News-2-You Introduces SymbolStix Online

The folks who bring us News-2-You and Unique Learning Systems are now offering their symbols subscription style online for $99 (the price will rise to $129 eventually). SymbolStix are the Symbols used in the News-2-You papers, Unique Learning System, the Proloquo2Go iPhone/iPod Touch AAC App, the Tobii AAC products (the C Series), AMDi Overlay Designer Pro, Jabbla AAC devices, PCI Printed Books and also is among the symbols offered on Pogo Boards. More and more our students are becoming familiar with SymbolStix.

SymbolStix Online will allow subscribers to use a simple search to find and then download symbols in any of their choice of a variety of formats for import into other communication or board designing programs (Boardmaker, PhotoSYMS) or a regular office program.

The SymbolStix collection has 12,000 symbols and grows as News-2-You papers and Unique Learning System Units are produced. Currently SymbolStix are in six languages. If there isn't a symbol you need it can be requested online.

As a user of Unique Learning System, News-2-You and Proloquo2Go I am excited to get to stop taking screenshots of SymbolStix on PDFs and then cut them and paste them into Boardmaker to enlarge them for my students with low vision. This should substantially lower my work load.

I do wish there was a week long free trial to allow us to try before we buy, especially since we can get SymbolStix at PogoBoards if we wish.

Interesting News from News-2-You

The News-2-You folks made some big announcements today for all of their products: News-2-You, Unique Learning and SymbolStix.

News-2-You

• More activities at the Fun Site (and praise be to heavens Joey's Date and Weather Activity is back! My class was lost at the end of the year last year when it suddenly disappeared two weeks before school was over! Every day we would get to the part where you need to dress Joey and I make the same (tired and for that matter stolen from my former student teacher) joke, "Oh, no! Joey is NAKED! Quick! Put some pants on him!" I do hope Naked Joey never goes missing again!)
• More Level 3 Worksheets (that is the highest level)
• Weekly Power Point
• More links to pictures, websites and videos (less blogging for me!)
  
• More communication boards and AAC Device Overlays (Go Talks? Please say Go Talks!)
• More word strips for communication

Unique Learning

• Progress Monitoring (Pre/Post Checks, Content Monitoring)
• Guiding reading and leveled books
• One click download
• Further alignment and integration with News-2-You
• Dolch/Fry combined word lists for high frequency words

SymbolStix

• SymbolStix Online subscription service to download 12,000 SymbolStix Symbols available this fall for a starting price of $99 (I hope I get to try it out and review for this site)
• Tobii SymbolMate software to create printed materials using SymbolStix symbols (AAC boards, games, schedules, books, etc)

TLWMSN Comments
I am worried about content in News-2-You, but more so in Unique, for the learners with very significant disabilities here are some things I hope to see added:

• The addition of an Access Level/Sensory Level/Entry Level to all the grades that address things like cause and effect, sensory awareness, early cognitive development and other skills our learners may be working on
• Extremely relevant and concrete vocabulary, perhaps use of photos with SymbolStix to teach the symbols
  
• Links to online activities on this level
  
• Some way for teachers of those with more intensive special needs to share adapted materials; we know we will likely have to do the adapting ourselves, but it would be nice if we didn't also have to create the web spaces to share what we adapt.
• Activities on the cause/effect or simple 2-4 field choice making level made in Classroom Suite, Power Point, Switch It or Choose It (and if it is Classroom Suite it will need to come with Classroom Suite Player, the others have the players available for free)
  
• Perhaps some kind of partnership with a company like Aimee Solutions that addresses students with this level of need and offers things like error-free switch writing activities and repeating line books for use with a Big Mack switch (I will be using the Aimee Solutions My Country Software Set to supplement Unique's September government unit.)
  

