It's Party Time!

Mad Scientist Party Time, that is. Yes, we are once again doing a Mad Science party for Halloween. We had a blast last year and are looking forward to another fun time. The beauty is that all the planning is done (yay me!). I tweaked the Monster Lab sensory story I wrote last year just a bit (comment if you want a copy; my 4Shared account closed because I didn't use it enough). One of my paras is donating some very cool decorations to the cause and everyone is busily preparing their costume ideas.

In preparation for the Big Event we are taking a brief break from our Unique unit on ecosystems/biomes to indulge in some monstrous fun. Today we watched a couple of episodes of the Goolies on YouTube. Tomorrow we will start reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein on audio book (courtesy of iTunes). Wednesday we will design our own monsters with both Boardmaker and as an art project. Thursday we are spending the day cooking/preparing the food and decorating the room for Friday (and having a birthday party for one of the kids while we're at it). And then there's FRIDAY!!

This year we are going to do the sensory story, do a couple of experiments (probably cornstarch/water goop and vinegar/baking soda explosions since most of my kids this year can see), dissect a pumpkin, play with the sensory toys I purchased last year, design our own costumes (complete with make up and hair dos), and jam to some appropriate Monster Mash music. If we have time we'll watch one of our Mad Scientist videos (Igor, Young Frankenstein, Little Shop of Horrors, Mad Monster Party, Flubber, The Nutty Professor, The Absent Minded Professor). As an aside, we had to cancel our pumpkin patch trip because of rain/mud so went to the video store to rent some fun, campy "B" "horror" movies. Can you believe the store didn't have anything? No Blob or Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (or anything else that wanted to attack in weird and funny ways) to be found. We finally found an old copy of this obscure movie which we all about fell apart laughing at. The kids LOVED it and so did the adults. Made for a very fun rainy afternoon. I'm going to have to go hunt for more by these people (evil laugh--evil laugh--evil laugh--I sleep now --watch the movie, you'll get it).

Menu for this year is:

Sloppy Joe (poor Joe, I hope there's enough of him to go around)

Monster Fingers and Toes (green beans)

Wiggly Pumpkins (one of my paras has a jello mold shaped like a foot so we might use that)

Pumpkin Mouse (minus the tails of course)

(If you can't tell, I love Taste of Home recipes; most of what I cook at home and what we cook at school comes from these wonderful people; there are lots of classroom friendly recipes available so go check it out!)

The Great and Powerful Oz

This week we had fun with Part 3 of The Wizard of Oz. A lot happens in this section, between the angry apple trees, meeting both the Tin Man and the Lion, and running across poison poppies. Just reading the story took most of our available time. Today the kids made lion "masks" with their peer buddies. We adapted a bit by using smaller paper plates and gluing a photo of the kids' faces to the center. Ours don't seem to look much like lions at the moment as they are made from some very interesting colors (blue and orange, purple and gold, etc.). Maybe once we add some ears... The kids really enjoyed the adapted Boardmaker book (still waiting to hear back from Pete Wells to see if it's OK if I share these adaptations), probably because some of the best music is in this section. I don't know how many times we've heard "If I Only Had a Brain" and "If I Were King of the Forest."

Next week we find out if everyone survives the poison poppies, meet the Great and Powerful Oz, and venture off on a quest after the witch's broom. As part of our activities we will

• Do a green foods taste test and graph our likes and dislikes
• Fingerpaint with different shades of green (if time; it's a four day week for us)
• Do the heart collage we ran out of time for this week
• Do a lesson on the concepts of "real" and "pretend"

Our big Wizard of Oz party is in two weeks. Hopefully we'll be finished with the story by then. There's only one part to go after this next week so I think we'll make it.

