Category: Family Learning

Family Learning

Room 17 Home Learning Ideas

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Hello,

Please find below a list of activities / ideas from Room 17’s teacher that you can complete with your child.  Feel free to dip in and out of these as you wish.

 

If your child uses a communication system then please try to use it daily with them. If you need some advice about this then please send me an email.

 

Life Skills:

  • Help to make or prepare meals

https:www.jamieoliver.com/features/category/get-kids-cooking/

  • Use a knife to practice spreading, toast, crackers…
  • Practice cutting toast, soft fruits/veg (using hand over hand or with very close supervision)
  • Pouring – pouring liquid or dry foods from one container to another
  • Help to wash and dry dishes
  • Putting away dishes
  • Making simple and meaningful choices (usually from a choice of two) using the objects as reference

 

Literacy

 

Health and Wellbeing:

  • Going for a walk in an open area and discussing what you see and hear along the way
  • Cosmic kids yoga – a lot of episodes are on Youtube and there are greater mindfulness videos too if you need to relax

https://www.cosmickids.com/category/watch/

 

Sensory:

 

  • If you have an instruments at home then play along to your child’s favourite music – if you don’t have instruments then why not make a few together, for example take a plastic bottle, fill with dried beans (or something similar) and shake!

 

Music With Emmeline – Thursday 26th March

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Here are today’s musical activities from Emmeline.

Song: Five Little monkeys
Five little monkeys is such a popular children’s song. We have prepared our version of it with 5 printed monkeys stuck to desk bells! We will play one each time a monkey falls off the bed. Don’t worry if you do not have instruments like this! Could you bang a pan or clap your hands every time a monkey falls off the bed instead? You could also print and cut out or draw 5 Little monkeys to practise counting down.

Donald Far’s Yer Troosers: Part 4 – Verse 3

Today we are learning the third verse of Donald Fars Yer Troosers! We hope you can still remember the other verses and the chorus as tomorrow we will be putting the whole song together!

Now, I went down to London town
And I had some fun on the underground.
The ladies turned their heads around, saying;
“Donald, where are your trousers?

Room 15 General Learning Activities

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Many of our learning activities have focused on life skills, and should be easy to include in daily routines without many / any resources.  Below are a range of ideas and a sample of what a day might look like – please take from this anything that you find useful.

 

Communication

  • Encourage your child to use their communication system throughout the day. (Cannot stress this one enough – insisting on communication device usage all day has seen incredible progress, we’d love to see this continue for when school re-opens!)
  • Read a story together – there are signed stories on YouTube if you’re looking for something new! One example of many – https://bit.ly/3aj0z0L
  • Share a signed song or two together – I’ve linked some class favourites: https://bit.ly/39468Pa
  • Practice the Makaton “sign of the week” – https://wetalkmakaton.org/
  • Bucket time – we know this has been popular with many of our young people so have put together a few videos showing bucket time if you’d like to try something similar at home. A more detailed explanation with video links is on a separate sheet. These are for your benefit, your child will respond more to your presence than a video.
  • Role play – perhaps different jobs, perhaps different stories, perhaps something different but of particular interest to your child – we like our theme park role play in Class 15!
  • Watch TV together, using your child’s communication system to talk together about what you see, what you like, what you don’t like, etc.

 

Food and drink

  • Help to make breakfast / lunch / dinner
  • Help to chop snack foods (safety, hygiene, not eating food before serving!)
  • Using communication system to request snack foods.
  • Explore how ingredients change when cooking (this is part of the ASDAN science module – if you’re super keen you could take a photo or write a wee note about what your child did and we can put it in their evidence folder!)

 

Life skills

  • Washing hands – several in our class have been working on improving their hand washing skills prior to this, but this is an especially important time to build this skill. Encourage your child to rub soap into their hands.
  • Getting dressed independently – this also includes opportunities for labelling body parts (and which ones are private and should be covered).
  • Brushing teeth and washing faces.
  • Going for a walk – stopping at the road, looking or listening for traffic, communicating when to “go!”
  • Cleaning surfaces, washing the dishes, taking out the recycling.
  • Matching coins, naming coins, helping to buy items at the pretend supermarket.

