End of 2016 Sale

It is so hard to believe 2016 is coming to a close. As the year ends we would like to thank you for following us and would like to share that we are having an end of the year sale in all three of our stores December 29th-31st.
Adaptive Tasks by Dianne Matthews, Education with Imagination, CC's Classroom Creations

We wish you a happy and blessed new year!

Cyber Sale!

Join us for the site wide TpT Cyber Sale Monday and Tuesday. Our stores will be offering 20% off along with an additional savings provided by TpT for a total of 28% discount!

Don't forget to use code cyber2016 at checkout for the additonal TpT savings.

Happy Shopping!

Helping Students with Needs Gain Independence

Helping students gain independence is such a rewarding area of teaching and can not be emphasized enough. Having worked with students in the area of life skills and vocational skills was both rewarding and a blessing. There is nothing like seeing a student being shy about taking on a specific task, not showing any confidence in performing said task, then seeing their excitement when they accomplish it.

So many times students with needs feel that they can not step up to certain challenges that are presented to them. Many of the students I had the opportunity to work with were not given certain chances to do things because they were always done for them.

Some times it is easier for a parent to do everything for their children and it is because they love them and they are doing their best to take care of them. As the child grows, they need to be presented with certain challenges to see just what they are capable of. A parent knows best what their child's abilities and limits are, so it is important to work together with care givers and teachers to come up with ideas to challenge their child and help them to learn in various areas of their life.

One example that comes to mind is a student who would bring his lunch everyday. We would go to the cafeteria and he would ask if I would open his sandwich bag, and get everything set out for him so he could eat. I did this a time or two but felt like he was very capable of doing more for himself. I asked him one day if he ever helped pack his lunch and he said, "I don't know how." Talking with the parent we felt that this is something that could be added to his IEP and would help with following directions, provide visual aid and would help with his fine motor skill.

I took on the challenge of coming up with a way to help this student learn about packing lunches and creating a meal that he could help with to bring to school. For practice we worked with my Packing Lunches product.

As you can see in preview, there are visual cards for five days of lunches with visual and written instruction on how to put together each days sandwich and what to pack with it. The images are real so that it gives a life like experience.

The student worked with this product for a period of about two weeks and he said each time, "Making sandwiches is fun!" He made sure that he helped make his lunches from then on and actually enjoyed his lunches more because he helped mom make them!

This is just one example of many that I will share in the coming months. To see the excitement of a student accomplishing a task that we ourselves might think is a simple one is such a reward. It just takes time, patience, and most of all giving them a chance to see what they are capable of. This task provided an opportunity for him to learn and helped aid in a special bonding time spent with mom creating lunches together. :)

When Does the Learning Process Begin

The learning process begins even before birth. Babies learn while in the womb about taste, sight, smell, sound, and movement. Babies don't just lay in wait to be born, they begin their new life having started the learning process. Once babies are born it is important to keep the learning process going by bonding with them and lots of interactive time as they begin to grow, develop, and learn more than you could ever imagine.

Here is a wonderful article from Early Childhood Education that helps to explain more about the importance of early interaction and how you can take advantage of every moment with your child, helping them learn even during playtime.

Enjoy!

Ciara

Providing Choice in the Classroom

Providing choice in the classroom gives opportunity for active learning and engages the student during the learning process. Engaging students helps to increase attention and focus and motivates the student to a higher level of critical thinking.

Active learning promotes student participation and offers other choices in areas such as hands on activities and reinforcement tasks. Offering these choices helps students to recall lessons, work independently to improve a needed skill, or work with a peer buddy to complete a task.

Here are three of our products that work well in centers as well as independent and transition tasks.

Ten Happy Hens
A story bundle that can be used for a farm theme and helps early learners with counting from 1-10, rhyme, and matching.










Lunchroom Matching Tasks

A product to help students with image to word recognition and has a school lunch theme.

Binder Matching and Stocking Task Bell Ink Cafe

This product is a great independent task to help students learn stocking recognition skills and matching with a coffee theme.

Literacy and Follow-up Activities

The ability to read and write is associated with everything we do. Literacy is essential for developing a strong sense of well-being and citizenship. Children who develop strong reading skills perform better in school and have a healthier self-image.

Following up literacy with reading comprehension and activities helps to encourage children to recall and analyze what he or she has read while having fun in the process. Practicing reading comprehension allows children to read with better fluency and learn more from what they read.

Other activities such as puzzles, story starters, and coloring, are great ways to recall stories and open up social interactions.

Here are some just a couple of many great early learner literacy products from Education with Imagination that combine both story and follow-up activities.

The Little Red Hen Story Bundle

The Little Red Hen is a combination story, worksheets, puzzle, and props resource.

This product contains a 10 page story of The Little Red Hen along with a reading comprehension, word to object match, and writing practice work sheets. There are story props included to use during circle time or can be used to decorate room. 

For art center there is two coloring theme pages, and for puzzle center there is a file folder match.

This product is great for story themes with moral, socialization, dramatic play, comprehension, and fine motor skills.

The Wizard of Oz Rhyming Story 

The Wizard of Oz Story Rhyme Bundle is a bundle that begins with my original 10 page rhyming story based off of L. Frank Baum's original written in 1900. Included at the end of story is morals to the story.

Also included is a 3 page reading comprehension worksheets with 17 multiple choice questions, file folder matching, character image match ups, and 2 coloring pages.

One Day Only Sale Today!

Hurry for some great savings during TpT's site wide One Day Only sale August 22!! My entire store is on sale and here is one of my latest products.

LIFE SKILL Fundraising Activity

Great activity to teach students how a fundraiser works and to practice their social skills, money exchange, preparing orders and order keeping.