Vortex Cubes

Our Vortex Cubes from Dale Air in the UK arrived today just in time for our Oztastic sensory story. They were worth every penny! The "farm" one smells pretty much like a farm, or at least one with lots of cattle. The "burnt wood" brought back fond memories of sitting around a camp fire and "forest" smells like the evergreen woods in Colorado. "Apple" made my mouth water and "freesia" is just heavenly (and really really strong). The cubes are hefty at around 2 inches (OK, I'm really bad at estimating sizes, but they are big enough to hold onto while fitting comfortably in the hand), made of sturdy plastic, brightly colored, and well labeled. The scents were strong enough to be smelled through the box, styrofoam peanuts, 2 plastic bags, and an adhesive seal, which I'm sure made the package very popular with the dogs when it went through customs. The cubes cost around $9 apiece, which includes shipping and import tax, and took exactly 7 days to arrive. I have found nothing like them here in the US, but I'm sure they would be at least that expensive, if not more, if there was a US manufacturer. Customer service is excellent as well. I received quick and friendly responses to emailed inquiries. And the company has so many scents to choose from! There are 82 food related scents and 117 non food related scents as of today. Some interesting titles include Boiler Room, Dragons Breath, Street 1930's, Flatulence, and Dinosaur. And if you have a specific scent in mind but can't find it on their list, try emailing them to see if they can recommend a substitute or maybe create a new scent. They add scents all the time. I can think of a few right off hand (in case Dale Air is reading :-) ): swimming pool, gym shoes, locker room, wet dog, snow, autumn day, asphalt, large vehicle exhaust.

The uses of these cubes are limited only to the imagination. Put a container of them in a multisensory area for olfactory exploration. Buy two of several scents to create an olfactory matching game. Use with sensory stories, typical literature, history lessons, science experiments, etc., to increase understanding and enhance memory/recall (since scent is supposed to be the strongest memory trigger). Match to familiar community outings (although suprisingly I did not see one for Swimming Pool unless the Brits use a different term) or use as transition cues for various activities. Use scents of favorite or common foods to make choices at snack or meal times. Pair specific scents with colors for people with visual impairments to make art projects more meaningful (we have done this successfully using liquid potpourri on cotton balls stored in film canisters but the Vortex cubes would work so much better). Match scent cubes to objects, photos, symbols, or words. Use them to do a like/don't like inventory with individual students or classes. Or branch out and quiz random people in the hall. Play a "guess what this is" game with the cubes, another fun hallway/peer activity. For even more fun, pair the scent game with taste testing Every Flavor Beans (hmm...think I might have just found my "after spring break" activity).

Follow the Yellow Brick Road...

Part 3 in our journey through Oz...

This week we have had a blast doing Oz activities. We read a story synopsis that I created using Boardmaker and liberally pirating the illustrations from Pete Wells' sensory story. It has sound effects and everything. Combined with a few tactile props for my visually impaired kids and we had a hit. The most popular part of Part 1 was the tornado. I made a tactile/visual version in a water bottle half filled with crystal beads. And EVERYONE got 100% on the comprehension questions. How cool is that?

We also started writing our own versions of the story. Each page of the book has a story prompt with three choices, basically a choose-your-own adventure. They've had lots of fun choosing and reading their books. I'm still waiting to hear back from Pete about whether or not it's OK to share these activities since I've used his work to create them. Hopefully he'll get back to me soon. This project was so popular with the kids I'm going to have to come up with more.

This afternoon we started the Wind Experiments. Between being short handed for staff, running late, and uncooperative kids, we didn't get very far. Only one student finished the experiment. The others variously protested, went on strike, or were too distracted by the other kids to concentrate. In retrospect I should have done a lesson on weight (heavy vs. light) and let them explore the objects as a group and set up the "wind" at a separate station in another area for individual use. The blow dryer was a real distractor to the kids who were still making choices or working on concepts. Not to mention that we were right on top of each other in our rather cramped space. That's how we'll set things up tomorrow when we try again.

We'll also do the Part 1 sensory story with our peer buddies tomorrow. If the response of my home bound student is any indication, it should be a lot of fun. Then our buddies can help us make tornado bottles.

