Recall Time in the {Special Needs} High Scope Classroom

Oh my goodness, I can't believe it's been SEVEN months since I wrote a blog post...whoops! Anyway, this summer I had the opportunity to attend a 5-day workshop on High Scope in the preschool classroom. My district uses the High Scope Curriculum, so it was super helpful to learn even more about it. As some of you may know High Scope focuses on the "plan, do, review" model during what they call "work time," also know as center time in the preschool classroom. This is when the students are able to visit the various learning areas of the classroom such as the block area, the library, the writing area, etc.

I use a "planning board" with Boardmaker pictures during our planning time. Students put their picture under the area they plan to go to. Here's the planning board I used last year...

Now when it came to the review or "recall" aspect of the day (post work time) I had trouble. Many of my students were unable to verbally communicate what area they played in, who they played with, and/or what toys they used. After my High Scope training I came up with a way to help my students participate in recall, and that is through my picture-based recall book.

Let me tell you this book was NOT quick and easy to make! I had to upload each one of my pictures I use as labels in each area. I made them all into symbols on Boardmakeronline.com This way the student could choose the toy(s) he or she played with during work time from pictures of our ACTUAL classroom materials!

The book is somewhat leveled, so the first page asks "What area did you play in?" The student can then choose from pictures of the different areas (these match with the planning board pictures).

The second page asks a slightly more difficult question, "Who did you play with?" The students can then choose from pictures of their classmates.

The final page asks "What toy did you play with?" For this question I have pictures (organized by area) of all the toys in our classroom. As you can imagine this section of the book is quite large so it is separate and is held together by book rings.

 

Here are more pictures of the toy choices from each area. 

I'm sure I'll tweak this system throughout the year, but for now this is what I have come up with! If you have Boardmaker Share online then you should be able to find these items by searching "recall book" in the activities or by trying clicking here.

Embedding Life Skills in the Kitchen Center

It's been awhile, but I'm back! Hope everyone had a lovely winter break. Over break I did a lot of thinking about how to work on my skills in the classroom, and I also wanted to address them in a way that felt natural and play-based. So, with some inspiration from others these are three new tasks I came up with for my students to do while at the kitchen/home living center. 

Here's the drawer set I use to store each task. The top for utensil sorting, the middle for table setting, and the bottom for food sorting (by color). 

I picked up some simple utensil sorting trays at Walmart and created fork, spoon, and knife labels on Boardmaker. This way my students have a visual of where to sort each item.

Place mat template found here!

I had seen the idea for place settings like these on Considerate Classroom awhile ago and loved it. So, I created something similar with the help of a template I found online (link above). This task has helped my students match item to picture and begin to expressively identify different utensils/plate/cup. 

The last task is a file folder where the students have to sort pictures of food by color. I adapted this activity from this freebie. 

Overall, my students are responding really well to each task, and loved being introduced to each one. I'm sure I'll change them as they start to master them. If you're interested click here for the drawer labels I created and here for the utensil sorting labels.