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!
A game I made for my small class of learners with autism. Suitable for any small group introduction - e.g. intervention group, speech and language, attention and listening. Learners throw a dice and move around the board. When they land on a question, they answer the question. I like to ask another member of the group a question relating to the answer, to encourage learners to pay attention to each other's answers - my children tend to have very little interest in each other!
Supports social skills, attention and listening, turn taking.
Used for specialist autism group but appropriate for any mainstream KS1 / KS2 group or older SEN group.
A few resources from when we read Sharing a Shell. I teach a mixed age primary class, all with autism attending specialist ASD provision. Ability at the time ranged between P4 and approx Reception / Year 1 level.
Resources are also suitable for mainstream learners working at this level.
Download includes:
Sharing a Shell book review - A4 sheet, learners identify who is in the story, where the story is set and what happened 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
Sharing a Shell LA - position activity for my lowest ability learner, I used this with the child working 1:1 with a TA, discussing the picture and seeing if the child could identify ‘where’ (TA reading the sentence)
Position Sharing a Shell - 2 near identical worksheets for children to write the appropriate word in the gap.
I can draw… - these were to encourage mark making / fine motor skills. Frame with a prompt picture of the characters in Sharing a Shell. 3 x A4 sheets.
Who words dotted - We did a lot of narrative and colourful semantic work in English lessons. This activity was to reinforce / generalise understanding of ‘who’ and to develop mark making / handwriting / recognition of character names (more able).
Lego challenge cards, symbol supported for non / early readers. Some are Christmas themed as I’ve just made them to try and keep my children busy during this last week.
Children choose or are given a card which gives an instruction - e.g. build a Christmas tree / first letter of your name and use Lego to build as instructed.
It’s a fairly open ended activity but my hope is to provide more structure and purpose to play for my children with autism as some have very short attention spans and flit from activity to activity without any meaningful engagement.
24 cards in all, best printed onto card or laminated so they last.
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.
‘At the hospital’ - matching activity. Identify things found in the hospital. With this activity , I laminated and put velcro on the base board and matching cards. Two base boards included and two sets of cards for each baseboard - to cater for readers and non readers.
Also appropriate for use as a cut and paste work sheet.
‘Who board - emergency services’ - another activity which I laminated / added velcro. Matching images of emergency service workers to their names.
Again, also suitable for cut and paste activity if you prefer not to laminate.
Suitable for mainstream and SEN - created for KS3 learners with autism and learning disabilities.
12 peg cards, to reinforce science learning / use as a TEACCH_workstation task.
Laminate as individual cards, pupil places a peg onto the card to indicate ‘float’ or ‘sink’. Could also work as a worksheet style activity, with pupil circling the answer.
A4 worksheet to prompt pupils to recollect what they have done over the summer holiday. Designed for pupils with autism but also suitable for mainstream pupils.
An interactive book I designed for pupils with ASD but also suitable for learners with Speech and Language Difficulties, SEN or KS1. Colourful Semantics support understanding of who / doing / what questions and also supports understanding of sentence structure.
I make up the book by laminating whole pages. I then print off an additional copy of the who / doing / what pages, then chop and laminate these as individual cards.
I add velcro to the whole page who / doing / what sheets and use these as a baseboard for the individual cards. I also add velcro to the who / doing / what table underneath each picture.
The book can be assembled with a keyring / treasury tag. Keep the who / doing / what sheets separate so the child has them to refer to when looking at the picture. It’s simpler than I’m making it sound!
I have used this type of book both as a one to one task and as an independent TEACCH task.
4 worksheets - 3 of these require learners to label pictures using positional language (e.g. behind, in front, under etc) 1 worksheet requires learners to correctly label coloured flowers.
Used for learners in autism provision but also suitable for mainstream KS1, EAL or older learners with SEN.
A resource I made for a mixed group of ks1 / ks2 children with autism / social communication needs. Aim is to develop greater understanding of feelings and to begin to develop awareness of other's feelings, also turn taking and attention and listening.
Resource includes a feelings poster and 18 cards describing situations that have happened to an imaginary child - e.g. 'She has a wobbly tooth'.
We discuss the various feelings an how children are feeling today. Cards are placed face down and children take turns to turn cards over. They consider how the person may be feeling.
More able groups could be prompted / questioned to consider would everyone feel that way in that situation (some people can't stand having wobbly teeth, others get excited...) further developing theory of mind and understanding that people can feel differently about situations.
Storyboard - designed for children with autism to reinforce their understanding of the story. Children sorted the order of the text as a group before drawing their own accompanying pictures.
With my group of children (mixed aged KS1/KS2) I kept the text on the worksheet but I have included a publisher version so this activity could be adapted to a cut and stick activity, or children could write their own sentences.
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.
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.
This is a pack of Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch resources I have used during a seaside topic with a mixed aged (KS1 / KS2) group of learners with autism.
It includes a planning sheet to think about the lighthouse keeper's cottage, differentiated TEACCH style structured sheets to support writing about the Grinling's cottage, and images of the cottage for pupils to stick in their books before writing about the cottage. There is also a word mat to support spellings and jog memories.
There is a mindmap type sheet to encourage pupils to reflect upon what the Grinlings thought about the naughty seagulls.
There is a symbol supported powerpoint about lighthouses and a lighthouse fact sheet for children to complete.
There are also differentiated grammar sheets for learners to decide whether to use 'and' or 'but' in a sentence.
3 documents:
Topic homework sheet
What do my family eat for tea?
Cut and stick activity - food groups, 'jobs' of foods.
Used with KS3 pupils with autism during healthy eating topic - Asdan lessons (New Horizons)
Change in pounds (£) and pence §, KS1, KS2, SEND Entry Level / Functional maths.
Peg card activity designed for Post 16 Learners with SEND, but also appropriate for KS1 / KS2.
Learners need to calculate what change would be due and place a peg on the correct amount. As a laminated peg card activity this is a reuseable resource but it could also be printed and used as a worksheet.
There are 3 different activities within this item:
Peg cards where child or young person calculates change from £1 (varying difficulty including 10s, 5s and single pence)
Peg cards where change is calculated from £10 (whole pound / 50p)
Peg cards where the learner has to recognise the coin or note, then calculate change (various amounts up to £10)
Each activity contains 12 different cards.
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.
All resources developed for use with primary children with significant autism. Also suitable for KS3.
Ancient Greek Intro - where was Ancient Greece? What does 'ancient' mean? What was the Greek alphabet?
Gods and Godessess - Basic introduction, simple language
Gods and Goddesess - Going to the Temple
Simple comprehension - 2 versions, one is colour coded to support learners in finding the answers in the text.
Describing Zeus - picture and word mat to support a writing activity (describing Zeus)
Greek alphabet - activity