Happy snowy Wednesday Families. If you saw my April 8th post, you know that I'm in a constant battle with laundry. It is endless. Now that we're all home together, it's worse. Seriously, we're washing our hands more, my daughter feels like she needs three wardrobe changes a day, my son is convince everything is dirty the second a drop of water touches it, so I recruited my kids to help me with laundry. I thought you guys might like a laundry "unit", and I'll post some ideas and tips over the next couple of days. Here are some ideas on organizing your laundry room, marking your in-home washer and dryer, and some teaching tips to help get your blind or visually impaired child involved. If you don't have an in-home set up, most laundromats are great about allowing a machine or two to be marked if you ask the management. Of course, this is once stay at home orders have been lifted and you're comfortable taking your kids out again. As always, feel free to reach out to me if you have questions or if there's anything we can help you with. -Anne
Organizing the Laundry Room Marking In-Home Washer and Dryer
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Good afternoon families! It turns out that our beautiful warm weather was only temporary, and cooler temperatures are back. When things are cooler outside, it always seems like our family is baking something. I did a quick video on marking an oven and introducing it to your student, so you guys can get your visually impaired or blind child in the kitchen with you. There are a lot of different ways to mark an oven, and if something else works for your family, use that! When marking an appliance, it will hold up better if you clean it with a degreaser, rinse well, and dry completely before marking. Let us know what you guys are baking! - Anne
Introduction to the Oven For those of you with Android devices, there is an exciting new keyboard available that will allow you to type on your phone in braille without any additional devices connected! It works in conjunction with TalkBack, the Android screen reader, and, because it is a keyboard and not a separate app, can be used anywhere you can type! Post on Facebook by writing in braille, send a text message to a friend, or even write a nice email to your teacher, all in braille from your phone! Additional information and how to set it up can be found at the following link: www.blog.google/products/android/braille-keyboard/.
If you have an iPhone, this feature has been available since iOS 12. More information and how to set it up is at the following link: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-onscreen-braille-using-voiceover-iph10366cc30/ios. It works in much the same way, as it is a built-in keyboard, you can use it across the device anytime you would use a keyboard normally! Happy brailling! These simple tactile maps of specific areas/hallways of Haas Elementary, Armstrong Middle School and Southwestern Academy were created for the VI Classroom students.
Each map was created with the specific student and his/her skills in mind. The room names/numbers on the tactile maps (black boards) are Velcro. They may be removed and the student can be asked to put them in the correct order. These maps can allow for other items/rooms to be added when needed. -Marcia Haas Elementary Haas Elementary VI Wing Armstrong Middle School Southwestern Academy Good morning families! Have you ever tried to accomplish a small task and every single thing possible goes wrong? I've been trying to do this pumpkin muffin video for you guys on three different occasions. The first time the phone fell over mid-video, the second my app crashed, and this time my daughter felt like she needed to be distracting during the video. You know what, though? That's how kids are, and this one comes by her sass naturally. The saving grace is that the muffins have always turned out delicious.
Anyway, this is a great recipe to introduce your kids several basic kitchen skills, and positively reinforce their cooking skills with a yummy muffin. It works on opening packages, can opener, stirring, organization, and using a spatula (a tricky skill for all kids). However, it's not a complex recipe. If your visually impaired or blind child has more advanced kitchen skills, you can incorporate oven use in too. Remember if you child is new to the kitchen, not confident in the kitchen, or not showing a lot of interest in cooking skills yet, it's okay for them to just participate in one or two steps. In case you missed the recipe in the video it's one box of spice cake mix, one can of pumpkin, and a cup of water. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Pumpkin muffins not your jam? No worries! There are tons of simple recipes out there to help you introduce some of these basic kitchen skills. Introductory Kitchen Skill With my family of four at home and all the extra attention we're paying to hand washing, we're going through so many towels! I don't know about all of you, but I'm seriously washing a load of towels every single day. I don't feel like I can keep up. I thought this would be a great opportunity to do a video on introducing folding laundry to your visually impaired or blind kiddo, so they can help you stay on top of all that laundry. When you start working with your child on this skill, remember that visually impaired and blind children don't have the opportunity to visually observe other people performing a task. They need to be directly instructed on this skill many times because they don't have the opportunity for this incidental learning. It might take time for corners to line up correctly, piles to be stacked evenly or even to learn where the dish towels go in the kitchen. That's okay. Be patient and persistent, and remember that it doesn't have to be perfect! Please reach out to me if you have any questions. - Anne
Introduction to Folding Laundry Hello Families,
We hope you are all continuing to be safe & healthy during these uncertain times! Last Wednesday, the Michigan Department of Education- Low Incidence Outreach (MDE-LIO) had a webinar for families of students with visual impairments. For those of you who were not able to attend, they have a list of resources that they presented during that webinar on their website. We've linked the attachment here: Live With LIO: BVI Resources for Parents and Families. As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to us with any questions or concerns you have! Happy Friday everyone! Megan, our resident tech expert, usually updates our website, but she is taking a few days off because she just got married! She's entrusted me to update the blog; please be patient with me as I attempt to figure this out.
It's been unseasonably warm, and I wanted to post a video on travel without sidewalk in hopes that everyone is getting outside for some fresh air and exercise. Travel without sidewalks is an advanced skill that incorporates a lot of smaller skills and concepts, but it's so fun to be able to expand your travel environments beyond areas with sidewalks. My kids have been outside running around a lot, so they're constantly asking for drinks. This got me thinking about you guys at home, and I'm sure you're in the same situation. My son and I did a quick video on pouring. This is a great skill for kids to be able to do for themselves as it increases their independence and confidence, and it frees up parents to do other things. I hear win-win! As many of you know, I drink a lot of coffee and tea, so I did a quick video on pouring hot beverages. If you have a student who is ready to move on to more advanced pouring, here's a video on how to support that skill. How great would it be if your child could bring you your morning coffee?!?!? As always, our team is here to help and support you. Please feel free to reach out to any of us with questions, concerns, or if we can help in anyway, especially with these more advanced skills. Have a great weekend! -Anne Travel Without Sidewalks Pouring Cold Beverages Pouring Hot Beverages Here are our updated Independent Living Skill videos for today, courtesy of Anne Zanger and her son! What a star! The first goes through some tips of kitchen equipment that Anne has found helpful when teaching students, and the second follows Anne's son making a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, with teaching tips along the way! As always, we hope you are all staying safe & healthy!
Adaptive Kitchen Equipment Teaching Spreading Good morning all, we hope everyone continues to stay home and stay safe and well! Our very own Anne Zanger created a few videos with tips for some independent living skills you can try with your students at home! They are very clear, and go into detail with how to help your student who is blind or has low vision to be successful with three tasks: getting the appropriate amount of soap from a pump-action dispenser, cutting up a banana, and hand washing the dishes!
Follow these links to watch the videos: |
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December 2020
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