Multimedia Center @ Wheatley

Group #2 is well underway now.  As with Group #1, we started the session with some mini-lessons on behavior expectations.  I tried something new this time: recognizing that many of my friends in Group #2 are on the autism spectrum and respond better to visual information, I had one of my PreK classes help me record some videos of what we do during media time. 

As the students arrive, we have a video playing on a loop of kids coming in and sitting on the carpet.  For most of our Group #2 classes, it worked like a charm...most of the time, I didn't even have to give a verbal direction!

Now that we have established our expectations, we've started our regular routine:

• Greeting--students use their voices or a voice output device to greet Ms. Helen and me.

• Song--we switch between doing a song or MeMoves (see next bullet) (with a video...we use videos from YouTube from the KidsTV 123 station); some of our favorites are:
• Numbers
• Colors
• 5 Little Monkeys
• MeMoves--we move our bodies, trying to imitate the people we see on the screen (for more info about MeMoves, click here to visit their website).
• Read a story--this is usually a simple and sometimes interactive story on the SMART Board related to our theme.
• Centers--the students use a Visual Scene Display (see picture) or spoken words to choose a center.

• 

  Visual Scene Display (VSD) for center choice making

  Dismissal--we meet back together on the carpet after the timer goes off and we clean up our centers so we can say "goodbye" (again, either verbally or using a voice output device).

This past month, the students have enjoyed the activities at the red table--cars and trains!  They have built track for the trains and raced cars through a long cardboard tube.  We will be starting our next theme: Animals...but not until after the school pictures have finished in the library. 😊