Free Webinar on Multisensory Teaching

Dear Friends:

I wanted to send you an invitation to attend a free webinar on Multisensory Teaching, featuring myself as the guest speaker. The hosts, Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide, the co-authors of The Dyslexic Advantage and The Mislabeled Child, are international authorities on dyslexia and learning differences.  They are featuring this online event on August 21st at 5:30 Pacific Standard Time or 8:30 Eastern Standard Time. You can register by clicking on the following link.

http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e7zd7jgodceef30d&llr=u5ihfjnab

Cheers, Erica

11 End of the Year Activities Using Balls and Balloons

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Balls and balloons offer a cheap and fun way to complete your school year.  What’s more integrating balls and balloons brings a tactile, playful, and kinesthetic modality into the classroom.  Balls and balloons can be used to review the academic content, as well as mindfulness activities and keepsakes.  Below is featured a variety of entertaining, multisensory ideas.

Reviewing Key Topics from the School Year

These games can be played with an entire class in a large circle facing one another, or you can break the students into small groups or pairs. 

1) Parts of Speech Game:  Place the parts of speech on a balloon or ball.  Have the students pass the balloon or ball to one another.  Instruct them to say aloud the first part of speech they see.  Then ask them to provide a word that is an example of that part of speech.  Players can not repeat a word that has already been used.  If they do, they are out of the game.

2) Figurative Language Game:  Place the figurative language terms on a balloon or ball.  Have the students pass the balloon or ball to one another, and instruct them to say aloud the first figurative language term they see.  Then ask them to provide a phrase that is an example of that type of figurative language.  Players can not repeat a figurative language example that has already been used.  If they do, they are out of the game.

3) Types of Syllables Game:

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Place the syllable types on a balloon or ball.  Have the students pass the balloon or ball to one another, and instruct them to say aloud the first syllable type that they see.  Then ask them to provide a word that is an example of that type of syllable.  Players can not repeat a word that has already been used.  If they do, they are out of the game.

4) Vowel Combinations or Vowel Teams Game:

Place the vowel combinations on a balloon or ball.  Have the students pass the balloon or ball to one another, and instruct them to say aloud the first vowel combination that they see.  Then ask them to provide a word that uses that vowel combination.  Players can not repeat an example that has already been used.  If they do, they are out of the game.

5) Types of Sentences:

Place the types of sentences on a balloon or ball.  Have the students pass the balloon or ball to one another, and instruct them to say aloud the first sentence type that they see.  Then ask them to provide a sentence that illustrates that sentence type.  Players can not repeat a sentence that has already been used.  If they do, they are out of the game.

6) Main Ideas and Details:

Place main ideas on a balloon or ball.  Main ideas could include transportation, colors, vacation spots and so forth.  Have the students pass the balloon or ball to one another, and instruct them to say aloud the main idea that they see.  Then ask them to provide a detail that would be properly categorized under that main idea.  Players can not repeat a detail that has already been used.  If they do, they are out of the game.

Mindfulness Activities and Keepsakes

7) What I Learned:  Have the students sit in a circle facing one another.  Explain that the only person who can speak is the one holding the ball.  Toss the ball to one of your students and ask them to share the most important thing they learned over the school year.  When they are finished talking, have them toss the ball to another student.  Continue until all the students have an opportunity to share their thoughts.

8) My Favorite Lessons:  

Have the students sit in a circle facing one another.  Explain that the only person who can speak is the one holding the ball.  Toss the ball to one of your students and ask them to share their favorite lesson from the whole school year.  Ask them to also share why they like it so much.  When they are finished talking, have them toss the ball to another student.  Continue until all the students have an opportunity to share their thoughts.

9) What I Like About Me and You:

Have the students sit in a circle facing one another.  Explain that the only person who can speak is the one holding the ball.  Toss the ball to one of your students and ask them to share one thing that they like about themselves and one thing that they like about the person who tossed them the ball.  When they are finished talking, have them toss the ball to another student.  Continue until all the students have an opportunity to share their thoughts.

10) Memory Balls: Give each student a blank inflatable ball, such as a beach ball.  Provide permanent markers and let the students go around and sign each other’s balls.  They can leave short messages too.  Be sure to say that all messages must be positive. 

11) Why I’m “Special” Balls:  Before you begin this activity, ask your students to help you create a list of positive adjectives that can describe people.  Place this list where all the students can see it.  Now, give each of your students a blank beach ball or balloon.  Provide permanent markers and have the students go around and write a positive adjective that describes the person on the ball or balloon to whom it belongs.   Encourage the students to come up with unique adjectives by looking at each ball and coming up with something new. 

If you would like to learn about some of my other popular games.  Go to: http://goodsensorylearning.comThere, you can even download freebies on some of my product pages.

I hope you enjoy these games!!  I would love to hear you thoughts.

Cheers, Erica
Dr. Erica Warren is the author, illustrator and publisher of multisensory educational materials at Good Sensory Learning and Dyslexia Materials.  She is also the director of Learning to Learn, in Ossining, NY.  To learn more about her products and services, you can go to www.goodsensorylearning.com  www.dyslexiamaterials.com and  www.learningtolearn.biz 

10 Strategies that Transform Passive Learners into Active Learners

Students’ forearms prop heavy heads and eye lids become fatigued and weighty. Information fills the room, but the restless audience remains impervious as attention is stolen by fleeting thoughts and boredom.  If this is a common scene at your school, most likely the learning environment is passive.  Although a passive learning environment can accommodate large numbers of students, it is often an ineffective scholastic milieu.  In contrast, an active learning environment should have the opposite effect on students.  This way of teaching encourages creativity, self directed learning, mindfulness, interaction, discussion and multisensory ways of processing. 

So what can I do to nurture active learning?

1)   Help your students understand the difference between active and passive learning.

2)   Encourage your students to complete the free Passive vs. Active Learning Profile offered free here.

3)   Let your students brainstorm things they can do to become active learners. 

4)   Allow your students to brainstorm things you can do to help them become active learners.

5)   Integrate active learning activities into the classroom such as acting, small group work and hands on activities.

6)   Incorporate fun learning stations in the classroom, so that the students can move around and process with other peers in smaller groups.

7)   Encourage students to preview new topics by watching YouTube clips or doing internet searches so that they come to class with some prior knowledge.

8)   Give students assignment options so that they can make a choice on how they would like to demonstrate their mastery of the content.  Make sure the different options tap into different learning modalities. 

9)   Consider the 12 ways of learning and teach in a multisensory fashion.

10)  Break the class into groups where they take opposing positions on a topic.  Allow one student from each group to facilitate the discussion.  The teacher can act as the judge and can dole out points for good arguments, creative content and clever presentations. 

If you found this blog and activity to be helpful, this is just one of the many resources available in the publication, Planning, Time Management and Organization for Success: Quick and Easy Approaches to Mastering Executive Functioning Skills for Students. 

Cheers,  Erica
Dr. Erica Warren is the author, illustrator and publisher of multisensory educational materials at Good Sensory Learning and Dyslexia Materials.  She is also the director of Learning to Learn, in Ossining, NY.  To learn more about her products and services, you can go to www.goodsensorylearning.com  www.dyslexiamaterials.com and  www.learningtolearn.biz