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!

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

• Art: create multimedia tactile symbols for each character in the Wizard of Oz to use with the sensory stories
• Science:  Will the Wind Blow it Off? Experiment
• English/Language Arts:  News-2-You from September 2009 (If time read about F.L.Baum)
• Math:  Sequence the Story of the Wizard of Oz
• Cooking:  Emerald City Pie
• Leisure:  Wizard of Oz Dominoes (made by my amazing assistant teacher/artist in residence)

Week Two

• Sensory Story Part One: Dorothy in Kansas until her House Lands in Oz Power Point and Script
• Art:  Switch Adapted Spin Art in Rainbow Colors
• Science: Tornado Tubes
• English/Language Arts: "Dorothy is... I am..." Writing Assignment (compare and contrast)
• Math:  Survey and Graph "How many people living in your house?"
• Cooking:  Kansas Honey Shortbread (Kansas's state insect is the bee)
• Life Skills:  Would you find it in a house? Sorting Activity
• Leisure:  Tornado Bingo (log into Boardmaker Share to download)

Week Three

• Sensory Story Part Two:  Meeting Glinda through Meeting the Scarecrow Power Point and Script
• Art: Scarecrows (if time Crow Paper Weights)
• English/Language Arts:  "If I had Ruby Slippers..."
• Math:  Would the Ruby Slippers Fit You?  Measuring Shoe Sizes
• Cooking:  Mini Witch Leg Cookies
• Life Skills:  
• Leisure: Teacher Made Board Game

Week Four

• Sensory Story Part Three: The Mean Apple Trees through the Field of Poppies (including meeting the Tin Man and the Lion)
• Art: Coffee Filter Poppies
• English/Language Arts:  "If I only had a ________.  I would ______." Writing Activity
• Math:  Measuring and Graphing: How far can you throw an apple?
• Cooking: Microwave Applesauce (Log into Boardmaker Share)
• Life Skills:  Nice vs. Mean sorting activity
• Leisure: Wizard Of Oz--Uno

Week Five

• Sensory Story Part Four: Emerald City and the first interaction with the Wizard Power Point and Script
• Art: DIY Shrinky Dink Art (tracing coloring pages)
• English/Language Arts:  Poems with Wizard of Oz Vocabulary
• Math: Venn Diagram Sorting - Household Item or Transportation? (With a broom being both!)
• Cooking: Emerald Rice Crispy Treats 
• Life Skills:  Sorting green vs. yellow
• Leisure: Wizard of Oz Bingo

Week Six

• 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:

• Wizard of Oz by Magic Ink - Interactive Storybook
• The Wizard of Oz by Blue Finger - Interactive Storybook
• Wizard of Oz Memory Match 
• Wizard of Oz Sound Board
  

Free Switch Activities for Learners with Severe or Profound Special Needs

Updated 11/18/2012
New: Doorways Online, Sensory Stories, Fisher Price Infant Games, Ian 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):

• Fisher Price Infant Games*
• Help Kidz Learn*
• Hiyah*
• Ian Bean* (Downloads)
• Kneebouncers*
• Priory Woods Videos Revamped*
• Learning Tools (scroll down)*
• Owlie Boo* (any of the activities under "Pressing Keys" with switch set to space bar or enter)
• Rock Paper Scissors
• Mother Goose
• Bugs
• Musical Monkey
• Transportation
• NGFL Snap Matching Activity (teacher must set up, but arrow over the "Snap" button)
• SEN/Switcher*
• Sensory Stories (Downloads)
• Shiny Learning
• Balloon Bang
• Christmas Singing Sheep
• Press to Move
• Silly Books (look for the "click through books" and set mouse arrow over "next")
• Special Bites*
• Build a Snowman
• Christmas Stocking Magic
• Discover What is in the Garden
• Humble Brussel Sprouts
• Penalty Shoot Out One Switch Wonder
• Roast the Turkey
• Rudolph Gets a Fright
• Rudolph Melts the Snowman

Single Switch Scanning/Timed Single Switch Response (sites may include some cause and effect games as well):

• A Sliding Puzzle for Helen (download)*
• Bullseye
• CBBC*
• CBeebies*
• Cow Jumped Over the Moon 
• Doorway Online
• Pelmanism (memory)
• Same or Different?
• Moving Targets
• ePlayground (four completely accessible games)
• Help Kidz Learn*
• Ian Bean* (Downloads)
• Learn about the Rainforest
• Mother Goose
• Jack Be Nimble
• My Switch Games by Scott McKay*
• NGfL Switch Coloring*
• Papunet*
• Priory Woods Kids Only*
• Penalty Shoot Out (Soccer)
• 10 Fat Sausages
• African Sounds
• Bugz
• Farmyard Sounds
• Find Out About Shapes
• 5 Little Ducks
• 5 Little Speckled Frogs
• 5 Naughty Monkeys
• Tooting Reindeer
• SEN/Switcher*
• Shiny Learning *
• Blast the Pirate Ship
• Car Crusher
• Crazy Chicken
• Fireworks
• Fly Swatter
• Special Bites*
• Baseball Switch Game
• Baseball and Spikeys
• Baseball and Pumpkins
• SwitchedOn Games Bowling 
• Switch Music 
• Switch Recycle Sort
• Tar Heel Typer (online switch keyboard) 
• The Great Fish Race (download only)

Two Switches (unless otherwise noted you must click in the area of the game and then use tab and enter to play):

• Accessible Book Launcher*
• Bug Memory
• Fruit Memory
• Space Memory
• Sensory House (tab and enter)*
• Special Bites* 
• Tar Heel Typer (online switch keyboard)

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.

Your Special Chef

A lot of special needs bloggers have shared this resource and I want to pass it along as well.

Your Special Chef is a great website designed as a Gold Award Girl Scout Project by the Anna Moyer, the sister of a young man with Down Syndrome.  (As a Gold Award Girl Scout myself hats off to Anna Moyer!)  The site has lots of great resources including picture recipes, articles about adapted cooking tools and You Tube videos of adapted cooking in action.

Check it out!

Three Click Free Games

From our friends at Juegos Atención Temprana here are three "click free" games that are great for touchscreens, early mouse skills and head trackers. As a bonus all three work as a cause and effect with a switch set to "tab"!

Bugs, Transportation and Musical Monkey can be great fun!

Switch Climber

Switch Climber is a subscription based, online curriculum for teaching switch skills to learners with special needs. 

Developed by a SLP/AT Specialist, Switch Climber has five levels of activities working through cause and effect to advanced scanning methods.   Activities are designed to be age appropriate across all levels and accessible to those with multiple disabilities such as visual impairment.  Switch Climber also has a nice blog you can check out to learn more about switches and related topics.

Switch Climber costs $14.95 a month and you can "try-before-you-buy" with a free two week subscription.  These subscriptions are per learner.  Teachers and schools may be interested in group subscriptions.

Personally I am hoping that Switch Climber ads an app with compatibility to the iOS switches on the market so the programs can also be used on iPads and maybe even Android devices.

Below you can find one of the many Switch CLimber videos on Youtube:

Eyegaze Apps

The products seen in this video are the first steps towards a comprehensive curriculum to teach purposeful eye gaze interaction leading to eye gaze controlled communication and computing.  We have road maps and progressions to teach keyboards and switch skills but this will be important for us to teach learners what they need to access an eye gaze controlled device.  Amazing.

The computers seen here are the Tobii PC Eye, the software is by Sensory Guru and the interactive floor mat is a Magic Carpet.