Resources for this Week's News-2-You: Kobe and LeBron

On the Web:

• Basketball.com
• NBA.com
• NBA Kids
• Jr. NBA
  

Adaptive Technology:

• Play Hoop Stars at HelpKidzLearn
• Kobe Bryant Tar Heel Reader Book (search for Tar Heel Reader Books)
• With students create a Power Point, SwitchIt Maker or similar program with pictures of Kobe and LeBron, set to "We are the Champions" or another favorite and run with switches
  

Sensory:

• Basketball Jars/Bottles - using large clean clear plastic jars or bottles (i.e. mayo, peanut butter water bottle or new dollar store jars) make Basketball sensory jars. Option one: offer students small objects to sort into "you find it at a basketball game" or "you don't find it at a basketball game" include things like a small toy basket ball, pieces of a cut up net/hoop, pop corn, a mini sneaker, cheerleader pom pom, etc. once objects are sorted put into jar and hot glue the lid on. Option 2: fill a water bottle with 10 parts water or clear corn syrup. Add beads and confetti from the craft or party store in a basketball theme. Hot glue the lid on and shake away. Sensory Bottles Link.
  

Adapted PE:

• Play table top pong pong basketball
• Play trash can basketball (with or without one of those little clip on hoops you can get at discount stores) or another version of adapted basketball
  
• Have a basketball obstacle course which includes skills appropriate to your population (bouncing, dribbling, lift the ball over head, pass the ball, roll the ball, etc.)
• Play other ball games with a basketball (instead of hot potato play burning basketball, etc.)
  

Arts and Crafts:

• Tissue Paper Basket Ball Collage
• Billy Basketball at DLTK (good project to review body parts)
• purchase a bunch of dollar/discount store toy/mini basketballs and do some "marble" painting
  

Life Skills:

• work on personal information by making "Basketball Trading Cards" that include name, birth date and other "stats"
  

Math:

• while playing any of the adapted PE games or Hoop Stars online keep score and work on counting, adding or probability
• recruit some peer buddies to have a shoot out, again work on counting, adding and probability
• collect various objects about half of which are spheres and half of which are not sort them into "ball" and "not ball"

Don't forget to check Adapted Learning and Classroom Suite Sharing for activities. Join the Adapted Learning News-2-You Group if you make Boardmaker, Boardmaker Plus or Boardmaker SDP News-2-You activities. (You must login in to Adapted Learning and then click on link.)

Free Unique Summer Curriculum

Unique Learning System, the standards aligned special needs curriculum from the folks who bring us News-2-You and SymbolStix Symbols, are offering their summer curriculum for FREE! The unit is on science and is definitely worth checking out even if you aren't teaching this summer.

All you need to do is register and then you can download all the bands (grade levels).

Resources for this Week's News-2-You: City Bikes

City Bikes

General Resources

• Bixi System
• Bixi.com
  
• Bixi on Wikipedia
• Video Clip of Bixi Bike

Science

• EPA Kids Air Pollution Page
• What is Air Pollution? (PDF)
• Clean and Dirty Air
• Air Pollution Reading with Quiz

Life Skills/Social Studies

• Bike Safety
• Street Sign Worksheet
• Sign Shapes
• Online Traffic Sign Quiz
• Street Sign Photo Slide Show
• Street Sign Gallery Quiz

Arts and Crafts

• make street signs (then use in adapted P.E. see below)
  

Adapted P.E.

• make an obstacle course where students follow street signs they have made (can be on bikes if you have any riders
• pedal palooza - have students pedal either using hand pedalers, stationary bikes, adapted bikes or regular bikes - earn points for minutes pedaled and give prizes

Sensory

• set up several fans with switches and attach crepe paper and foil streamers (connection - clean air)
• get some remote control toy bike (toy motorcycles are fine) and adapt for switches or run via IR on AAC devices hold races or derbies

Resources for this Week's News-2-You: We Shall Remain

General Resources

• We Shall Remain Website at PBS
• Apache Information
• Shawnee Indian Facts for Kids
• Kids Info: Native Americans
• Power Points about American Indians
  

Interactive White Board/Touch Screen

• Native Tech
  

Arts and Crafts

• Enchanted Learning Native American Crafts
• About.com Native American Crafts
  

Apapted PE

• Apache Toe Toss Stick and Foot Toss Ball (Scroll Down)
• Music and Movement (Free native music, Buffalo Trails, Last FM - you can use a switch to press play/pause on the computer or with a Powerlink and CD Player)
• Native Ball Games
  

Fine Motor

• Ball and Triangle Game
• Native Guessing Games
• Native Hazard Games
  
• Coloring Pages (with literacy ideas)
  

