Counting Out Items from a Set: A Fun Activity Using Natural Reinforcers
I wanted to share a fun way that I practiced counting out items from a set with one of my students. But first, I’ll give a little bit of a background about natural reinforcers and why using them is such a powerful teaching strategy. When working with children on communication, language, and academics, I like to make learning activities as much fun as possible. To do this, I often use a child’s interests to teach and use natural reinforcers. A natural reinforcer is one that is
Language Activity: Writing Descriptions of Favorite Characters
The teaching strategy that I use most often with my students is to incorporate their interests into the lessons and learning activities that I plan for them. Activities that are inherently difficult, such as language-based activities, can be much more motivating and interesting if the task is about a favorite character, animal, subject, etc. I was recently working with one of my students who loves ocean animals. He enjoys making these "sticker art" pictures, so I use it as an
Train-Themed Coin Sorting Activity
Just wanted to share a quick, free, printable activity to practice sorting coins. I use this activity when introducing coins to help students look carefully at them to learn the differences in what they look like. Here's an example of what part of the activity looks like. Full instructions and the printable train files are in this download: http://www.positivelyautism.com/downloads/TrainCoinSortFinal.pdf
Reading Assessment with a Favorite Character
This week, I was doing a quick assessment with one of my students. I wanted to see if he could read "days of the week" words (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.). I also wanted to make the assessment more fun instead of using flashcards. So, I took this sticker art project that we made today and pretended that the otter was "saying" the words I wanted the student to read. I would put the "speech bubble" with the day of the week written on it and say, "Hmmmm...I wonder what the
