related facts to your notes by drawing arrows.

·      Color-code your notes with highlighters so that everything related to a topic is the same color.

·      Use color, layout, and spatial organization in your associations, and use many 'visual words' in your assertions.

An Example of a Multi-sensory Lesson

This lesson demonstrates how a multi-sensory approach can be used to teach a single lesson.  Pay attention to the beginning because the students are singing a song as they transition to sitting in a circle for the math activity.  The children clearly have been instructed how and when to respond to their teacher.

Auditory Cues

Students often benefit from auditory warnings and auditory cues built into a daily routine.

Transitions 
Give a 2 to 5 minute warning prior to a change in the schedule- a timer, a bell, a special song
Give a signal when it is time to start an activity- clap your hands, ask students to repeat a phrase
Have a special auditory signal for the beginning or end of the school day
When traveling to different activities sing a song such as the Ants Go Marching

Learning Songs
Circle Time- a morning greeting song, a routine song or rhyme to start the day, sing the days of the week
Math and Reading- the alphabet song is an excellent example of an early reading song, there are numerous counting songs available, and even multiplication rhymes if you search for them!  School house rock is still around!
Social Studies and Science- throw in some key sounds in Science during experiments, find a song for the water cycle, etc.

Unstructured Times
Have calming music playing during nap or indoor play time
Have an auditory signal to indicate when the class is getting too noisy
Have an auditory signal when the whole class attention is needed

This is a great explanation of how to teach your students how to respond to an auditory signal.  Remember that just because you are using a signal at a certain time, doesn't mean that your students understand how to respond to it.  It involves direct instruction.