Cooking

• Teacher's First Native Recipes
• Recipe Links
  

Resources for this Week's News-2-You: Tiger Woods

Internet Resources

• Role Model on the Web: Tiger Woods
• Kids Choice Awards Tiger Woods Profile and Video/Quiz
• Tiger Woods Official Site
• Video of Tiger at his kids center on CBS news
• Single Switch Golf Games at One Switch
• online coloring of a golf picture
• World Almanac for Kids: Golf History

Math

• work on one to one correspondence by matching one golf ball to one tee (hammer the tees into florist foam so they will stand up)
• count out sets of nine or eighteen tees
• using colored tees extend or make patterns
• do a golf maze
• work on estimation by filling a jar with golf balls or tees and having a guessing contest
• work on probability by filling a box with assorted color tees and graphing the probability of pulling out a certain color
  

Science

• work on measurement by putting golf balls (real or foam) and measuring how far they go, then compare and graph

Social Studies

• study the history of golf
  

English/Language Arts

• golf word search (easier) and another
  
• golf word search (hard)
  

Arts and Crafts

• golf yarn bug
• golf bear craft
• golf ball painting (put a large sheet of paper in a cardboard box and secure with tape, using adapted pouring cup have student pour in some paint of their favorite color, drop in several golf ball and have students shake the box from side to side to "paint"
• golf picture frame
• table top mini golf
• golf coloring page and here is another and here is a whole set
  

Sensory

• sensory box filled with sand, tees and golf balls - even more fun with grass (real or fake)
• hit golf balls (or larger balls) from a tee (or water jug, or other DIY tee) with a real or toy golf club (or just hands or feet) from a platform swing
  

Adapted P.E.

• indoor mini-golf
• adapted driving range practice
• table top mini golf
• do some golf stretches
  

Cooking

• iced "tee"
• titlest cheese balls (scroll down, aqua colored box)
  

Community Based Instruction

• local driving range
• miniature golf
• sports store to do a golf equipment scavenger hunt
  

Resources for This Week's News-2-You: Monsters vs. Aliens

Computer Resources:

• Monsters vs. Aliens Website (includes trailer, "Make a Monster" activity, a movie about 3-D, widget and more, crafts, party things)
• Monsters vs. Aliens Trailers
• Monsters vs. Aliens at Wikipedia
• Monsters vs. Aliens Video Game
  
• Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum (in San Francisco, the setting of the movie)
  

Language Arts/Communication:

• work on adjectives such as straight vs. crooked by studying sites in San Francisco like Lombard Street (the world's crookedest street) or work on prepositions like on and off and over and under by looking a various pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and describe things like, "The boat is under the bridge" or "The car is on the bridge"
• work on vocabulary using the "Dossiers" section of the Monsters vs. Aliens website and matching symbols for adjectives describing the various characters with the characters themselves

Cooking:

• make Sourdough Bread, like that sold at Boudin Bakery on Fisherman's Wharf, this is a process will take a couple of days with a science tie-in
• There are three cooking ideas in the activity guide
  

science:

• learn about Sourdough Bread and yeast at Kipipedia, Zoom, B is for Bread, eZine, StarChef (a fun tie in is to consider yeast as a monster - The Yeast Beast!)
• study 3-D using the video at the Monsters vs. Aliens website and Journal of Young Investigators, How 3-D Works, How Stuff Works
  

Arts and Crafts

• There are lots and lots of Monsters vs. Aliens crafts at their website, check out this PDF Activity Guide
• There are also crafts based on the movie at HP.com/create
• Make use construction paper, markers and other craft materials to make a fun "yeast beast" cell as a project
• Make spoon monsters
• Monsters. vs. Aliens Coloring Pages
  

Adapted P.E.:

• capture the flag monsters vs. aliens style (one team is monster and one aliens - consider costumes!)
  
• tag monsters vs. aliens style
  

Be sure to check out Adapted Learning and The Classroom Suite Activity Exchange for more things to do in the classroom.

Resources for this Week's News-2-You: The Kids Choice Awards'

This week's theme for News-2-You is the Kid's Choice Awards on Nickelodeon. I am not sure I will use this week's News-2-You for a variety of reasons, among them that it is not totally age appropriate for high school students (I can't think of any other high school student in our building who would care remotely about this topic) and there are some serious equality issues in the Nick's Choice award (i.e. an under-representation of girls/women in categories that represent both sexes and a lack of representation of people with disabilities), the controversy over Chris Brown, and the idea of promoting television and video games (to their credit their is a favorite book category). My class just finished up with the "Water for Africa" News-2-You so we can do the Buzzards edition this week or we may skip altogether and focus on St. Patrick's Day (a big deal in the Boston area).

