The Very Hungry Caterpillar - DIY Interactive Book

A while back, I picked up a sticker book version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and then completely forgot about until I found it last week. Since a single stickerbook doesn't last very long in classroom of preschoolers, I made it into reusable interactive book - just like this Interactive Farm Book that I made last year!

Materials: 
Stickerbook
Cardstock paper
Laminator & Laminating Sheets OR self-adhesive laminating film
Velcro w/ adhesive

How To: 
1. Carefully take the stickerbook apart at the binding - Before starting, examine how the book is put together; you may only need to remove a couple of staples from some books. Other books are bound more securely and require a sharp utility knife or heavy duty paper cutter. However you deconstruct your book, just remember how it all goes back together!

2. Remove stickers & adhere to cardstock paper, then cut individual stickers out leaving a small boarder. I left more border on the smallest stickers to make them easier to pick up and manipulate.

3. Laminate each page of the sticker book & all of the cut out stickers. Leave some space around the stickers so that another border can be included, ensuring that each sticker is completely sealed in the laminate. If you do not have access to a laminator, you can use self-adhesive laminating film or even packaging tape.

4. Add Velcro to the inside of the book & the back of the stickers.

5. Finally.... you're ready to read & play with your new interactive book!

Tips & Tricks: 

• This project works best with stickerbooks that have larger stickers. 
• If using a book with small stickers, leave extra laminate border & use poster putty for adhesive instead of Velcro. 

In my classroom, we use this book in addition to the picture book to work on expressive & receptive vocabulary, comprehension, retelling and early math concepts. I really love this kind of interactive book for kids who aren't especially interested in reading - it provides a new, exciting & hands on way to experience books for children who don't like reading!

Resource List: Keeping Hearing Aids on Young Children...

It's surely no surprise that keeping hearing aids (HA) and/or cochlear implant (CI) on little ones is a near impossible feat...

According to research reported by Anderson & Madell (2014), only about 10% of children achieve full time hearing aid wear (defined as 12 hours/day) & 40% of children wear their hearing aids 4 hours or less per day!! These numbers make me want to rip my hair out... if the kids aren't wearing their equipment, then they aren't hearing ... and if they aren't hearing then how will they ever to listen & speak? Figuring out how to keep the hearing equipment on little ones is an ongoing struggle and continues to be the #1 discussion that I have with caregivers.

The Anderson & Madell article linked above has some really awesome printable brochures for families that are full of fantastic ideas for how to keep hearing aids on children birth-kindergarten. Their list of retention ideas is also great -- they include parent ratings of different products & lots of detailed information about the development of listening skills from infancy through kindergarten age.

Below, I've compiled my own list of resources for products to help keep hearing aids on young children including commercially produced, handmade & DIY solutions ... in terms of ages, the effectiveness & appropriateness of the solutions listed will vary greatly from child to child - again see Anderson & Madell (2014) for a parent review of effectiveness & suggestions by age group. Now onto my list...

Most simply, there are four primary categories of 'hearing equipment retainers' for children:

1. Caps/Hats
2. Cords/Clips 
3. Headbands 
4. Adhesive/Tape

Caps & Hats
For very young children, one of the first suggestions frequently is a tight fitting 'pilot' cap style hat that covers the ears & hearing equipment and ties securely. This makes it more difficult for babies to pull their hearing aids out... but not impossible! Look for a tight fitting cap made of light weight material & strings long enough to tie securely.

Commercially Available Pilot Caps: 

Hannah Anderson 

Handmade Pilot Caps: 

Anchor Your Hearing on Etsy

Emmifaye Boutique on Etsy
Hearing Halo on Etsy 

LilCleo on Etsy

Lil'Nell's on Etsy

Silkawear.com

WhatAboutTheBoys on Etsy

DIY Options:

Fibers & Twigs Pattern on Etsy

Sew Liberated FREE pilot cap pattern

Sew Liberated FREE pixie hat pattern

Cords & Clips
This options is pretty simple -- a cord (i.e. string) of some sort attaches to the child's hearing equipment and then is secured to the child's clothing. If the equipment comes off, it doesn't go far!

Commercially Available Options: 

Ear Gear
Huggie Aids

Jr. Clip by Phonak

OtoClips by Westone

Handmade Options:

Angel Wear on Facebook

Bebop Shop on Etsy

DIY Options:

Dental Floss & Safety Pin

Sunglasses Holder & Safety Pin

Headbands
Headbands for behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aid & CI's are specially designed with loops and/or pockets to hold the behind-the-ear portion - that is often too heavy for the tiny ears of an infant or toddler. Look for light weight materials and avoid covering the microphone area of the HA/CI.