This project has been wonderful for state assessment data for the portfolios. That's always a nice benefit. Interested in what we've done? Drop me a comment.

Next week, in Part 2, we meet the Munchkins, Glinda the Good Witch, and the Scarecrow. Lots of singing planned too. Goodness knows we've listened to the soundtrack enough. HA HA!

Other projects include:

• Bubbles (for Glinda); so much fun and everyone is always motivated to talk; think I'll break out our bubble machine and hook it up to the powerlink


• Magic wand craft to add to our story props


• Scarecrow craft, although I think we'll use up some of the multitude of fabric scraps we have in the closet rather than neckties; this is a nicely tactile project with lots of choices


• And of course the adapted story and the sensory story

The plan is to eventually post pictures of the whole project. I really liked the Voicethread Kate Ahern shared on her blog. I haven't explored Voicethread yet so this might be the perfect opportunity. We also have an Open House type night coming up at the end of the month. The first floor of the building (where my room is) will be opened up to parents and patrons during a home basketball games and we're all being encouraged to put up displays. I think we'll do a Yellow Brick Road timeline on the wall outside our room and put up the projects we've done, or photos of them.

We're Off to See the Wizard...

We are launching our Wizard of Oz unit this week. It should be loads of fun. I'm basing the unit on the wonderful work of Pete Wells and taking liberal advantage of his fantastic illustrations. Hopefully he'll give me permission to share these activities. If so, I'll post them to Adaptive Learning since what I've done is in Boardmaker.

We're going to take it a bit slow this week, getting back into the swing of things after over two weeks off. We're going to do a bunch of background work to prepare for really jumping into the story.

First, we'll work with the kids to make story props so they each have their own set. We'll make tactile/sensory representations for the characters and some of the major settings as well as gather the materials for Pete's sensory stories.

• Auntie Em: an apron


• Uncle Henry: ??


• Dorothy: yarn braids with a bow


• Toto: piece of fur or a small dog collar, for some kids a small dog doll


• Witch: ?? I have a witch's hat, but it's a bit big; maybe make tiny brooms?


• Scarecrow: straw; I also have a cool art project that we'll do during Week 2


• Tin Man: silver card stock OR an aluminum or tin can (no sharp edges)


• Lion: ?? I have an art project for this one too and a couple of lion dolls


• Wizard: ??


• Munchkins: I think we'll use some Little People or Weebles for these


• Glinda: magic wand with a star and curly ribbon


• Flying monkeys: ??


• Ruby slippers: we'll make our own from cheep baby shoes or slippers and red glitter or sequins


• Yellow brick road: we'll paint small blocks or bricks with yellow paint and glitter


• Emerald City: ?? maybe some small boxes painted green with glitter

We'll also play some of the awesome switch games available from Pete's Oztastic activities

I'll do some of the activities from my Kansas unit including reading our All About Kansas adapted book, making sunflowers, and singing Home on the Range (for more fun switch activities from the Intellitools Activity Exchange, search on Bongo Barry's name; a very talented fellow Kansan)

We'll do some work with tornados by making a tornado in a bottle (see the Oztastic activities again or do a google search for lots of ideas) and doing some fun wind experiments with a blowdryer. I think I'm most excited about these experiments because we don't do nearly enough science. Being in Kansas, we have wind nearly all the time and several of my students have "wind issues" so this is a great topic for us.

Wind experiments: Concepts of heavy and light; prediction (check Adaptive Learning to see if I've had time to upload the activity)

• Materials: objects with various weights such as feather, rock, book, paper, toy; a blow dryer; a powerlink and switch


• Procedure: List the experiment items on paper (or use PCS symbols); allow the students to explore the air moving from the hair dryer and to "play" with the hair dryer using a switch; have students explore one of the items (or incorporate choice by letting the student choose which item he/she wishes to experiment with); ask him/her to predict if he/she thinks the item will move when the "wind" blows on it (yes or no in column 1); have the student perform the experiment by blowing air on the object with the hair dryer (could place item on table or in student's hand, depending upon sensory needs); have the student indicate what he/she observed (did the item move in the "wind"? yes or no) and record the response in column 3

We'll also work a lot on the basic vocabulary in the story using the flash card activities Pete includes in his unit as well as just letting the kids explore the character cards and props.