 

Creative arts

  • Recreate trash band by making instruments from containers you have, pop on some favourite tunes and encourage your child to join in replicating rhythms. Communication work could include requesting a particular tune or commenting on the music they can hear.
  • Draw, colour in, paint, collage – any materials can be used!
  • Dance together – you can explore rhythm, communication, gross motor skills.

 

Outdoor ed

  • Enjoy the great outdoors, talk about what you can see, hear, feel, touch.
  • Talk about the weather, and if the weather means you can’t go outside perhaps you could recreate it indoors – water spray rain, torch (or mobile phone light) for sun, fan for wind.

 

Sensory regulation

Including sensory regulation activities will support our young people with their resilience at a challenging time.

  • Explore preferred sensory resources – perhaps large, soft blankets, possibly shiny card, maybe a cold drink, or perhaps a material to stretch or rip.
  • Messy play – brilliant for communication as well as sensory regulation! Squeeze mud in your hands, squirt shaving foam onto a table and draw shapes, or splash water in the sink.
  • Listen to calming music in an otherwise quiet space, dim lighting and offer your child a hand massage.

 

 

 

Room 15: Home Learning Ideas (Bucket Time)

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In order to give some continuity of learning, here are some ideas from Room 15.

 

Bucket time

 

Bucket time is an intervention devised by Gina Davies, a Speech and Language Therapist based in England.  She has shared some fabulous short videos recently explaining bucket time for families, including ideas for how to adapt to what resources you are likely to have at home for home-learning.

 

https://bit.ly/3bj5xdW – introduction to bucket time

https://bit.ly/3bqYsIG – Gina Davies Autism Centre YouTube page (lots of tips for home learning).

 

We know bucket time has been popular with many of our young people so I have put together a few videos showing bucket time if you’d like to try something similar at home.  These are for your benefit, your child will respond more to your presence than a video.

 

https://bit.ly/2U2t3WR

https://bit.ly/395JZ34

https://bit.ly/33w1hFt

 

Stage one – the bucket.

Your aim is to encourage focused attention from your child by creating an irresistible invitation to learn.  Choose high interest items that your child does not get to play with / use normally.  Keep spoken language minimal but be enthusiastic in your presentation.  As your child is learning to focus attention on you (not the item from the bucket), they do not get to use the items from the bucket.

 

If you’re interested in the other stages, I recommend this document for a quick overview: https://bit.ly/2IWV3oB

 

Have fun!

Room 16: Home Learning Ideas

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Here are some ideas of activities children can do at home to retain and develop their skills during any school closures / holidays.

Life skills and motor skills

  • Cutting fruit and veg – prepare a meal/snack, make a face with it
  • Spreading with a knife – toast, crackers, sandwiches etc
  • Following a simple recipe (written, read aloud or copy the adult)
  • Pouring – make a cup of tea/coffee or fill a tray with rice/lentils etc and pour them into different containers
  • Make play dough –

Here’s a link for a simple no-cook playdough using boiling water https://www.instructables.com/id/No-Cook-Play-Dough/

  • Some pupils have been learning to knit this session
  • Construction games with magnets or lego
  • Tying knots and weaving, for example weaving material in fences, tying shoe laces

 

Physical activity

  • Cosmic kids yoga – a lot of episodes are on Youtube and there are greater mindfulness videos too if you need to relax

https://www.cosmickids.com/category/watch/

  • Just dance routines – again free on Youtube. Angry birds, Just Mario , Old Town Road and Ghostbusters, are firm favourites at the moment

 

Literacy and Numeracy

  • co.uk is a free website for teachers and parents, with loads of interactive games at a variety of levels, most of which are tablet friendly, we have been using the money games and the Chinese dragon game in class

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/counting

  • Each pupil has a unique login for Education City, most pupils are working at early level, maybe first level. I have not assigned any specific tasks.  Pupils are familiar with the website.
  • For Makaton practice again on Youtube search for songs by Melody Signs or Singing Hands there is a mixture of nursery rhymes and pop songs, we tend to choose the more modern ones in class.
  • Lets talk Makaton charity page also has videos and ideas

https://wetalkmakaton.org/

  • Many pupils will benefit from colouring and drawing activities
  • Typing games https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zf2f9j6/articles/z3c6tfr

Animal Discovery: Live Webcams

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Some of our pupils show an interest in animals and nature. There are Live Webcams at Edinburgh Zoo and Highland Wildlife Park that the children may enjoy.

https://www.highlandwildlifepark.org.uk/webcams (Highland Wildlife Park)

https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/ (Edinburgh Zoo)

For our Secondary pupils, the National Geographic Kids website can provide more information. Although not all pupils can access it fully independently, there are pictures to look at and discuss, and some interesting video clips to watch:

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/category/discover/

Have a look and find out what your favourite animals are.