Handmade Options 

Harry's Ears Headband on Etsy

Hearing Henry Headband

World Piece Elastic Headband on Etsy 

DIY Options 

Cochlear Loops DIY Headband 

Thin Elastic DIY Headband

Toupee/Wig & Medical  Tape 
Toupee/wig and medical tape are adhesives that are specially designed for use on the skin - but can potentially be irritating to sensitive skin. Toupee/wig tape (i.e. double sided tape) can be trimmed to size then placed on a BTE hearing aid or CI processor - on the side that rests against the head. Medical tape (i.e. single sided tape) can be placed over the earmold portion of the hearing aid - over the entire outer ear. Used alone, adhesive options are not especially reliable, but are a nice addition to other methods. (affiliate links below for your convenience)

Toupee/Wig Tape

Lace Fx A Curve Adhesive Strips

Roll Clear 3/4" Toupee Tape

Toupee Tape Non Glare 1"x3"

Medical Tape

Nexcare Clear Tape 3/4"

References: 
Anderson K, J Madell. Improving hearing and hearing aid retention for infants and young children. Hearing Review. 2014;21(2): 16-20.

In the News: Hearing Aids Improve Outcomes...

Well.... yeah! A recent study indicates that when children with hearing loss wear hearing aids, their speech & language abilities improve - seems kind of like a no-brainer, but it's a little piece of tangible evidence to support what many speech, language and hearing professionals have known for years. The more that kids wear their hearing aids, the better they do!

The study looked at a relatively small group of 180 three to five year old children with mild-moderate and moderate-severe hearing loss - the study did not include children in in the severe-profound range.  The researchers collected information on speech, language & articulation performance, hearing loss degree and hearing aid wear time. Two important facts were noted in their results:

1. Children who received the most benefit from their hearing aids showed higher speech & language scores. 
2. And, duration of hearing aid wear improved outcomes -- especially in children who received the most benefit from their hearing aids. 

These results provide a strong rationale for children with a mild hearing loss to receive & wear hearing aids - as they stand to benefit the most! For children with a moderate-severe hearing loss, it provides support to double & triple check hearing aid programing in order to ensure maximum gain - the more access to sound that these children receive from their hearing aids, the greater the potential long term outcomes!

Whether you're a parent or a teacher, the next time you hear (or think): 'He does fine without his hearing aids - why fight this battle?' remember this study! As a teacher who deals with this issue frequently, I often counter with my own question: How much better could he do if he could hear like you do?  

Check out the Reuters article for more information or the original article from the JAMA Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery.


References: 
Doyle, K. (13 Apr. 2014). Hearing aids for kids could improve speech and language. Reuters Online. Retrieved from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/07/us-hearing-aids-idUSBREA361HJ20140407

Tomblin J, Oleson JJ, Ambrose SE, Walker E, Moeller M. (2014). The influence of hearing aids on the speech and language development of children with hearing loss. JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. doi:10.1001/jamaoto.2014.267.

Listening & Language Games: What's in the Bag?

What's in the Bag? is a simple & entertaining guessing game that I frequently utilize in my preschool classroom... It's great because the possibilities for play are endless! The game can be easily modified to meet the individual needs of all of my students with very little effort on my part & it targets a wide variety of developmental & early learning skills including: vocabulary development, listening skills, speaking skills, social-communication, turn-taking, self-control and tactile perception.

What you'll need: 
A bag that you cannot see through
Collection of 5-10 small objects that fit inside the bag

There are many different ways to play, but he most basic instructions are as follows:

1. Put the items in the bag - all, a few or only one at a time - you decide! 
2. Take turns reaching into the bag - don't peek! Try to identify an object by feeling it before removing it from the bag. 
3. The player to guess the most items correctly before removing it from the bag wins! 

Now here's where it gets fun... the possibilities are endless...

Practice Listening - Use objects that have sounds associated with them - we frequently use items from a collection of listening toys including objects like: cow/moo, butterfly/uffuff, baby in cradle/shhhh, ice cream cone/mmmm, airplane/ahhhh, ghost/oooooo, bee/eeeee, snake/ssssss, boat/buhbuh etc. Once the kids have a few minutes to explore the toys & practice the sounds, we put all of the items in the bag. The bag keeper will name an object OR make the sound associated with the object. The students must listen, then try to pull the correct item from the bag without looking. Once all the items have been removed, the items are cleaned up in the order the bag keeper dictates - so the students must continue listening in order to figure out which items have been requested by the bag keeper.

