1. Attendance Check-In
Have students check into the classroom once they arrive in the morning. Once everyone gathers for morning meeting, ask students if they are "here" or "at home". Phrasing your questions as "yes" and "no" questions is a great way to work on language skills! Once students are able to answer questions about themselves, move on to peers. Some quick examples of how you can phrase your questions:
"Are you at home today Bobby?"
"Shane, are you at school today?"
"Kira, is Bobby here today?"
High tech: Use yes/no on a tech talk device, buttons, or your choice of AAC device. Model first, then let students answer independently as they start to grasp the concept.
Low tech: Use yes/no icons on popsicle sticks, Use icons on a choice board, or create a chart for answering yes/no questions where students can clip their answer choice.
2. Greeting Peers
The first thing we do when we sit down for morning meeting is greet each other. I created this tech-talk slide of pictures of our classroom. It has easily become the best part of our morning. Each student gets to pick a friend to say "good morning" to. We practice social skills by saying "good morning" back to the peer that chose them. It's a great way to practice social skills, manners and engage the kids in peer communication. My class loves this part of our day. The smiles they give each other when they hear their name on the device melts my heart every day.
High tech: Create a slide of student pictures. Record "good morning, (insert student name)!" on their picture. When the student chooses a friend, and touches the device it will say "good morning, Bobby!" I then pass the device to "Bobby" and he will practice saying it back. Not only are we practicing communication, but we are practicing identifying our friends in the classroom and increasing accuracy on selections.
Low tech: Create a picture board and have students point to who they want to greet. Create a velcro board where students can pull of the picture of a peer and hand it to them to say good morning.
3. Attendance Count
I know I have talked about my leveled step-by-step communicator a lot, but it seriously has been the best thing I've come across for math instruction in my classroom. I had no idea how to teach non-verbal children how to count, well, with this device they absolutely can! It is worth the investment in my opinion.
After students have checked-in and greeted each other, they help me with my attendance count. We use a chart on our smart board to see who is here at school and who is at home. We count how many people are here and then each student will count to that number. We pass the device and pair it with a number line (hello visuals!) and we count how many students we have at school that day. I started this routine by doing hand over hand and errorless learning. My paraprofessionals would help move the hand across the number line as I helped the student press the button to count. We are at the point in our learning where the students no longer need hand-over-hand assistance and they are pretty accurate with counting! Another tip is to teach the students to take their hand OFF the button when they are done counting, that way you know when they are finished. This takes multiple times of using hand over hand assistance with errorless learning.
High tech: Get yourself a step-by-step communicator by ablenet! Record however high you want to count and use modeling and hand over hand assistance until students start understanding the idea. I recommend recording passed the number you have in your classroom. For example, I have 6 students so my button counts to 10. If a student isn't getting the concept of counting, they will continue to just press the button. This is where teaching them to take their hand off the button is important.
Low tech: Use a number line to count using the same method as the device. Have students "touch" numbers on the number line for how many are in the classroom that day. You could also create a velcro number line and have students peel off and hand numbers (similar to PECS).
So there you have it! Three super simple, super quick ideas that you can implement in your morning meeting tomorrow! Okay, well maybe not literally tomorrow, but maybe next week! Happy SPED prepping--- get those kids communicating!