I was able to pick up some cute props from The Kansas Store including a head band and wand for Glinda, Tin Man's axe, a miniature Toto with a basket, etc. In addition, the older sister of one my students is absolutely obsessed with the Wizard of Oz (she prefers to be called Dorothy, thank you) so we may be able to (secretly) borrow some things from her. I downloaded the soundtrack to the movie from itunes as well as two really well-done audiobooks performed dramatically (one by The St. Charles Players, based more on the movie, and the other by The Colonial Radio Players, which stays true to the book).

I created a board game with two different sets of cards. One set has comprehension questions about the story. The other focuses on the concepts of "real" and "pretend." Both use the same game board. Of course, we won't be able to play them until a bit later in the unit.

So stay tuned for our journey down the Yellow Brick Road. I'll share more as we come to it. The original goal was to finish on Jan. 29, Kansas Day, with a Wizard of Oz party, but I'm not sure we'll make it. Between a couple of short weeks and the need to talk about current events such as the upcoming Presidential Inauguration, I'm sure we'll encounter some delays.

Quickie Christmas Activity

This post was inspired by the need to find some easy activities for my students to do this week (and because lots of people are gooling for Christmas and Smart board activities) and evolved into more. A Christmas Carol is a terrific theme for some awesome differentiated learning activities. Everything I've put together here could be created in a couple of hours or is simply downloadable/printable/playable and could be done fairly quickly. Maybe when I have some time (she laughs maniacally) I'll further develop this into a real unit. Meanwhile, if you have ideas to share, please do....

This has been a big week for my program. My new high school student has been visiting with her teacher. Today we had a video party with another class in the building (the "alternative learning" class) where we watched the "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." Well, really, the movie played and everyone ate the snacks the other teacher brought. My kids showed off some of things they can do and the ALC kids gained an appreciation and understanding of others. It was a pretty cool experience and one or two of them want to come back and play video games (after he saw my wii one of the boys, who had kind of sat off in a corner and not said anything at all, asked if he could bring his playstation, which was in his back pack, and come play with the kids; that led into a discussion of how "my" kids play video games, what games they like, etc.; now we have a "date" for Friday and I think a ready-made incentive opportunity for this struggling student). Tomorrow and Friday my new student and her para are spending the day with us while the teacher packs up and moves all the stuff from her program. On top of all that, one of my favorite paras ever decided the job she had left us for was not for her. Her first day back was yesterday (yay for us!), but this, among other things, necessitated a long overdue team meeting. I've been writing progress reports and planning for the upcoming program changes. We've also been trying to consolidate, down-size, and generally make space for all the stuff we're getting from the other program. Oh, and we have a birthday party to throw tomorrow.

Because I knew the adults were going to be pretty well tied up, as far as programming goes, I needed to come up with some activities the kids could do with minimum assistance but that were still meaningful. Then Kate posted this article about Speakaboos including the link to A Christmas Carol. Perfect! Then I remembered that Pete's Stuff had a sensory story about Scrooge (for another fun Christmas activity from Pete try Norbert the Green Nosed Reindeer). And I found an AWESOME unabridged recording of the book on itunes read by the phenomenal Jim Dale (who reads the Harry Potter series, my kids' favorite audio books; mine too). So we're using the sensory story and Speakaboos on the Smart board during morning meeting and then letting the kids listen to the audio book at times when the adults are tied up with the multitude of other things going on right now. If we have time on Friday we'll watch the movie too.

Other activities you could quickly put together to do with this book:

Make a "humbug" (scroll down to "undirected craft time)

Recreate the characters with paper sack puppets

Make paper chains for Jacob Marley

Make a Christmas wish list for Tiny Tim (we would use Boardmaker PCS and pictures from toy catalogs)

Discuss the emotions of the various characters (happy, sad, scared, mad, etc.)