Practice Asking Questions & Giving Clues - Have a player choose an object to put inside of the bag. When we play this version at school, I have my students choose from a limited selection of items, so that the possibilities are a closed-set (i.e. only a limited number of possible answers). The bag keeper either gives clues OR answers questions posed by the other players. I usually have the bag keeper give 3 clues OR each player may ask 3 questions before guessing. If no one guesses correctly, we reveal the item & give another child a turn to be the bag keeper.

As the teacher, I'm often the 'bag keeper' when we play any version of this game, which allows me to modify game play based on each child's individual strengths & needs from turn to turn. I really love this game, as there are few small-group games that allow for listening skill practice along the entire hierarchy (detection, discrimination, identification & comprehension) in addition to expressive language skills practice.  

Listen! I hear audiobooks...

Over the last couple of months, I've purchased quite a few audiobooks through our school's Scholastic book orders and have been trying to figure out how to best set up a listening center for my preschool students who have varying degrees of hearing loss AND different amplification devices. Some of the audiobooks have been pretty good, with music and/or sound effects that compliment the story while others, have been awful renditions! Here's what I came up with so far:

I dug out my old iPhone, cleared off the content & set it up with some of the audiobook mp3 files. Since it was an old iPhone 3, I was unable to upgrade to the newest operating system, so I moved all of the icons except for the 'music' icon off to the 2nd and 3rd screen (on newer devices, you can 'drag them on top' of each other to put them into other 'folders.') I also went into settings & restricted internet, email & camera access to make the phone less functional - so my kids could only use it for the purpose intended. This is much easier on newer devices and can easily be set under the accessibility menu to only grant access to a single function at a time. I used the internet to add cover art to each of the audio tracks so that my non-reading Prek students could easily figure out which audio file matched the book they wanted to read.

With the help of our audiologist, I collected audio accessory cables & other connectors for the array of hearing aids that my students have including Phonak, Oticon & Cochlear Ltd. products. I also had to get a headphone jack adapter because of the recessed headphone jack in the old iPhone made it impossible to plug in the audio cords - my techie husband helped me out with this! Here's a picture of all of the listening center supplies in their box (I found these great Lego storage boxes on clearance at my local Walmart - they're just the right size for a bunch of books!)

We've experimented with the audio cables for direct input - which has been interesting. Some of the kids like the direct input, while others seem to prefer to hold them up to their 'ear' like a telephone. Some students have even quite accurately named this activity the 'book phone.'

I was a bit surprised by how much my students engaged with this activity! Most of my students are doing very well with it & find it fun - however, I think that it's worth noting that all of the students who have found it enjoyable also have pretty good auditory comprehension & receptive language skills - but not necessarily 'mild' hearing loss; some of the students that like this the most actually have a severe-profound loss & have to work VERY hard to understand what they're hearing! For students who have lower receptive language skills, I think that I will be working on recording alternates with simplified language, no sound effects & integration of learning to listen sounds/simple songs.

I also MUST mention that listening activities like this are absolutely NOT a substitute for having high quality conversations & interactions with young children who have hearing loss. The use of these audiobooks isn't necessarily intended to improve their language skills, but rather provide an interesting opportunity to engage with technology in a way similar to my students' hearing peers. I'd venture to guess that most preschoolers have probably played a game on a caregiver's phone or tablet from time to time - but my students, while they've all likely engaged with technology, have probably missed out on a significant portion of the music and sound effects that go with it. Listening centers are a way for my students who have hearing loss to engage in experience with technology more like their hearing peers do - and if we end up working on language skills - great!

Since setting up the first listening center, I've located two additional older iPhones from family & friends and I'm working on also setting them up for use in my classroom!  This is definitely something that we'll continue to explore in the classroom... check back for more of our experiences with these listening centers.

Rewind {Snow & The Mitten... }

January was a strange, long month... filled with 2-hour delays, snow days, sick days and other odd interruptions to the usual routine. I'm glad to say that the month is over, but looking back, I realize that I blogged about only a few of our classroom activities from last month. Here's a quick recap of the month...

