Bright Ideas - May

Non slip mats are an essential part of a special education class that has children with physical disabilities and low tone or poor fine motor skills. This is a non slip mat that can be purchased inexpensively at the Dollar Store.  It's easy to cut into any size you want.

Here are a few ways we use it.

For children with low tone, they often have trouble staying in their seat.  These are the kids that keep sliding out.  A little square on the seat under their bum helps them stay put.

A little square under bowls and plates, stops them for sliding around the table while children are trying to eat.

We roll up a small piece around a pencil to make a pencil grip.  You can make it as thick as you want.  The texture gives feedback to those who need it.

Putting a piece under toys and games will help them stay put while children are using them.  This was our egg spinner from Easter.

The last tip I have for you is to use it use technology.  I keeps the laptops and ipads on the table and off the floor.

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Bright Ideas April

Welcome to another Bright Ideas Link Up!

My tip is something I think a lot of people do but maybe you don't realize it.

The other day I was in Walmart.  I very often stop in there before work.  Our Walmart opens at 7am and I love going in there without kids while it's not busy.

Now I'm always on the look out for a deal.  I mean, what teacher isn't?  You know you're a teacher when you get excited by a sale.

So Easter was what? One? Two weeks ago?  I was keeping my eye on the left overs, but the sales weren't all that good yet.

Well, lo and behold, the other day, everything Easter was 75% off.  What a steal!

This was what I came home with.

I think it cost me just a little over $6.

Originally I thought "Score! I'll have some new items for Easter next year."  But then I thought, why not use some of items before Easter for different themes or projects.

These cute little bunnies are suppose to be Jacks, but I think they will make perfect counters.

They would fit in with a farm theme.

The set ended up being 25 cents.

These little bins ended up being 50 cents for 3.  I picked up a few different colours because I thought they would be perfect for sorting and counting.

Turns out, the bunnies fit in them nicely. 

I had picked up one of these tic tac toe games earlier in the season at regular price.  Now it was 50 cents.

The X's and O's are removable and again the duck would work with other themes other than Easter.

I was thinking that the X's and O's could be used separately as a tic tac toe game by drawing a grid on a piece of paper.  Or they could used as a patterning or sorting game.

These gummy bunnies are so cool.  They are stretchy and would be perfectly as a fidget toy. 

I was also thinking that we could use them for measuring.

This was a biggest item I bought at $3.50.  I don't know if I can wait until next Easter to try it.  I might have to break it out for a craft project before that.

So, I hope I have inspired you to think outside the box when you are looking at the sale racks after the holidays.  You never know what you will find.

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Bright Idea - Printer different sizes

 This month I thought I would share a printing tip that I just discovered.  Maybe it's common knowledge and I just didn't know about it.  Could be.  I figured if I didn't know about it, maybe someone else didn't either.

I recently bought some alphabet toppers and I was so excited.  When I opened the file, there was one topper on each page.  Now there were 26 of them.  I knew that I didn't have room for them to be that big, in the space I wanted to put them. 

What to do?  I thought about taking screenshots of each of the toppers and then putting them in PowerPoint, sizing them to the right size and then printing them.  But that was a lot of work.  If I printed them and shrunk them on the photocopier, they wouldn't be in colour.

There had to be a better way of making them smaller.

I decided to have a look at my printer options, and lo and behold, there is a really simple way to do it.

This is how it works on my printer.  I'm not sure if all printers have the same options.  Check and see if yours does.

Go to print your PDF and wait for the popup menu to come up.

Click on the box that says "Page Scaling".  It should say "Fit to Printable Area".

Click on the arrow and select "multiple pages per sheet".

Where it says "pages per sheet", I selected "2 by 2".  This gave me 4 pictures on one page.  You can change this depending how small you want your pages.  Don't forget the select which pages to print.  I didn't need the title page, so I started on page 2.

Once printed and laminated, the pictures are just the size I wanted.

The other trick I learned was to make my long range plans poster size.  Now this is using Excel. Once again you will have to check the printer and program you are using.

In the pop up menu, click on properties.

A new popup will open and you want to make sure that the "Advanced" tab is selected.

Under the "Advanced" tab, look for "poster printing".  I wanted my plans printed on 4 pages so I selected 2X2.

Once printed, I trimmed the pages where they met and taped them together.

I hope you enjoyed this bright idea.

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Bright Ideas - Bubbles

Who doesn't like bubbles?  Especially on a summer day.  There are so many bubble recipes, how do you pick a good one?  I thought I would share my recipe with you.

You will need: Dawn soap (I don't know why Dawn, but apparently it works the best), water, Jell-o powder (a no name brand will work) and a container.  If you want to make your own bubble maker, you will need string and a straw.

Don't forget the measuring cups.

You need 2 tbsp of powder.

and one cup of Dawn.

 Fill your container about 2/3 full with warm water (warm works better).  Add the powder and the Dawn.  Stir gently. 

To make your own bubble maker: cut a length of string and cut a straw in half.  Thread the straw through the string and tie.

 

Then make bubbles!!!

It was a windy day and the bubbles were plentiful.

It was a bit too windy for our bubble maker.  I had also used cold water and didn't work as well as the day I used warm water.

I hope you enjoyed this bright idea.

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Bright Ideas #3

Ever wonder what you can do with those water bottle lids that get thrown away?  You can use them in your literacy centers.  The kids love using them and they don't cost a thing.  You can use a marker to write on them or buy alphabet stickers to put on them.

I grabbed these stickers at Walmart for $3.  You might be able to find some at the Dollar store.  I had to use a glue stick to help keep them down as the stickiness was not quite sticky enough.  Using the stickers was a little neater than me printing on them.

With my high kids we use them to make words.  I call out a CVC word and they look for the letters to make the word.  They are getting really good at this.  I also cover my eyes and have them make a word.  I then try and "guess" the word that the made.

This is also great for changing just one letter in a word.  For example, the vowel.  If we take away the "a" in "sat" and change it for an "i", what do we get?  It's easy to switch letters out and around.  Use only the letters sounds you are working on and add letters as you go.

My middle group is working on capital and lowercase letters.  

We have been ordering them.  

And matching them.

My lower group has been working on recognizing lowercase letters.  I bought a chip tray at the Dollar store and had the children sort the letters.  For those that needed it, I taped the target letters on the tray (not shown in the picture).

The last activity was for all my groups.  The words were just different depending on the group.  This activity was the same as the one above only we used words instead of letters.  I wrote the words with a Sharpie.  The don't look as professional as the letters.

I hope you enjoyed this bright idea.

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interests you. Thanks for visiting!

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