That being said for the late elementary and 'tween set I can see the value of the Kids' Choice Awards in opening up these students to age appropriate interests, liking Miley Cyrus is a lot better than still being into Barney or Dora at ten or eleven years old, while liking Miley Cyrus at seventeen is the kiss of death socially. Thus here are resources for this week's News-2-You.

Online Resources:

• Kids' Choice Award Main Website
• Kids' Choice Award Nominees Website
• Kids' Choice Press Kit (get images to import into Boardmaker)
• Wikipedia Kids' Choice Award Entry
• animated Kaleidoscope Page (could be fun on a "big screen")
• Kaleidoscope Painter (works with touch screen/interactive white board)
• touch screen or mouse cause and effect kaleidoscope or here or here
  

Videos

• 2008 Kids' Choice Award Video at Daily Motion
• 2009 Kids' Choice Video's at Nickelodeon
• Projection kaleidoscope videos
  

Intregrated Academic Idea

• hold your own Kids' Choice Award either with the same nominees as the really Kids' Choice Awards or with school based nominees (best teacher, best book in the library, best school lunch served). Work on choice making during voting, counting when you figure out the winners and communication as students write about who the winners are in an announcement.

Sensory

• green slime in the sensory table of course! Here are some slime recipes. or here.
  
• if you don't want to be that messy you can fill plastic ziploc bags with green slime (or green hair gel) and small plastic objects from pop culture in a "eye spy" sensory bag
• green slime sensory bottles (corn starch in water or soda bottle with green food coloring and small objects)

Cooking

• slime punch (obviously leave out the vodka)
• slime drinks (green Gatorade and sprite with lime sherbert or not)
  
• edible green slime (pudding - contains nuts)
• 7-Up Slime Salad
  

Crafts

• Kaleidoscope or here or here
  

Science

• learn about light with your kaleidoscope
• read about how kaleidoscope work
  
• spinning blimp experiment

Don't forget to check Adapted Learning and the Classroom Suite Exchange.

News-2-You and Unique Curriculum

Alicia over at SMD teacher has a great post up with resources for next weeks News-2-You and information about the free offer to try News-2-You's Unique Curriculum for the summer. Be sure to check it out!

Resources for this Week's News-2-You: Water for Africa

Crafts:

• DTLK African Crafts for Kids
• African Masks
  

Online and Computer Based Activities:

• Africa at Pete's PowerPoint
• PBS Kids - Africa (great site)
• Time for Kids - South Africa
• Clean Water, Clear Choice
  

Video a Day (you may need to download videos and show off line if video sites are blocked)

• Play Pumps Videos
  
• Soweto Gospel Choir
• South African Children Dancing
• African Children's Choir
  

Science

• have children add green glitter to cups of water to represent germs (review germs from the news-2-you flu unit) and offer them a variety of materials to use to attempt to filter out the germs such as a coffee filter, burlap, and cheesecloth. Compare the results of filtered to unfiltered water. Possible embedded concepts - clean vs. dirty, conservation of liquids, more and less, sanitation in relation to hygiene and clean water
• collect a variety of actual pumps such as hand soap pumps, the pump off of a large container of laundry detergent, bicycle pump or the pump part of a water gun (you may need to break it apart) have students predict what will happen if they activate the pump and then compare to what actually happens. Possible embedded concepts - up and down, press, stop and go
  

Sensory

• after you make drums you can dance and play to South African music
• fill a sensory tub with water and various pumps (see science) and allow students to explore. Possible embedded concepts - wet vs. dry, hot vs. cold, up vs. down

Adapted Physical Education

• if your school has one go to the playground and use the merry-go-round if not try spinning on other toys/physical therapy items (sit and spin, stand pivot disc)
• try out African dancing (see videos above for ideas)
  

Resources for this Week's News-2-You: Westminster Dog Show

This week News-2-You is about the Westminster Dog Show. (Which for some reason makes me think about my thesis adviser.) Here are some resources you can use to extend your lessons.

