New Activities at Help Kidz Learn

Help Kidz Learn has three new activities up. Plus they have moved their Advent Calendar back to the front of the line up for the season.  The Advent Calendar is a good add-on to a morning meeting routine on a "Big Screen".

All three of the new games are designed to teach waiting to press the switch until a visual/auditory cue occurs.  These games are all great to teach "switch happy" users to slow down, look and listen before pressing their switch.

Coconut Shy is a switch game where you wait until a ball appears to "throw" it at the coconuts atop the sticks, no need to aim.  This game is create to teach students to wait to press their switch, in this case to wait for the auditory and visual cue that the ball has appeared.

Gophers Down a Drain Pipe is a similar game, in that it also teaches waiting.  In this case the student must wait for the Gopher to slide down the inside of the pipe and appear to whack it with a newspaper!  In both Coconut Shy and Gophers the teacher can set how long until the "reveal".

Mystery Egg is probably the simplest of the new games, students need only wait until the mystery egg pops onto the screen to press their switch and crack it open to revel a dancing character (in a way this one brought back some unwelcome flashbacks of "Teen Tunes" from the 1990's for me - I think my student will need to use headphone with this one!).

60 Things to Do With a Single Switch

Things to Do With a Switch and a Battery Interrupter


(Just insert the metal disc of the interrupter between the battery head and the receiver and plug in a switch, does not generally work with anything that recharges. Also, when using a battery adapted it will just turn the item on an off making things like a stapler or pencil sharpener "partner" activities. You may need to tape, glue or velcro down the devices built in power switch if you want it to be an independent activity. Many of these items are available at dollar, discount and salvage stores as well as flea markets. It generally costs less to adapt them yourself. Save your school budget for things you can't pick up for cheap.)

1. cut with battery operated scissors (pre-adapted)

2. have a race with toys that walk accessed through the switch (pre-adapted)

3. use walking switch toys to knock down block tower

4. use an adapted remote control car to knock down towers

5. put paint on the wheels of the adapted remote control car and drive over paper to make a painting

6. use a battery run electric razor and remove the pills from sweaters

7. turn on and off a hand held massager to give massages or to shake a box filled with paint covered marbles

8. turn on and off a flashlight (point it under your face and tell ghost stories, hit another switch to play ghost stories)

9. turn on and off battery operated holiday lights decorating your wheelchair

10. blow bubbles on your adapted battery run bubble blower

11. staple things

12. turn on and off a mini-tv

13. stir a drink

14. sift flour

15. be in charge of the pencil sharpener

16. dry your nails

17. open mail

18. sharpen the crayons

19. vacuum up bugs or dust bunnies

20. scare the pants off someone

21. make something spin in circles

22. cool off

23. spray a mix of water and food coloring over a stencil to paint

24. take a bubble bath

25. make spin art

Using a Switch and an Electric Power Adapter

(The Powerlink from Ablenet and the Electra from Tash with both interrupt the power to electric {plug in} devices and can be set to direct, timed or latch {first hit turns on, second turns off}. Oh, don't use it with high power items like microwaves!)

26. cool off with a plug in fan, attach streamers and watch them blow

27. make sailboats, place in a long underbed storage box of water, set up fans with switches, use fans to make wind, race the boats

28. turn on and off the lights in a haunted house

29. be the D.J.

30. use hair dryers to dry paintings

31. go apple picking then use a juicer with a switch to make juice

32. make ice cream shakes, use food coloring to make a color to go with your holiday theme, sell them for two dollars

33. use a food processor to mix up the ingredients to make recycled paper, use your fans to dry it

34. grind up oreos in a grinder or food processor to make "dirt"

35. turn on holiday lights or a holiday fiber optic tree

36. run a foot massager

37. use the switch and the overhead projector to shine a light onto a friend and trace silhouettes


38. make a funky sixties or seventies space by running lava lamps, a liquid projector, and groovy music all by switches

39. run a fog lamp to make the room spooky or mist-i-cal

40. turn on the black lights with all of your glow in the dark stuff around, make your own planetarium

41. use that sewing machine and make some curtains (or aprons...)

42. plug in one red light and one green light - now the switch user runs gym class

43. shave people's heads for a dollar during spirit week

Things to do with specially adapted devices and a switch:

44-48. use a pouring cup to pour cooking ingredients, art supplies like glitter, to pour sand in the sand box, to measure for science experiments to to dump water over your friends head
49. Use and iScan to run your iPod

50. change the tv channels

51. listen to CDs

52. be a bookworm

55. spin

56. be a high roller

57. ring my bell or bells

58. bowl

59. scoot

60. joke