I teach young people with social communication difficulties, including autism.
I have worked in both primary and secondary mainstream ARCs and also specialist provision and I love my job!
I am slowly uploading resources that have worked well so check back every now and again.
If there are any resources or activities that you would like to see in my shop, feel free to message me. I love making resources!
I teach young people with social communication difficulties, including autism.
I have worked in both primary and secondary mainstream ARCs and also specialist provision and I love my job!
I am slowly uploading resources that have worked well so check back every now and again.
If there are any resources or activities that you would like to see in my shop, feel free to message me. I love making resources!
This is a simple worksheet I made as part of out Ancient Greek topic, for a mixed aged / ability group of children with autism. Children used a sheet containing the ancient Greek alphabet to complete the worksheet.
This is a 2 page fact sheet designed for my class who were a mixed age primary group, all with autism, attending a specialist provision. This group were working between P6 and approximately a Y1 level. The activity was designed to increase learner’s awareness of basic facts relating to themselves as few of the class were aware of basic personal information such as their full name, birthday and address. As the activity was geared around them, they were more engaged than usual and most were able to remember the key facts after practising asking and answering each other.
I also linked this to our maths - taking about how many of each eye colour / shoe size etc and measuring heights, hands and feet. I will upload that separately.
Activities suitable for any age group working at this level.
Eye is to be coloured in with appropriate colour - in case anyone is wondering why there is nowhere to write the eye colour!
Colourful Semantics / Narrative - Interactive book with an Emergency Services theme. Who?-doing?-what? sentences.
I laminated this to create a book, attaching with keyring rings. The child or young person goes through the book identifying who is doing what in each picture. For example: ‘Police officer-walking-dog’ or ‘Fireman-sliding-pole’.
Tips:
When printing, I printed the last 3 pages twice, using the first copy as a baseboard and chopping the second copy to make individual cards, which I attach with velcro to the baseboard. This works best for me as it keeps the pieces together and is easy to see if any cards are missing.
While the child is becoming used to this activity, I talk them through each stage, encouraging them to identify ‘who?’ first, then ‘doing?’, then ‘what?’ Once the sentence is complete, I encourage them to repeat the sentence as a whole.
If a child struggles to identify from a full page of options, try offering them a choice or two cards, gradually increasing the number of options as they become more familiar with the activity.
Some children need prompts to really look at the picture and think about what they can see.
A bundle of 4 resources created for my ASD class to support understanding of basic time. Suitable for KS1 or any aged SEN learner. These activities could be used as part of a narrative / colourful semantics approach to develop understanding of ‘when’ or in maths to support basic time awareness.
Months: Table of the months of the year and a selection of 24 symbols. Teacher to choose which symbols are relevant and will be recognised by your particular group of learners. Students stick the symbols onto the correct month (e.g. Halloween next to October).
When I did this with my class I also included pictures of the children in the class and learners stuck pictures of their classmates in the birthdays section of the table. I have left this version of the table in, as it might be of use for some, but I’ve also included a copy of the table without the birthday column.
Day / Night Sorting: Instructions included. This could be used as a worksheet task or it could be laminated / velcroed and used as a re-useable workstation task.
Days of the Week homework: Worksheet to support learning and reinforce understanding about the days of the week.
Days of the Week School: Instructions included. Learners stick the days of the week into the correct order, they then stick symbols on to indicate what happens in school on particular days.
A weather poster to hang in the classroom. Children use clothes pegs to indicate the daily weather.
I use this with young people with autism and social communication difficulties.
Resources made for Science Week with a focus on ‘Staying Alive’. We learnt about the difference between living and non living things, that animals including humans grow from babies into adults, that some animals grow inside their mother while others hatch from an egg, children kept a food journal for later learning about a balanced diet. Before learning about basic needs, children attempted to complete a mind map, adding to this later.
Living / Not Living / Never Lived sorting activity / workstation task
What do you call a baby… table to complete
5 day food journal - table for students to complete (Monday to Friday)
Egg or Mum? Sorting activity / workstation task - did this animal grow inside its mother or hatch from an egg?
Human basic needs - male and female mind map activity, pupils to add what is essential for human life.
Designed for KS1 / KS2 children with autism but also suitable for mainstream learners or older learners with SEN.
Presentation and mind-map template - to assess student's learning at the end of a topic. Could also be used s a formative assessment tool at the beginning of the topic, with students adding their new learning to the mind map at the end.
Designed for Y7 pupils, all with autism.
Two PowerPoint presentations - one on Victorian Childhood and one on Victorian toys.
TEACCH style questions (for both topics) to ensure that activities are structured.
Cut and paste activity - cut out pictures of Victorian toys and complete the table.
Resources made to support SEN group with autism. We read 'Little Polar Bear' by Hans de Beer.
Colour cards are orange 'who' words to support Narrative Intervention.
Structured visual (TEACCH) included to support students to write about Lars and Henry's journey. This is coloured red as this covers 'where' words.
Will work equally well for children who are not using narrative intervention - in which case the word colours could just be random. Could also benefit children without ASD who struggle with working memory, attention or writing activities.
Saved as PDF.