Photos and Videos

• Westminster Kennel Club Videos
• How Stuff Works Video circa 1952
• How Stuff Works Dog Picture Slide Show
  
• News Week Video about new breed in dog show and the a Chow Chow prepping for the show)

Articles for Kids

• National Geographic for Kids - Story with Photos
• Scholastic - Article with Photos

Crafts

• Danielle's Place Dog Crafts for Kids
• DLTK's Dog Coloring Pages, Crafts and Recipes
• Kid's Craft Zone

Adaptive PE

• Obstacle course designed just for your learners (or with different levels for different abilities) including running/moving fast, jumping/rolling over, turning and more - students with significant physical challenges might enjoy being the "trainer" for typical peer or staff
  

Sensory/ADLs

• dog shadow puppets on a light box
• fill a sensory box with (edible for human consumption just in case) dog bones, dog toys and collars/leashes
• do some primping like the dogs do - washing hair and blow drying, combing/brushing, nail care, etc.

Don't forget Adapted Learning (there are already activities uploaded) and the Intellitools Exchange.

Resources for this Week's News-2-You: Jackie Robinson

General

• The Official Jackie Robinson Site
• The TIME 100
  

Multi-Media

• Free BrainPop Movie (this one is not longer free as of 2/3/09 sorry)
  
• CNN (video clip)
• MLB (video and speech clips)
  
• Biography Channel (video)
• Adapted Learning Activity (you must be logged in)
  

Biographies

• Time for Kids
• My Hero

Timelines

• Scholastic

PowerPoints

• Jackie Robinson
• Jackie Robinson

Educational Readings/Worksheets

• ABC Teach (members only)
• Ed Helper

Sensory Ideas

• switch activated "Take me out to the ball game"
• sensory box filled with sand, bases or pieces of bases, the soles of old baseball cleats, baseball caps (especially Dogders since that is what Jackie Robinson played for) baseballs, and bats (or miniatures of these things)
• switch activated slide shows set to music of baseball items, players and games

Adaptive PE

• Baseball of course, throwing baseballs, swinging a bat, hitting a ball off a T of some kind (try a large traffic cone)

Music

• Take Me Out to the Ball Game
• National Anthem
• See the song list from this CD on Amazon for more ideas
  

Obamicon.me

Obamicon.me can turn photos of your students into Obama poster like images. What a fun way to end this week, whether or not you have been doing the News-2-You New President unit.

Sam Sennot has also posted some ideas over at AllTogether and my colleague across the hall told me about this interactive presidential seal via Pete's Powerpoint for higher functioning learners and her class also made an Obama symbol mosaic with that was really something by having the student cut red, white and blue out of magazines and glue them onto an Obama logo blown up and traced onto white poster board.

News-2-You on Adapted Learning

Today another teacher and I discussed how there must be a large number of people on Adapted
Learning (the Mayer-Johnson Sharing Community) who use News-2-You.

To this end I have started a new Adapted Learning Group called News-2-You, my hope is folks will use it to share News-2-You adaptations and extension activities. Please join us.

Vote for Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs in the 2008 Weblog Awards. You can vote once a day, every day! (Until January 13th.)

Double Dutch News-2-You

If you use News-2-You you should know that there is a great extension activity at Dragonfly TV. If you use the Miro player (as described in this blog entry) you can download episodes of Dragonfly TV directly into Miro player to use offline with your class.

News-2-You and Choking

Dear News-2-You,

I love your product, but what were you thinking making a whole paper about popcorn? It is on every published list of choking hazard foods I have ever seen. For example from Consumer Reports, Seattle Public Health, Texas Center for Childhood Injury Prevention, University of Michigan and the list goes on and on. Perhaps when you are choosing your topics you could stay away from things that are commonly known to be contraindicated when working with learned with intensive or multiple disabilities (which I assume are a core part of your demographic).

