Implementing Activity Sets

Implementing Book/Activity Sets Part 1: Understanding the Materials

Every aspect of my books have been designed and redesigned to promote engagement. I was using these for months with my own child before I made them available to the public. I started with more intricate illustrations. He wasn't that into them. So I did a bit of reading and learned that autistic kids tend to focus on 1 part of a picture and don't narrate illustrations well. So I thought "hmmm.. maybe I've overdesigned the illustrations." I cut back to very simple graphics and he loved it!

The velcro cards were bigger at first. He was interested, but lost interest quickly. I paid close attention to what items he liked to manipulate, and they were usually much smaller, so I downsized the cards. He loved it!

I played around with the proportions, no frames vs frames, etc. The style I offer now is the style that gained the most engagement.

I started with just I Spy and I See activities. Everything else was created based on him asking for "more! more!" I created activities specifically to practice pairing nouns with different phrases. So each set contains several phrases to be used with the nouns from the books. "I see," "I spy," "I count," "There are," "I have," etc.

I highly encourage anyone to make adjustments as needed for the child in front of you. However, I also feel it's important to say that every adjustment I made was in light of my understanding of the findings of studies related to that aspect, or observations of my child in comparison to the hundreds of other young children with developmental delays and disabilities I've worked with. I didn't just throw random things together and say "this is a book." If you don't have a reason to believe that your child needs things adjusted, I would caution against it.

Implementing Book/Activity Sets Part 2: Choosing a Set

1. Choose a book that most closely matches your child's language use, without going more ahead of where they are than necessary. If your child uses no language, or is extremely limited in language use, start with "I See."

2. A. However, if your child is extraordinarily picky about what they'll engage with, and you find the current selection of "I See" books uninteresting to your child, but see another book they might enjoy, that might be the best way to go.

B. I use the same templates in every set for that sense of sameness. If I add new activities, I do so slowly. If you have to jump ahead in skills to gain interest, you may be able to backtrack to a more appropriate level book if needed. The style will be familiar so that may work in your favor.

If you're struggling to figure out which set is the right one, ask your child's Speech Language Pathologist (speech therapist). If your child doesn't have one, you can send me a message and I can give you my non-professional opinion.

Reminder: These are for gestalt language processing kiddos, or for children who are at least close to 3 or older and are not speaking at all. I would not expect to see success in a kiddo much younger than 3, but I don't believe there's an upper age limit either. If they're interested, it's developmentally appropriate to me. Gestalt language development is when a child mostly speaks in phrases first, instead of individual words.

*Anyone can use my activities! Only those using them to aide in language acquisition need to worry about matching the book to their child's language use. Lots of children who are not gestalt language processors love my sets!

Implementing Book/Activity Sets Part 3: Putting the Books Together

The books are best laminated.

Preparing the book with lamination:

1. Print your book and the cards.

2. Fold each page along the line in the center of each printed page. If the final page has a card holder, do not fold that page - leave it whole.

3. Laminate the folded pages - 2 folded page per standard document pouch (for home laminators) leaving a small space between the 2 folded papers.

4. Cut each laminated page in half (except cardholder pages). I like to trim all edges to equal proportions as well. It's not necessary, I just like it.

5. Order the pages properly. The left margins are always extra wide to leave room for spiral or comb binding if you choose that route. This also aides with ordering the pages.

6. Bind with shower curtain clips, book bind rings, yarn, or use a binding machine. I have used hole punches and yarn, but currently use a comb binding machine.

7, Cut the cards out. Laminate them with about a 1/4 inch space in all directions.

8. Cut the cards apart.

9. Add soft velcro dots to the back of the cards, and rough dots to the empty squares on each page, as well as to the card holder squares.

That's it!

No lamination option:

1. Print the book and card pages.

2. Fold each page on the line in the center of each page.

3. Properly order the pages.

4. Staple the left side to bind the pages.

5. Cut the cards out.

6. Offer glue for your child to place the cards on the pages as you read the book. This will be a single use activity, but you can still read it as many times as you wish. It may be less engaging after you're done pasting, but you won't know until you try

Preparing Activities:

Math cards should be laminated IF used. If your child is preschool age and isn't into math, I wouldn't go past the counting cards. They have Kindergarten for that.

1. Cut the cards outs.

2. Cut the answers out.

3. For subtraction cards, cut the manipulatives out.

4. Laminate everything. You can use a glue stick to keep the small pieces in place in your laminating pouch. (There's a poorly done video on this page demonstrating that.)

5. Cut everything apart.

6. For subtraction, you'll want to use .04 inch velcro dots, placing one rough dot on each dot and answer square, and a soft dot on the back of each manipulative you choose to use, and the answer pieces.

7. For counting and addition, you'll put rough dots in the answer squares, and soft dots on the answers.

For Bingo:

My son loves to "mark" things, so I laminate and let him use dry erase markers to mark his items when I call them. You don't have to laminate them if you don't want to. It will help the game pieces last longer if you do.

Most other activities can be printed and used straight out of the printer. ALL activities are optional! I offer the same activities for each theme, although I do add a few more as I go. If you want your child to practice counting but they don't with this set, there will be counting cards with the next set. This brings in repetition, sameness, and a hint of novelty to keep learning fun. It also allows your child to easily complete activities as they will likely remember how to do them when they see them with slightly different numbers and graphics.

Nothing requires handwriting. It's easy to make any activity a writing activity if your child is ready for that, but everything is designed to be used without handwriting.

Order of difficulty (books available in December 2023):

1. I See (Bugs, Christmas, Halloween)

2. I Say ROAR!, It's Christmastime!, I know It's Christmastime!

3. The Shapes on My Christmas Tree!

4. The Christmas Tree Farm, The Pumpkin Patch

5. I'm Going to See Santa at the Mall!