A Yummy Lesson About Safety~Guest Post

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

 I would like to welcome The Dabbling Speechie as a guest blogger today! She is an ASHA certified school based SLP with a large caseload and two of her own kids at home. She is busy lady, who still finds time to dabble with her awesome blog! Check out this great post on using snacks and crafts to work on safety with SDC students! 

Make sure you like her Facebook Page and check out her TPT store for more activities!

I am happy to be over here at Queen’s Speech to share my fun interactive lesson that I prepared for my SDC students who are on the Autism spectrum.  It was great having Rachel over in my neck of the woods sharing her creative ideas about how to make and use your OWN bean bags!  Go check out her Bean Bag Brigade post.  It has lots of awesome pictures that will surely inspire you to make your own set.
The week before Spring Break, I brought both of my SDC classrooms together for a lesson on safety to teach the concepts stop/go and work on functional communication.  I have two autism classrooms at one of my sites that are K/1st and 2nd/3rd grades.  The challenge I have with these students is finding what motivates them to independently communicate.  Some of my students use PECS books to communicate, others are using simple sentences, but need prompts (i.e. withholding items, visual sentence strips) to initiate communication.  I also have a couple of students who are very verbal and are working on the social aspects of communication such as not shouting out, correctly answer questions when asked, and appropriately interacting with peers during play or academic activities. I have brought in EVERYTHING to try and find something they will light up about.  Let’s just say they are a tough crowd because there is always one student that isn’t interested in my activities. 
 

I found this great snack to make called “Stop Lights” on pinterest.  I love that it is simple, easy to prep and cost effective.  You can get the directions for this snack HERE.  I made a visual poster for my students who need visual supports for communication.  You can access that poster HERE.  Before we started making the snack, we worked on sequencing the steps for making the snack.  I used visuals to show the verbs “take out”, “open”, “dip”, “spread”, “put” and “eat” for each step of the process.  I then had students request what they needed first patiently waiting for them to initiate communication with me.  I tried to have them make verbal comments about what they were doing such as “I’m spreading frosting.”  I also broke the graham crackers in half, so they would have to request again if they wanted another “stop light”.  This increased the opportunity to communicate because they had to request everything a second time.  There are 6 steps for the snack, so that means they had to request at least 12 times!  It was a great day because ALL my kids were motivated to see me and interactive with me. 


After the snack, we played Red Light, Green Light working on the concepts “stop” and “go”.  You can also work on “slow” for yellow if your kids understand that concept.  This is a great lesson to also work on lining up and waiting for the person to call the command.  I love that you can play this game outside in the sunshine.  You can also play this game where the students get to take turns being the caller.  You could make a social story or review the expected behaviors for playing this game to work on winning/losing, waiting until the command is called and following other people’s directions.  After the lesson, I realized I could have incorporated some children’s books about traffic and safety.  I looked up some books on amazon that you may want to purchase to add to this lesson.


This would be a great lesson to add to your “transportation” or “safety” units.  I think this would also be a great activity for your little preschool and kindergarten crowds especially your phonology kiddos who are working on cluster reduction and fronting.  I hope you found this activity to be helpful.  You can find me at The Dabbling Speechie for more ideas and resources.  Go ‘like’ my Facebook Page to get updates on sales, giveaways and new posts.  You can also check out my TPT store for more activities for your students.

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3 Responses to “A Yummy Lesson About Safety~Guest Post”

  1. Great fun ideas Felice! I very much love how you used interactive activities to teach the concept of "stop/go". Movement is so so GREAT! Also the snacks are so CUTE!!!! I have also done these concepts for my PK ASD kiddos and we do this a couple different ways. Firstly, on a "road" (its actually tape that looks like a road), but I've also used wooden blocks to make a road, play mats, race tracks, butcher paper and draw a road...whatever I have to work with (but the road has to be continuous loop/box whatever so there is no beginning or end). I give several students (depending on size of road sometimes can do up to 5 students) their own car (I may have to model driving on the "road" first) I begin by holding a sign (stop on one side go on the other like the signs you have above) and as they are driving on the roads I occasionally hold my sign in front of one of the student's cars and say "stop"...the child will stop the car b/c the sign is there...but if the others don't stop eventually the natural consequence is that they catch up and crash into the other car or they stop. I change up which student I do this with so they all get a turn...eventually they begin to listen to the command (and I can hold sign up NOT in front of a car) AND even pay attention to when the peer in front of them stops and goes! Another idea I use: I also like to use the sensory spinning toys that light up for concepts of "stop/go". I have several so each child gets one and as I cue (sign n words) "stop" I make sure everyone stops(I may have to put my hand on the toy for it to stop initially) then say "go" and let them begin spinning again. It's great because they love the sensory input and filtering the light while the toy spins but are also getting the concept of stop and go. Just a few other ideas I thought I'd share. Anyway, thanks for writing the post...great fun ideas! And Rachel thanks for posting it :)

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  2. Love those ideas! I will be trying them out when I return to school. It's so awesome to collaborate with other SLP's via the internet. Thanks Rachel for having me! I am looking forward to more pinterest therapy ideas from you!!

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  3. Great Ideas Communication Station: Speech Therapy, PLLC and Felice! Teaching life skills is so important, especially when it comes to safety! Thank you for sharing! I can't wait to share more together!

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