Safety Resources

A parent directed me to this website and I just had to share. My Precious Kid is a great resource for safety materials (e.g., id bracelets, seat belt covers, child locators) for children with autism and special needs.

Feel free to let us know of other resources for our families and we'll post them here. Thanks!

Sidewalk Chalk Same/Different

We are always looking for ways to avoid over-using flash cards and table-based activities. Novel materials and activities generally lead to improved attention, enjoyment and learning rates.

For example, use sidewalk chalk to draw shapes, pictures and symbols stimuli for same/different drills. Kids can jump on shapes to give their answers.

You can also use sidewalk chalk to work on colors, shapes, big/little, and multiple discriminations (e.g., "Go find the big red triangle.").

Sidewalk chalk can also be used as a fun way to review maintenance skills.

Playdate Idea: Use sidewalk chalk to make a giant board game. Draw color cards or roll dice to move around the driveway or cul-de-sac, or up and down the sidewalk.

Thanks to Jessica Reeder for this idea!

Super Blocks

Need a new playdate idea? Have you thought about Super Blocks?

A set of small moving boxes makes a great play set for peer dates. Between play dates, boxes can be knocked down and tucked away. For just $0.67 each at Home Depot, these boxes provide great entertainment on a playdate and encourage lots of social interaction. Here are just a few of the ways that we use them:

• Build houses, forts, and tunnels!



• Building a tower taller than yourself is cool, and knocking it down is even cooler.
  



• Make a bean bag toss game. Cut different-shapes holes in each box, and place the boxes around the room. Draw corresponding shapes on index cards. Children draw cards, and have to throw their bean bag into the box with corresponding shape (use a Hula Hoop, carpet square or yarn ring as the base that children have to throw from).



• Make a collaborative building game. Draw structures on index cards. Children draw cards, and have to duplicate the structures with the super blocks.



• Paint them or decorate them.



• Use them as a play table for restaurant, desks for school, etc.
  

The ideas are endless!

Get A Jump on School!

Yes, it is the end of May and the school year is wrapping up. But summer is a great opportunity to get a jump start on the school year ahead. If your student will be starting (or continuing) preschool in the fall, there are great resources online that will give you tons of ideas for different preschool related themes.

Here are just a few great sites to check out:

Everything Preschool This site has 170 early childhood education themes! Each theme has a section with examples of songs, art activities, books, games, coloring pages, science projects, and more! Great themes for the summer include: Beaches, Vacation, Summer, Ocean, Picnic, Camping, and lots more!

Preschool Education This site is similar to the one above with lots of different themes with activities for each theme provided.

Preschool Coloring Book Who needs to buy a coloring book where you can just print out these pages related to the topics you want to teach! Great topics include bugs, camping, holidays, seasons, ocean, and more!

What if your child or student is going into Kindergarten? Many similar resources exist online too.

Check out Teaching First. This website has it all! Some examples...

* California Kindergarten State Standards
* List of fun learning sites for kids to use
* Word Wall Activities for school and home

A to Z Teacher Stuff for Teachers This site has lots of information for teachers for both preschool and kindergarten.

Kingergarten Lessons Another site with a wealth of information! Lots of lesson plans for both home and school. It also reviews many concepts that students will be learning in Kindergarten (e.g., math, reading and literacy, science) and provides lots of examples of how to teach these skills.

Any other sites that you would recommend? Let us know!

Got Flickr?

Is everyone aware of Flickr?

Flickr is a photo/image hosting site where users upload and share their pictures. Our staff has also discovered that it is a great site to access pictures for GENERALIZATION!

Generalizing and responding to multiple stimuli is so important for children with autism. This site is a great place to get 1000's of images of places, animals, firefighters, etc.



No more searching for that perfect set of community helpers cards. You can make your own.



Location pictures ready when you need them! So much easier than going to take pictures at each location.



Flickr is a great tool for materials!

Creative Token Economy Systems

Often as our students get older the activities they are motivated by are not so easy as running to the backyard to jump on the trampoline or playing a video game. We need to be a bit more creative if we are going to have them earn a trip to the beach or Jamba Juice.

For one of our Kindergarten students (who loves snakes by the way!), his team developed an elaborate token system.


He earned pennies for completing and participating in certain activities appropriately. He could trade his pennies in for different activities, but the more exciting activities (e.g., a trip to Jamba Juice) cost more. There were also certain inappropriate behaviors that would "cost" him pennies (e.g., hitting a sibling would involve losing a certain number of pennies).

Less motivating activities required fewer pennies.

In addition to expanding his repertoire of reinforcers, this type of token economy also reinforces his ability to delay immediate reinforcement. Students gradually learn that in some situations it is worth it to pass up one activity for a more desirable activity.

There are lots of ways to be creative when setting up a token economy system. This is just one!

Generalizing Social Thinking Concepts

If you are familiar with Michelle Garcia Winner's Social Thinking Concepts, then you know that it is important to generalize these concepts across all environments. One of our student's teams came up with the idea to have a social thinking notebook for him so that whenever situations occurred they could write about them in the notebook.

For example, there is a page that reads, "I am a superflex kid when I....." that they continually add to as situations come up (e.g., when I let my sister play with the toys I am playing with, when I let my friends pretend to be who they want to be). There is also a page that has examples of when he is not a superflex kid.

Another example is a 5-point emotional scale page that they continually add to.

One aspect that has worked well is that as situations are repeated or occur again, the tutors or parents can encourage him to reference his notebook (e.g., in regards to a behavior mapping question to how will your friend feel if you do that, he can look at the previous answer and it serves as a visual reminder).