If you want to hear today's interview all about HT and our games, go here:
http://www.hometrain.ie/aboutus.php
Claire.
Specialist Therapeutic Play and Teaching Ideas for Teaching Social Skills
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Social Skills Resources for Inclusive Mainstream Schools
Teachers - This could be the best thing you learn about today!
Finding quality and appropriate classroom resources for special needs students that assist with integration is a challenge for many schools.
Do you find you have
Finding quality and appropriate classroom resources for special needs students that assist with integration is a challenge for many schools.
Do you find you have
“Rarely enough time in a typical school week for the planning and collaboration
needed to make inclusion work well” ?
(Deborah McKnight – Director of Special Education, San Fransisco)
The solution is here at Hometrain!
We have developed a clever range of teaching games, designed to accompany the curriculum, help with problem behaviour and develop the skills of your teachers without spending valuable time away from the classroom.
Introducing ‘Hello’ and ‘How Are You?’
Our interactive computer games are designed for 1-1 teaching and for the whole class to play, talk about and learn.
There are 8 friendly boy and girl characters with fun games that explore different social scenarios. Each game has a video narrator who takes the children through different social scenarios,
Topics include:
Social skills – greetings, asking and answering questions, making friends, exploring emotions, expressing pain, what to do in social scenarios.
Games explore: behaviour in different social scenarios, learning about our bodies, identifying emotions and comprehension of the game or character.
Full printable teaching resources and parent information is included with each programme. Sending these home is a most effective way of demonstrating to parents your level of commitment to providing an inclusive service to their child.
Promoting good practice in your inclusive school:
When children learn how to initiate social communication within natural contexts – such as: home, community and school, they respond appropriately to the communications of others. From here, they can begin to develop positive relationships with others. Therefore, teaching communication and social skills should be a very high priority in an inclusive school.
With Hometrain products, establishing positive inclusion, behaviour and teaching social skills in the classroom is about to get a whole lot easier!
The solution is here at Hometrain!
We have developed a clever range of teaching games, designed to accompany the curriculum, help with problem behaviour and develop the skills of your teachers without spending valuable time away from the classroom.
Introducing ‘Hello’ and ‘How Are You?’
Our interactive computer games are designed for 1-1 teaching and for the whole class to play, talk about and learn.
There are 8 friendly boy and girl characters with fun games that explore different social scenarios. Each game has a video narrator who takes the children through different social scenarios,
Topics include:
Social skills – greetings, asking and answering questions, making friends, exploring emotions, expressing pain, what to do in social scenarios.
Games explore: behaviour in different social scenarios, learning about our bodies, identifying emotions and comprehension of the game or character.
Full printable teaching resources and parent information is included with each programme. Sending these home is a most effective way of demonstrating to parents your level of commitment to providing an inclusive service to their child.
Promoting good practice in your inclusive school:
When children learn how to initiate social communication within natural contexts – such as: home, community and school, they respond appropriately to the communications of others. From here, they can begin to develop positive relationships with others. Therefore, teaching communication and social skills should be a very high priority in an inclusive school.
With Hometrain products, establishing positive inclusion, behaviour and teaching social skills in the classroom is about to get a whole lot easier!
For more info go to: http://www.hometrain.ie/
Did you see our free printables?? - Christmas colouring pages are there too:
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
What Wagner teaches us...
Being different is o.k. Let our U.K. X-Factor friend Wagner remind us that being different makes for a much more interesting world. Why does Wagner get more votes than Katie? Because he's more interesting, we want to keep him every week. Jedward had the same effect.
Wouldn't it be boring if the contestants were all of the same personality and talent?
Normalisation should not be the focus of teaching our children - let's embrace their differences, (quirky though they may be) and celebrate that being 'normal' is alright for some, but wouldn't the X-factor be a lot less interesting now if Katie (or someone else) stayed in and Wagner went out?
In the world of marketing, the article this week in The Sunday Business Post by Greg Canty talks about just this - daring to be different, putting your head above the rest will get you noticed. Not following the norm in your approach to life, people and education will undoubtedly raise a few eyebrows, but weigh it up - what would you rather be?
(Before you answer, Jedward have more than 2million in the bank......)
So here's our answer to Greg in Sunday Business Post- thank you for your article. We may or may not make 2 million, but we had great fun following your advice to 'grow your hair long, grow a moustache, buy a white flowing shirt and a big chain with a gold medallion....' - well here's a video snip of our response.
We are inspired by our differences. Love it or not, we had fun!
Claire.
Wouldn't it be boring if the contestants were all of the same personality and talent?
Normalisation should not be the focus of teaching our children - let's embrace their differences, (quirky though they may be) and celebrate that being 'normal' is alright for some, but wouldn't the X-factor be a lot less interesting now if Katie (or someone else) stayed in and Wagner went out?
In the world of marketing, the article this week in The Sunday Business Post by Greg Canty talks about just this - daring to be different, putting your head above the rest will get you noticed. Not following the norm in your approach to life, people and education will undoubtedly raise a few eyebrows, but weigh it up - what would you rather be?
(Before you answer, Jedward have more than 2million in the bank......)
So here's our answer to Greg in Sunday Business Post- thank you for your article. We may or may not make 2 million, but we had great fun following your advice to 'grow your hair long, grow a moustache, buy a white flowing shirt and a big chain with a gold medallion....' - well here's a video snip of our response.
We are inspired by our differences. Love it or not, we had fun!
Claire.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Finding Christmas Presants for Special Needs Kids
Around this time of year, when Hallo'ween is over and thoughts turn to Christmas, notions of presants and shopping slowly start to come to mind.
For me, Christmas shopping is a nice neccessity, I love giving (and receiving) gifts, but what to get for each person is a November-long puzzle!
It's also around this time when I get asked for suggestions of what to buy for children with special needs. Finding toys and games that are appropriate can be difficult.
Here are a few ideas to consider:
Ask their Parents - find out what the chid is into, or if parents have ideas.
Things to ask are: (if it's puzzles or games) What is their piece-range for puzzles? - you might be suprised, some kids are extremely capable of jigsaws and puzzles with way more pieces than you imagine!
If you have something in mind, and you're not sure, it might be a good idea to run it passed the parents first.
If a child is into press-button cause and effect toys such as v-tech and they are getting a little older for baby/toddler toys, consider press-button books or computer games as an alternative.
If you are looking for something to help encourage motor skills, try the good old fashioned outdoors play equipment. Balls of different sizes and textures are great, and balance boards, hoppers and hula hoops are always useful.
Look for small, fun things that parents hide away and take out and use as reinforcers on difficult days - you will be thanked for these at a later date! Hand-held video games, bubbles, press button and light-up toys, small books etc, are great.
Take the child out for the day - give a voucher for a day out, and better still, bring them yourself if you can!
Books for bedtime and outings are always useful.
And my favourite idea? Make the child's own story book. Include their photographs, pets and family on an adventure.
I'll add more ideas as we get nearer, but feel free to post your ideas here:
Claire.
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