Sincerely, a teacher who got dirty looks from every therapist in the the building for popping pop corn to use as a visual to go with this week's News-2-You because the therapists thought I might feed it to the kids and risk their lives (as it is a top ten choking hazard)

Top Choke Hazards (in children under 4 and those with swallowing issues and how lower the risk)

• hard candy (do not allow)
  
• whole grapes (cut grapes in quarters before serving)
  
• popcorn (do not allow)
  
• gum (do not allow)
  
• whole hot dogs or slices of hot dogs (cut hot dogs in quarters the long way first)
• large pieces of meat (especially tough meat, cut into small pieces or grind)
• cheese cubes/squares (cut into very small pieces)
  
• raisins (avoid unless cooked or very soft and plump and student has very good chewing skills)
  
• raw vegetables (shred, chop or cook)
  
• seeds and pits (remove from foods before serving)
  
• nuts (do not allow)
  
• spoonfuls or dollops of peanut butter (use appropriately in small amounts as a spread, serve with a drink - the same goes for all sticky spreads)
  

Weekly Reader Ablenet Edition

Recently I had an opportunity to sample Weekly Reader Ablenet Edition. Like News-2-You it is an adapted newsletter, however, unlike News-2-You it supports inclusion in that it goes along with the standard Weekly Reader that is mailed out 32 times a year to classrooms all over the country for the past 100+ years. This way students are doing the same topics with differentiationin instruction. Here is a sample.

Also like News-2-You you go online to download most of the content, however you do receive the regular, unadapted Weekly Readers in the mail each week (and an e-mail telling you when the adapted content is available).

The content of Ablenet Edition Weekly Reader is differentiated on three levels:

1. The first level is very basic, for learners somewhere between cause and effect and emerging conceptual/linguistic knowledge. It has full literacy symbol report and the selections on the page are large and uncluttered.
2. The second level is for students with some concept knowledge and working on beginning emerging literacy.
3. The third level is for learners who need a high interest-low readability text (about mid first to late second grade level).

In addition you recieve a teacher's guide with lessons for sensory, literacy and "day-fillers" (okay they need a better name than "day-fillers", especially since the activities are not busy work and areapproproiate thematic activities - perhaps they could be renamed "thematic activities"). Themeatic activities include lessons for community based instruction, recipes, games, interviews, surveys, web links and more. If you want to view the themes for each weekly reader you can download them from Weekly Reader. It would be possible knowing the Weekly Reader themes ahead of time to plan your curriculum with the Weekly Reader topics as a base.

It appears as if the Weekly Reader Edition 2 (second grade) and the Weekly Reader Senior Edition are available from Ablenet, however most of the themes of the are the same across all of the elementary levels (K-3) so you should be able to use the Weekly Reader Edition 2 from Ablenet with any of the Weekly Reader elementary editions for inclusion. Use the link above to check the Edition 2 themes against other additions to be sure. The elementary edition comes our 32 times a year and the senior addition comes out 25 times a year.

Both News-2-You and Weekly Reader Ablenet Edition offer support for assistive technology and AAC. Ablenet comes with guidelines for using technology such as a Big Mac, a Step-by-Step, All Turn it Spinner, iTalk2, Power Link and a Super Talker with the Weekly Reader content. (I wish I had all of those things, just last week on of the teacher I mentor asked to borrow my All Turn It Spinner and i had to tell her that not only do I not have one, I have never had one. I don't have a Super Talker in the room either.) These guidlines are super for teachers new in the intensive field and have no idea what a switch is or what to do with it. The advantage that News-2-You has is the Classroom Suite Activties that can be downloaded for each newsletter. Here's hoping that Ablnet adds Clicker 5 or Boardmaker Plus, or even Classroom Suite support to their offerings.

Like News-2-You, Weekly Reader Ablnet Edition aligns to state standards and allows you to easily match standards to activties and take data for Alternative Assessment purposed. With so many similarities the major difference between Weekly Reader and News-2-You is the normalization and inclusion factor. I read Weekly Reader in elementary school, my elementary aged family members read Weekly Reader, Weekly Reader has been a staple in American schools for years and now our students can take part too. (Note: there has been some online banter on listservs that Weekly Reader is not available outside the USA, including in Canada. I would call and check before ordering outside of the USA.)

A word about the symbol support. Ablenet uses JupiterImages and News-2-You uses Symbol Stix. The free newspaper (UK based) ELive from Symbol World uses Widget Symbols. As far as I know there is not an adapted newsletter using Mayer-Johnson Picture Communication Symbols. On my wishlist is for someone, maybe Ablenet, to produce an adapted newspaper with Mayer-Johnson Picture Communication Symbols and Boardmaker Plus content.