Compare Christmas traditions from the Victorian Era with today (presents; family get togethers; Christmas trees; crazy shopping days; dancing; etc.). If I were to do this with my students I would create representations of major traditions using Boardmaker. Then we'd create a chart or Venn diagram on the Smart board and help the kids decide if the activities should go in Christmas past, Christmas present, or both.

Vote on your favorite character from the story and make a bar graph using pictures (Scrooge, the ghosts, Jacob Marley, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchitt, etc.)

Make Victorian bonnets or top hats

Use some of these ideas for Victorian Christmas crafts

Or play some Victorian era Christmas games

Gee, all these ideas, that I found and/or came up with in about a 15 minute search, make me wish that we had time to do them! Maybe next year...

Can I just say...WOW!

Patrick Black from Teaching All Students recently posted about the website Pete's Stuff. I just spent a couple of hours (yes, I said hours) checking out the site and it left me absolutely floored. I've seen some of Pete's stuff before on the Whiteboard Room site and my kids really liked the sensory stories we've done. His work inspired the Monster Mash sensory story I did for our Mad Scientist Party. The Pete's Stuff site is even better. The sensory stories located here are well-done, loads of fun, and thoroughy explained. Best of all, they are FREE! Pete asks for nothing in return except an email to let him know how the story went. I downloaded two to look at: Gobbin Hood and The Wizard of Oz (OK, I'm from Kansas, how could I NOT look at this one!). Gobbin Hood was a blast but I stopped in my tracks when I went through the Wizard of Oz collection. It is a COMPLETE UNIT and absolutely beautiful! Pete has done a phenomenal job of simplifying and synopsizing (is that a word?) the story to make it readily understandable to people with severe learning differences without losing the flavor or making it babyish. He has included a list of props (and where to find them, although a few of the cooler ones like the scented Vortex cubes, may be a bit tricky to get here in the States, but ooohh how cool), extension activities (art, cooking, core content), printables, and computer games for switch users (work well with touch screen too). All of it will present well on an interactive whiteboard (in fact, will present BETTER in a projected format). I always try to do something special in January in honor of Kansas Day and I've found this year's project for sure. My first instinct was to rush and try to do the unit NOW because I can't wait to share it with my kids. BUT, if I wait a couple of months I can put all the resources together including the props (I'm nearly certain I can find dolls for all the characters plus the Flying Monkeys at The Kansas Store) and effectivly plan extension activities (how do you convert UK recipe instructions to a US version and what the heck are "digestive biscuits?") AND get The Girls involved in the planning so they have some ownership and get as enthused as I already am. I will certainly be downloading ALL of the sensory stories Pete has so generously made available and implementing them with my students. It's going to be SOOOOO much fun!

Mad Science

I will be the first to admit, I love Halloween and always have. Some of my fondest memories from my childhood are of making my own costumes and going out on crisp fall nights to trick or treat, watching the Walt Disney Halloween special, and trading candy with my brother. Now that I'm all grown up, and don't have kids of my own, I generally get my Halloween fix with my students. I have a huge box of props, manipulatives, and toys. I think I must own every Halloween-themed kids' CD out there (my paras counted today and I think they came up with 10; that doesn't count what I've downloaded to itunes). We typically do lots of Halloween-related activities like going to the local pumpkin patch, carving a pumpkin and playing in pumpkin guts (fun!), designing our own costumes (last year's favorite was a pirate complete with a pirate ship-stroller and a treasure chest treat box, oh, and the parrot, can't forget the parrot), and having a Halloween party. This year we have decided to have a Mad Scientist party instead of the more traditional Halloween classroom party. This came about for several reasons. First, Lon Thornburg of No Limits to Learning fame is sponsoring a "Mad Scientist" theme for October's Assistive Technology Blog Carnival and I really wanted to enter it so got "inspired." Second, I have at least one student whose family does not "do" Halloween so we always have to adapt. I've been fortunate that these families have not asked me to restrict the Halloween fun for the other students (and staff), but they prefer that their child do non-Halloween activities. Third, at the middle school level we are constantly striving to "age up" the kids' activities. So often they seem "stuck" at a preschool interest level and to some extent we allow them to appreciate their favorites (tops right now are Handy Manny, Tigger and Pooh, and SpongeBob). However, we also expose them to as much of the pre-teen/teen culture as we can. The Girls and I all agreed that a Mad Scientist party would not only be fun, but could work to meet a lot of our goals with the kids and still let us enjoy Halloween fun without tromping on anyone's beliefs. I mean, what middle schooler wouldn't want to dress in weird clothes, listen to loud music, and play with weird concoctions? Pretty much an average day around our school.

