Irish schools are to remain closed until the end of January 2021. For families like mine, we will now Home School our children, with online learning for some being an option. For my sons, I know that online-learning is not an option as it will not meet their needs or abilities. Home-schooling with the support and guidance of their brilliant school will be our way forward. Home School Visuals are essential to help your child or student understand the new “Home – School” routine and schedule.
Online through my social media platforms (Instagram & Facebook), I regularly advocate for the inclusion of visual supports in the environment of all autistic children, where possible. From a strength based perspective we know that autistic children are visual learners and using Visual Supports will aid their comprehension and understanding of information and expectations.
With the aforementioned at the forefront of my mind together with the overwhelm many parents feel at this juncture, I have designed Home School Visuals you can use as part of your Visual Schedule to help your child/student process what may be happening day to day as part of their Home School learning.
In the coming days I will be designing additional FREE Home School printables; you can use at home to help support your child/learner during this time of pandemic.
Home School Visual Icons
I have designed a selection of Home School Visual icons you can use as part of your Visual Schedule. Print off the Visual icons and laminate. Thereafter, cut out each individual square and attach a soft Velcro coin to the rear of each individual Home School visual. Attach to your Visual Schedule/Choice Boards as appropriate.
Home School Visual Support
I have designed two Home School visual supports you can laminate, and cut out. Attach the green “Start” Visual to one large container/basket and the red “Finished” to another container/basket.
When working at the table with your child/student place tasks “they have to work on” in the “Start” basket (the basket will be on the left hand side of the child/on the table/ground). Place tasks that your child completes into the “Finished” container/basket (this will be placed on the right hand side of your child/right hand side of the table/ground). The red & green Visual Supports will help your student understand what tasks they have to complete but also helps them to understand that once the “Start” basket/container is empty and the “Finished” basket is full, they will then be finished their work.
You can access your FREE Home School Visual Supports here.
If you have found these visual supports helpful, go to my Family Blog where you will find a host of other Free Printables.
It has now been 7 days since our schools closed. How long they will be closed, no one can say definitively.
I have been contacted by multiple parents seeking a a “No School” Calendar to use with their children at home.
Each morning I encourage my sons to place a “no school” visual image on their own calendar when we begin each of their homeschool lessons.
It helps to alleviate their anxieties but also give them a concrete sense of time passing and reaffirming that ” going to school” will not be taking place on that particular date.
The calendar I have created for you is dateless, has no month attached nor year.
I have created it in this manner as for now, none of us know for sure when traditional school will return.
You will fill in the dates/months and years yourself.
You can choose to laminate and cut out each “no school” visual and attach each individually to the laminated calendar.
You can also choose to not laminate, instead cutting out the “no school” images and attaching using glue.
I hope you find it helpful. If you require additional FREE PRINTABLES go to my educational resources website – LITTLE PUDDINS.
Wherever you are in the world right now, I hope that you are safe and well.
I have created the social narrative in a page by page format, so you the parent can include or exclude whatever information you feel is pertinent to you and your family.
It is highly probable at this juncture (11/03/2020) that schools will close so I have allocated a countdown box within the social narrative. This will help your son or daughter to understand in a concrete sense when school will reopen (if known).
Information available on the WHO website. Click on the image for further information regarding symptoms and advice.
Update– due to the overwhelming demand for the Coronavirus Social Narrative I have updated the link with a visual to help you locate it. I am receiving a great many messages requesting a copy to be sent directly. If you click on the above “Click to download visual”, you will receive an instant download.
I have also been in contact with many schools around the globe this morning seeking to print off multiple copies of the aforementioned social narratives to give to students. You absolutely have my persmission to do so. Absolutely no need to request permission. It is expressly given here.
For additional FREE printable downloads, go to my family blog www.littlepuddins.ie by clicking on the image below.
Update December 2020
I have been overwhelmed these past almost 10 months with the response globally to the Social Narrative I designed and released for FREE on the eve of Ireland’s premier lock down in March 2020. The Social Narrative has been recommended around the world by academics and professionals I have long admired who work in the field of autism. It has been recommended by charities and organisations renown for their progressive advocacy on behalf of autistic individuals and their families. I have been contacted by families, by parents, by teachers, therapists, by so many; each offering thanks for my helping their family member, student or friend understand what was happening in the world at that moment in time when we as a global community stood still and stopped what had been our normal daily lives. It overwhelms me now to think of those moments back in March, April, May.. even now online, weekly I am thanked by a member of our global community who has found their way to The Autism Educator in search of a social narrative to help their loved one understand.
I owe thanks to the creative genius that is Smarty Symbols. I have long been a subscriber to Smarty Symbols Communication System, as they have really helped me connect with my sons who are non-speaking, they have helped my speaking son, Jack make sense of his world, every day. We would be lost without Smarty Symbols and it is a testament to how magnificent and effective Smarty Symbols are, when I think of all the children who have read my Social Narrative and it helped them to understand what to most, at one time or another, has been incomprehensible.
To name but a few organisations, government bodies and charities who recommend my “What is the Coronavirus”? Social Narrative I attach their logos below.