Several resources on a Three Little Pigs theme. Designed for primary children with autism but would also work for mainstream.
Three Little Pigs wordsearch
Three Little Pigs wordmat
'All About Pigs' information sheet with accompanying booklet for children to complete. (Comprehension)
Wolf / house craft - children cut out squares with pictures of the Three Pigs' Houses, these are stuck onto the main sheet as a 'door'. Behind the door, children write whether the Big Bad Wolf managed to blow down that house.
'Is' or 'Are' worksheet with Three Little Pig theme.
These 2 Power Points were designed to accompany a 'Victorian' box, on load from a local museum.
The lessons were planned for a group of Y7 students, all with autism - therefore speaking, listening and attention skills were also targeted, together with more general social skills. Students also struggled with theory of mind / speech and language which the describing activity and game sought to target.
My young people really enjoyed these lessons and the activities were completed over several weeks.
If you are lucky enough to have a local museum which loans topics boxes then that wold be ideal, however the activities would also work if you have your own set of Victorian learning resources.
Activity created for primary SEN group. Children cut and pasted a map of the continent and a picture of that continents animals into the appropriate box. Some animal pictures are on a map of the continent to give children a visual clue - because of this I gave them the strip of maps and the strip of animal pictures separately to avoid confusion. I let the children cut out their pictures themselves to promote fine motor skills.
This is a bundle of resources based on a Victorian topic I delivered to a group of young people who all had autism and were in Y7 .
Most presentations are structured and some include TEACCH style structured questions.
Areas covered: Victorians and Christmas, Children and toys, Schools, Queen Victoria.
By buying all resources as a bundle, buyers save 49%.
2 x 15 symbol cards of people who help us. These can be used as a paired memory game, or as a small group attention and listening activity (show learners a number of cards, remove 1 card without learners being aware which card - can they remember which card has been removed).
Coloured orange to fit with colourful semantics, 'who' words.
Made for Community topic for children with autism, learning difficulty but also suitable for mainstream KS1.
I use these as TEACCH workstation tasks (Box Jobs) within my autism classroom. I laminate the baseboards and cards, adding velcro so the resource is reusable. It could however be used as a worksheet task.
One set is to sort items into the categories - fruit / vegetable / animals.
One set involves learners sorting prepositions - in / on / under
One set involves sorting colour
Simple Orion story for primary children with SEN / autism
We read the story together on the PowerPoint.
The word document was cut into strips and we sequenced them as a group.
We then made our own telescopes from cardboard tubes to look at the Orion constellation (used our telescopes to look at a square of card with pin pricks to show the 'Orion constellation').
I used this to develop very basic counting skills in a child with significant needs. It can be used as a cut and paste worksheet (3 worksheets if you print the table 3 times) or laminated and used as a re-useable sorting / workstation task.
I also used the laminated cards to play counting games with the child - giving him a selection of cards (all of the cards would have been overwhelming) and asking him to find 3 apples / 2 bananas etc. Once he became more confident with this, the next step would be to give him a selection of cards and ask him to find all of the threes / all of the twos etc. As this child was particularly motivated by superheroes, I included some superhero cards too.
4 baseboards and 16 cards (best laminated to make the resource last longer). Baseboards each showing 4 items. Pupils use the accompanying cards to identify which items go together (e.g. head goes with cap). Boards and cards are colour coded to ensure that the sets don’t get mixed up.
I used these as workstation tasks / morning jobs but they could also be printed and used as worksheets.
Designed for children with autism / social communication difficulties to develop reasoning / logical thinking and for the child to begin to make connections. Can be extended by asking the child / young person to explain their reasoning.
I made this for a little boy with autism who was working at mid P Levels. This was to develop his basic one to one correspondence of numbers up to 10 and ordering numbers. The activity is suitable for mainstream or any aged learner who is working at a basic maths level.
There are 10 A4 sheets in total:
5 have 2 cards on 1 A4 sheet. These sheets have apple trees with a numbered basket (1 - 10). The idea of these was that the child places the matching number of ‘apples’ on the tree. For apples I used red counters or small red pompoms.
There is an A4 apple tree with a space to place a number card on - this could be used in 2 ways: Adult (or peer) places up to 10 ‘apples’ on the tree and the child has to find the correct number card or the adult / peer places a number card in the space provided and the child has to place the correct number of ‘apples’ on the tree.
The other pages have apple themed number cards to use with the A4 apple tree. They could also be used on their own for ordering, identifying which number comes next or is missing…or print twice and use as a memory game.
This activity would be best laminated / velcroed.
Its a bit of a random addition but as he could also rote count in 10’s to 100, I included number cards for 10’s numbers to develop his ability to recognise the numbers.
Cards show British coins up to £1 in value, stating “I have…” Underneath is a statement saying how much an item costs. Learners need to count the coins and decide whether they can afford the item. Many learners with ASD / SEN struggle with money sense and the idea of whether an item is affordable or not. This activity could be extended to ask how much change the student would receive if the item is affordable, or alternatively, how much more money they would need.
Designed as an independent workstation task for learners with autism but could also be used in a small group.
Learners use clothes pegs to answer the question yes / no to make the task more interactive and to focus those who find sitting and writing to be difficult.