We had to get creative with our activities to accommodate the kids' sensory issues, especially with science experiments. The exploding volcano project (which would be cool coming out of a beaker) just would not be a big hit with so many kids with vision impairments and I don't think anyone would get the rubber chicken bone thing. Here are the activities we have planned and the assistive technology we will use to support the kids in all the fun:

Ahead of time
Reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in audio book format

Watching Young Frankenstein just for kicks (that will be on swimming day) complete with our own versions of the sound effects or "movie watching" social scripts programmed onto Step-by-Steps (Chloe and I would rather do a fun interactive version of Rocky Horror Picture Show but somehow I don't think that would fly real well; maybe I'll snag her and go to the Orpheum Theater in Wichita to do the real thing)

On the day
Dress up as mad scientists with wigs, gloves, and other props (we have a nurse and a trauma surgeon in our parent collection so I'm sure we'll get some good donations to the cause)

Sensory story on the Smart board based loosely on The Monster Lab Game and work by some folks in the UK (The Advisory Unit Plasma Screen and Whiteboard Room is definitely worth a visit!); the kids will have step-by-steps for appropriate sound effects, use the Smartboard or a jelly beamer to turn the page on whichever software product I decide to use (Boardmaker, Intellitools, SwitchIt!, or powerpoint), and explore all the smelly and ooey gooey props that go along with the story. This will take the place of our usual Morning Meeting activities

Play with a host of "Laboratory Equipment" like a static ball, different light toys, exploring sound effects and creepy music, and "beakers" with different things inside

Cook lunch which will probably be spaghetti and meat sauce (so we can use some of the spaghetti in the sensory story of course) and our favorite pumpkin pudding; I'll have to come up with an appropriate name of course. Hey! Green beans would make good "fingers," hmmm...

Do a Mad Science Experiment, probably making "oobleck" with bright colors (3 parts cornstarch to 2 parts water; fun stuff to play with); I think a mixer (adapted with powerlink) will work with this stuff; guess we'll find out!

Create our own "Frankenstein's Monsters" or robots and use our communication devices to make choices, adapted scissors to cut, etc.

Do the "Spooky Hooky," our version of the Hokey Pokey. The kids use either pictures or step scanning to choose what body parts to shake shake shake

That will probably fill up our day. I doubt we do any "trick or treating" as most of the kids either don't eat by mouth or have dietary restrictions that mean no candy allowed. We'll also create the right "atmosphere" with one of our creepy sounds CDs playing through the surround sound (including the itunes visualizer on the wall) and props set around the room, given I can find some "on the cheap." I'm sure the science teacher next door and the school resource officer will also make an appearance. They go all out for Halloween. At least they don't Vaseline my door handle anymore (learned their lesson after one of the kids ate the stuff! Kid is OK, adults a little sheepish).

I will post photos after the Big Event but wanted to get the initial post done in time for the Blog Carnival (submissions are due Oct. 27). Who knows? We might inspire you to have some Mad Science fun, or maybe you have some ideas to contribute to make our day even better. Consider submitting your own entry to the Carnival. It's painless and NOT SCARY AT ALL. It's a terrific way to share and to get word out about your blog.