How has the core word journey been going in your classroom or home?

This week’s focus is a great addition to our growing vocabulary, "Make".

An action verb, "Make" is flexible and frequently used, whether it's "Did you make a cake?", "Let's make a mess" or "she makes me laugh". Making choices, making art, or making something happen, "Make" opens up opportunities for expression and problem-solving for our learners.

If you're new to my Core Word Programme, its 36 sessions of speech and language content specifically designed (by me!) for the Gestalt Language Processors and pre/non verbal children in your life. Each week includes Attention Autism ideas, sensory story suggestions, activities and games, and includes three different symbol languages.

Find out how 'Make' has been integrated into my sensory classroom activities this week.

Me and my class start by learning the sign, watching videos of the Makaton sign, and then finding "Make" on our core boards or AAC devices.

The sensory story that I have been using with my class is "What Makes A Rainbow" by Betty Ann Schwartz. A fun, interactive, colourful pop up book, it features ribbons throughout that end in a rainbow. This repeats our core word whilst additionally giving context to what it means, by showing how "make" is tied to the process of creating something—the rainbow.

Each animal that the main character in the story meets adds a specific colour, which contributes to "making" the rainbow, giving children a clear and concrete example of the action the word describes. This helps their understanding of "make" referring to creating or forming something.

In this weeks interactive games my learners are asked to "Make" an expression on a child's face - happy, scared, tired etc. These games can be completed on a whiteboard, or on individual iPads.

These interactive games are a fab, low-stakes way of learning whilst playing, as there's no wrong answers, and you can assess their understanding as they are playing.
The games lessen the demand on our children and reduce their anxiety, allowing their best work to come through.

Next we move on to watching and listening to our core word. Each week of the programme there are links included to film, TV and music where the cord word is used, giving them further context and examples of the word in action.

As Gestalt Language Processors tend to learn in whole phrases or chunks of conversations, having these examples suits how they learn.

Also included in my Core Word Programme sessions are suggestions for tabletop activities, phrase examples and writing tasks. The writing tasks are excellent for practicing letter formation.

Depending on your classroom setup, and the needs & preferences of your learners, these can either be completed online, on individual iPads or a whiteboard, or printed.

If you aren't already part of my Core Word Programme, it's always a great time to join! The 36 sessions fit perfectly to the academic year, you can start at any time, and there's plenty of content on my blog, and social media relating to the earlier weeks of the programme for you to catch up on. Follow along on myTikTok, Facebook or Instagram.

You can buy the full programme of 36 sessions here. If you'd like to try before you buy, you can access a free demo here.

Attention Autism for Core Word Week 14 - "Make"

My Attention Autism session this week have included Bucket Time, Growing Sphere, and Rocket Balloons. 

Stage 1 

During bucket time I've been using a laughing jiggle ball, and demonstrating "Make it stop" by turning it off. A wriggly, noise activated spider has been the next thing out of the bucket. I will whisper "Make it...." and then shout "GO", so that the spider moves. This helps to demonstrate the connection between "Make", and the action of the toy. Last up has been a spinner clacker, which I spin whilst saying "Make it spin". 

Buy the laughing jiggle ball here. 

Buy the noise activated spider here. 

Buy the spinning clacker here. 

Buy the bucket here. 

Stage 2

Up next has been Growing sphere! In this section, I sing that I am going to make the sphere bigger, whilst expanding the sphere, and moving it around to keep it interesting and attention-grabbing. Then I sing that I am going to make it smaller, whilst reducing the size of it. 

Buy the sphere here. 

Stage 3 

Last up in my Attention Autism sessions this week has been Rocket Balloons. During this activity, I lay out the different colour balloons, and announce the colours of them, and then the air pump. Then, I start to blow up a balloon, singing "We're going to make it bigger". Then I say "Ready, steady, go!", and let the balloon go. I then say "Your turn" and my learners can take it turn to blow up the balloons, sing the song, and let them go. 

Buy the rocket balloons here. 

These activities help to demonstrate my core word in an exciting and interactive way. To see this weeks session, and previous Attention Autism sessions, head to my Instagram, Facebook or TikTok. 

There are a years worth of core word based Attention Autism ideas included in my Core Word Programme here. Separate to the core words, you can also get four years worth of fun Attention Autism ideas for Stages 1-4 here.  

Check out Attention Autism here, they've just updated their training and I highly recommend it.