Our Friends Osmo, Dash, and Dot

Osmo works with an ipad, base, and front camera mirror. Osmo allows students to create, collaborate, use critical thinking skills, and collaborate. With Osmo, you can use the free correlating apps found in the apple app store. With Osmo you can work on puzzles, writing, critical thinking games, drawing, and so much more. Here we are playing with the Osmo in class!

This is Dash and Dot! Dash and Dot use apps from the app store to set them into motion. With these guys, students will learn how to code. Students can create paths, sounds, and emotions for their robot to make. My group played with Dash today during class!

Social Stories

Social stories are a great way to get across directions in your classroom. Social stories can be used as a tool to help students learn how to act in an effective and appropriate manner. Social stories can be a huge help to any child on the autism spectrum. Students with autism often struggle with remembering how to act in certain environments. Here is an example of a simple social story:

With this type of social story the child could read it over and over again until they learn. This type of social story could be printed out for a class chart or for just a specific student. The possibilities are endless! You could do something as simple as putting my hand up or how to act when you are sad or angry. Children with autism have a hard time with these things so a quick reference will help both you and the child. You can also create social stories using apps like Little Bird Tales, Kid in Story, Stories2Learn, and My Story! These would be great for children who can't read yet or for children who need it expressed in a different way. Here is an example of one from Stories2Learn: 

As you can see, you can create a social story for just about anything! Social stories do not have to only be for children with special needs. Sometimes we all need a hand on remembering things!


For more on social stories.. CHECK THIS OUT!

Phonemic Awareness

Exploring phonemic awareness!  

Using these pictures, we sorted them by sh, ch, and th. 

Here they were separated by the first letter sound. 

Same letter, different fonts! Different fonts can be difficult to those just learning letters. Introducing them to different types of fonts will help greatly. 

How do you make this more fun? Finger pointers! Dr. Trucks kindly gave us this tool to use with our students in the classroom! 

STEM Challenge!

 Today in one of our classes we completed some STEM challenges. These challenges included science, technology, engineering, and math. Our challenge's outcome was based on our engineering skills! 

Here were our rules: 

Where is the STEM?

Science- The energy is stored into the arm of the spoon when the string is pulled and then the energy is released causing the army man to fly forward.

Technology- For this challenge we filmed the outcome of our design.

Engineering- Using all of those objects, we had to come up with our own design to make it work. The possibilities were endless!

Math- Using the tiles on the floor, we counted the feet in which our army man traveled.

  As you can somewhat see from the video, our group made a catapult. We used the string to pull back on the spoon to launch the army man. My hand was inside of the cup for support. We also used our six popsicle sticks for support as well. Our man ended up launching thirteen feet!

Our reaction after our army man launched 13 feet!!!