Web Posted on: December 3, 1998

101 CURRICULUM ACTIVITIES TO MAKE USING TALK CD & OVERLAY MAKER

This workshop shows numerous examples of curriculum activities that can be made for the classroom, including adapting existing toys and games.

I was developing software for the children in my classroom. I wanted to make other activities for the children to do off the computer.

I found Overlay Maker as the perfect solution along with SoftTouch's new TALK CD which has over 150 real photos in 48 different overlays. Overlay Maker allows text and automatically resize graphics. It is a quick and easy way to make activities.

Why? do we want to develop activities for the children?

• expand the curriculum
• set up successful learning environment
• add multisensory dimension to curriculum
• promote independent learning
• provide concepts in different formats to target students' different learning styles
• quick and easy way to create materials
• tie whole curriculum together
• make relevant assessment materials
• bridge learning from 3 dimensional objects to2 dimensional graphics to picture communication symbols to words
• make our materials meaningful to student through real pictures of objects or the students
• expand appropriate socialization skills through environment and activities
• design tasks where student can be successful

Who? do we make these activities for?

• the students:

for manipulative and materials that meet their individual learning styles.

errorless learning

• the teachers

to extend curriculum

to make curriculum more powerful

• the therapists

to have options for other learning materials to make it more powerful

to have assessment modeling materials

to create materials to be used in integrating the materials into the curriculum

• the parents

to have something fun to expand classroom curriculum

to be part of child's learning process from school program

• the peer tutors, regular education students

to interact with students with special needs

to help create materials and share their skills with other students

to become a part of the process and everyone benefits

Which? activities can be made.

Well, it's anything that your imagination can conceive from newsletters to books to games. Here are a few that will be reviewed.

• games
• cards -- Flash card, Go Fish, Old Maid, sequencing
• Bingo
• Dominoes
• Lotto -- 3 grid, 6 grid, 9 grid, 12 grid
• Concentration -- a memory game
• Board Games: Jo's Training, Easy, Medium, Hard
• Books -- Nouns, big/little, What goes with, Colors, Plurals, Functions, Categories, Same/different
• Activity Sheets -- addition, subtraction, what goes with, same/different, patterns, words, sentence strips, big/little, first-middle-last, word matching, color matching, pattern matching, word/object matching and the list goes on.
• Adapting commercial games Frog game, Fishing Game, Farm Game
• Miscellaneous -- classroom management, photos, personalized books, puzzles, AND MANY MORE.

The workshop will show examples of just a few of the activities I have made for the students. You can make these as well using Overlay Maker. You can use any copyright free graphics such as IntelliTool's library. If you would like to use some of the graphics for overlay activities which are seen on the following pages, you can purchase Talk Overlay CD by SoftTouch ($49). There are 48 overlay layouts with more than 150 real pictures. If you are too busy to make your own activities, Talk Companion Activities by SoftTouch is available which contains many of the same type of activities already completed and ready to be printed ($59).