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!).

Google Wave Invite Give-away!

I have 8 Google Wave Invites to give away.  Comment with your e-mail address and I will send one to you.  First come, first served, when they are gone they are gone.

Recordable Storybook

Hallmark is now offering 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, All the Ways I Love You and Bright and Beautiful in their new Recordable Storybook format. 

These books allow a parent, grandparent or other to record themselves reading the story and have that recording played back automatically as the pages of the book are turned.  A flip of a switch "locks" the recording in even if the batteries die.  A very cool idea when used in the way intended, but possibly even cooler if you start thinking about it as an AT adaptable.

You could print out a social story on full page labels, stick over the pictures and record the text.  You could do the same with the steps of a routine such as a life skills routine or vocational task and the book will automatically play the next step when you turn the page.

Hallmark's recordable storybooks retail for $29.99. 

"A Christmas Carol" Theme Unit

This blog entry is a work in progress, feel free to comment to contribute!

For the month of December (as there is not a full Unique Curriculum Unit and I am missing creating my own units) my class will be doing a unit on "A Christmas Carol".  We will be working from Pete's Sensory Story version and most of our activities will stem from that simple retelling.  Here are some of the resources we will use.

Pete's Sensory Stories - A Christmas Carol
This sensory story version is a slide show with sound effects and simple animations which is activated by switch.  Meanwhile the teacher reads from the script which comes with the slideshow while the teacher and aides expose the students to related sensory experiences, like touching a chain or smelling cinnamon.  I will also have large TOBI (true object based icons) of the characters which have textures added to them for the students.


Multi-Media
Audio Retellings
Our classroom iPod will also be loaded with a couple of audio versions of the story.

• Storynory "A Christmas Carol" free  
• Wired for Books "A Christmas Carol" free

Videos

• About.com's listing of A Christmas Carol videos
  

Academics

Math

• patterns of either real cranberries and popcorn in garland (note: this is a CHOKE HAZARD do not use if students may place items in mouth) or symbols/photos of popcorn and cranberries
• add and subtract sets to 5, 10 or 20 using chocolate gold coins (or symbols of them)
  

History

• learn about Charles Dickens in this animation
• learn about the 1800s (Victorian times)
  
• learn about Christmas in England

Life Skills

• using Victorian Paper Dolls practice dressing for the weather and compare and contrast clothes now vs. then
  

Arts and Crafts

• cranberry and popcorn garland (note: this is a CHOKE HAZARD do not use if students may place items in mouth) or make other dried fruit garland (in the Victorian era all sorts of dried fruit were used)
  
• make Christmas Crackers (video directions)
  

Sensory

• bin of cranberries and popcorn (note: this is a CHOKE HAZARD do not use if students may place items in mouth)
  

Vocational

• shop for and package hygiene items into kits to give to a homeless shelter (Dickens was the benefactor of a shelter for women)
  

Cooking

• Christmas Pudding
• Fig or Plum Pudding
• Roasted Chestnuts
• Marizpan
  

Community Based Instruction

• See a local production of A Christmas Carol
• See the movie version of A Christmas Carol
• Bring donations to a charity in the community

CC Bingo     

2010 Calendars from Mayer-Johnson

Calendars for 2010 are now available for use with the Boardmaker family of software from Adapted Learning.  Log in and click here.  (Adapted Learning is the sharing community for the Boardmaker software series.)

Thank You

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

And a special thank you to my new friends and colleagues as well as the parents and students at my new job!  I feel blessed every day to be working with such wonderful people and to have the privilege of teaching such fantastic students.

As we enter the busy rush of the holiday season may we all find peace, joy and contentment.

Healing Hiatus

Long Version of Story:
In what has to be one of the most bizarre things to happen to me yet last night I was mauled in the left hand (at the base of my thumb mostly) by this neighborhood stray cat I pet frequently.  If you have never been bitten, forget mauled, by an animal let me give some news, it hurts. 

I drove myself, in my pjs (since I had run down to put out the trash in my pjs) to the ER with my hand wrapped in some blood soaked gauze.   Treatment started with a wash of the bites (there are about eleven of them) and a hand soak in a betadine solution.  Since the feline in question was both unknown to me and whereabouts unknown I was treated immediately for both possible bacterial infections and rabies. Yup, rabies.  Forget what you learned on Different Strokes, the injections were not in my stomach.  Ten injections of Rabies Immunoglobin were given into my backside, thighs, upper arms and into the wounds.  Then the first of five rabies vaccines was given DIRECTLY INTO THE WOUNDS, that would be along my thumb joint.  The vaccine is about the thickness of corn syrup and it was took multiple "sticks" to get it all into the swollen and unyielding joint area.  Then I was given a tetanus shot.  I also had two IV drips of anti-biotics.  Nausea inducing anti-biotics.  Finally I was bandaged, given the dates for my future returns to the ER for more rabies vaccinations, and told that at my third visit I will be sent to see a surgeon if I am still unable move my thumb.  My good hand full of prescriptions and a note to return to work I headed home, it was about 3:30 AM.

Touch typing is impossible, so I have done this via one handed hunt and peck.  I am exhausted from the medications and nauseous from the anti-biotics.  Thus,

Short Verion of the Story:

I am taking a blog hiatus to recover.  I plan to return either after Thanksgiving or after my last rabies vaccine injection (12/17) when ever I feel the closest to "myself" again.

Kate