 

 

Music With Emmeline – Wednesday 25th March

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Here are today’s musical activities with Emmeline.

Soundscape: Under The Sea

Every Wednesday we are going to be providing a different themed soundscape.

Today’s theme is Under the Sea. We have provided this picture as a visual stimulus for under the sea ideas.

Please relax, listen to the music, look at the picture, imagine different under the sea creatures and take deep breathes. If you have anything at home that sounds like the sea then you can also join in using this. Perhaps you have a container filled with beads or buttons that could be used as your own ocean drum or a shell to hold to yours or someone else’s ear?

Donald Far’s Yer Troosers: Part 3 – Verse 2

Today let’s try the Second verse of Donald Far’s Yer Troosers,

A lady took me to a ball
And it was slippery in the hall
I was afraid that I would fall
‘Cause I didn’t have on my troosers

Music With Emmeline – Tuesday 24th March

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Here are today’s musical activities with Emmeline.

Play Away & Stop 

This is a brilliant fun game of musical statues with instruments included! The lyrics of the song are;

Play Away, Play Away, Play Away and Stop!

Try playing along with Emmeline first. Playing and listening at a normal volume, quietly, loud, fast and slow. You can then try this amongst yourselves. If you do not want to sing the song you can say ‘Play’ and ‘Stop’ or wait for someone to vocalise or smile to indicate the starting and stopping. Try playing about with the dynamics and tempo at home too!

Also remember if you don’t have any musical instruments, please don’t worry. Use a pot, pan, old box, kaleidoscope, homemade shaker, clap your hands or tap your knees!

Donald Far’s Yer Troosers: Part 2 – Verse 1

Today we are going to learn Verse 1 of Donald far’s yer troosers, we will learn a little bit each today to build up to the entire song on Friday! Don’t forget to do your ‘Little Man’ vocal warm-up from yesterday before we start!

Just got in from the Isle of Skye
I’m not very big and I’m awfully shy
The ladies shout as I go by
Donald far’s yer troosers?

Music With Emmeline – Monday 23rd March

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Hello everyone

The aim for the next while is to bring you two musical videos each day.  These will feature a daily extract from a Makaton song, building up to the entire song by the end of the week as well as musical games, soundscapes, interactive musical stories and activities.

Here are today’s videos.

Vocal Warm Up:  The Little Man

Each Monday we will be sharing a different vocal warm up for you to use throughout the week.  Today is the story of the Little Man.

The little man goes for a walk and he comes to a lift.  He presses the button and goes up in the lift.  Once he is at the top of the building, he puts on his parachute and jumps off the building!  Luckily there is a trampoline on the ground which he lands on…

Can you think of anything else to add to the story?

Donald Far’s Yer Troosers: Part 1 – Chorus

This term the Makaton Choir have been learning a variety of Scottish songs to sing and sign initiated by our Burns Night celebrations.  Now it is time for our pupils to refresh theses songs and teach their parents, carers and family.  Today we are learning the chorus.

Let the winds blow high

Let the winds blow low

Down the street in my kilt I go

All the lassies say hello

Donald far’s yer troosers?

Autism Outreach Service – Some Ideas and Resources!

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We understand that changes to routine, the sensory challenges of increased hand washing and the general anxiety of the situation surrounding Coronavirus (Covid-19) may be having a big impact on your child or young person, so over the next few days we will be sharing some ideas and resources that may help you manage these things at home.

We will update with new resources as and when we can so please check back regularly to see what’s new!

To get you started here is a social story written by Carol Gray that may be useful to share with your child or young person if they are feeling anxious or unsure about what is going on around them concerning the Coronavirus.