Some of Connor's beginning addition books

Teaching Classes of Items

 

I like to keep my mini photo pieces in a coupon organizer ($1 store) and in baggies that list the feature function or class of items to be sorted. I like to hold on to the pieces and offer them to him one at a time and ask him to tact the picture before he sorts it by class. OR I lay 5 or so down on the table and ask him "I wear my _____"? having only one item from that class available. These boards are from Teacher Tools and are both dry erase (sort of (; ) and magnetic. One sid is divided by four sections and the other is open (but in the picture I turned it to three by adding thin red tape. These are wonderfully hand little things! All the pieces are printed on cardstock and laminated with magnetic tape on the back.

Pocket charts and homemade stand

Teaching Functions 1/2 book size

 

This is another language drill book that I made. Some of the questions are

Which one plays music?

What can you wear?

Show me the one you eat.

                                                   What do you drive?

Then as an intraverbal

I thrown the_____.

I wear my_______.

I play with the____.

Teaching Functions  and Intraverbals of items

Teaching adverbs/ descriptive words

and opposites (although many professionals don't recommend teaching opposites early on to children with autism).

Math concepts -tangrams you can have your kiddo put the pieces directly on the page or to make it more of a challenge prop up the book and have them do it on the table in front of it. Again, I made the pieces out of the foam sheets and you could easily add the magnetic tape to the back

Math concepts - beginning tangrams and intro to geometric shapes. Images The first two show the lines whereas the others do not making them much more chalenging.

These were purchased @ a resale shop without the tangram pieces ($13-$25) so I made my own by cutting the shapes of 6 different colored  sheets of foam. You could also add a piece of magnetic tape to the backside and stick them on a dry erase board or cookie sheet or even the fridge. This is a great activity and if you make it fun it could easily turn in to a good leisure activity.

Advanced tracing Kumon books

and Kumon number tracing book

Beginning handwriting tracing shapes

Beginning handwriting worksheets

We used these years ago to start Connor with simple verticle and horizontal strokes. It was critical that they were simple white backgrounds and with no extra text because it put him into sensory overload and he would wither shut down or tantrum. You can still see evidence of when we tried to use the cheap colored dry erase markers as well.

Hint: black ink dry erase pens usually work fairly well but if you are using an off brand it's usually best to stay away from the colors (especially red and green). You can always test it too on the backside of the worksheet/workbook and let it sit there over night.

Using the table easel

Here are some of the ways we use our table top easel. Sorry for the poor image quality,

 it's tough to get a good picture of a laminated surface without a glare :).

              

Here we are reviewing verbs (previously introduced) in sentence form and giving him visual cues (rather than verbal to avoid the echoic response). This gives him practice as narrator and will hopefully increase his mean length of utterances. The above cards show the circle and triange as different parts of speech with he/she on the circle and is/are on the triangle. We have also been working to get him to add the 'ing' to his verbs and this is an easy reminder for him. I don't use it every time, just as all other prompts I am working to fade them ALWAYS :).
 

With this set you could teach the Listener Responder (LR)/Receptive ID in a large array (but don't forget to mix it up and teach in a messy array as well). But you can also work on Features of items (right side of printed card) and then change it up to start working on the Intraverbal Fill- Ins (left side of printed card).

I would love more ideas on how to use this platform since it is inexpensive, stores compactly and is portable....everything we love.

Behind the photos you can see some pocket charts that I made (to save to $20-$30 each). We really try to use the vertical space and to keep our teaching items out and present because he absorbs everything arouond him. They are hanging from two plant hooks each that are screwed into the bottom side of the kitchen bartop.