Snowball Counting Tray  - The kids counted out white pompom snowballs on to the numbered mittens and then checked their work with a filled out tens frame on the back. We used one of our 'Fine Motor Gloves' to practice pinching one snowball at a time with thumb and pointer finger.

Salt Tray - A simple, but classic tray! A little iridescent glitter makes the salt look a bit more like snow too. Students traced sandpaper letter cards with a finger, then copied the letter in the salt tray with a finger. 

Magazine Letter Cut & Paste -  For this tray, I used my printable magazine letters and alphabet worksheet. This tray was time consuming and we worked on it over the course of a week+ Students found & matched letters, cut them out and then pasted them on top of the matching letter on the alphabet worksheet.

Pipe Cleaners & Beads - I really love this activity & have many seasonally coordinated sets of pipe cleaners & beads for other times of the year! Preparation was simple - just hot glue little laminated mittens to the ends of the pipe cleaners, write a numeral on the mittens and provide beads for stringing. Some students worked on making sets of beads to match the numeral, while others just worked on the fine motor aspect of stringing the beads - there's one of our fine motor gloves again!

Foam Alphabet Puzzles & Hammers - What preschooler wouldn't be motivated by the opportunity to hammer something? I found these small individual letter puzzles at a dollar store a while back and was smart enough to by several sets of them. I've sorted out the letters needed for each child to construct their name and added a fun little wooden hammer - students find the letters they need for their names, put them together and hammer the pieces in to make their names. I provide a picture of the finished product for students who still need a model to correctly order the letters of their name. 

The Mitten Cut & Paste - After looking all over the internet for a cut & paste activity with the animals from the mitten, I ended up making my own - that had straight lines for simpler cutting! 

We used this as both a retelling activity & a vocabulary/preposition practice activity. The students had to listen for the name of the animal & the location to place the animal. With more advanced students, I gave longer directions that included a list of 2-3 animals and their locations all at once. It was great practice following orally given directions!

Roll-A-Mitten Color Game - We used this game, from my Roll-A-Mitten activity pack, as a small group game for color practice, waiting for a turn, following directions and more. Students rolled the dice, named the color, found a matching crayon and colored a mitten.

Tubes & Balls Exploration - I bought a variety of tubes (black plastic drainage pipes & dryer vent tubes) at the hardware store and collected a basket full of white balls of different sizes & weights - snowballs. (Our favorite balls are these 'Snowballs' that are like giant pompoms) We cut and hung the tubes along the window using suction cup hooks (the kind you'd use in the shower) and rubber bands. Then we did experiments to see which balls would go the furthest and/or fastest. The kids also explored the tubes using other toys including blocks and animal figurines - some things got stuck and others did not. It's been a great activity for students of all ability levels - with so many great concepts to talk about and try out!

Exploring Melting...

In class today, we read an old Scholastic reader - from January of last year! The kids usually enjoy reading the 'newspaper' and I love the great photos & easy to understand text....It's perfect for my students!

Today, we used it as an introduction to the concepts: frozen & melting - which the kids have had lots of experience with lately -- with all the wintery mixed-up weather that we've been having!

On the back, there was an activity where the kids were supposed to identify which items were 'frozen' and which items were 'melting.'

They had so much trouble showing that they understood the difference between the two, that we just had to do our own experiment to better understand what frozen & melting really meant!

We went outside & collected bags of snow. Once back inside, the kids came up with places to put the bags of snow - after some prodding & suggestions they came up with the fridge, freezer, next the heater & on the window.

To add another twist, we added some other ingredients to three of the bags: salt, hand sanitizer & flour.

We checked on the baggies several times over the next 2-3 hours & the kids were very excited to find that some of their snow had turned into water - it had melted. We took pictures of our observations to make into a book...

Some of my students were also able to figure out what ingredients made the snow melt faster - the bag with the salt even had 'frost' that formed on the outside of the bag (a neat little chemical reaction to make observations about!)

We ended out the day by reviewing the pictures that we took, discussing our observations & creating a little book about the melting snow!

 

At snack time, we read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats - and the kids knew exactly what was going to happen to the snowball that Peter put into his pocket ... it MELTED!

Hopefully tomorrow, when I ask them about 'melting,' they remember our experiment and can easily differentiate between 'melting' & 'frozen.'

'Twas the night before Thanksgiving...

Well we spent the day traveling "over the river and through the woods... through the snow... to grandmother's house we go.... " -feels like forever, but my husband did all the driving and we made great time. I just took a quick break and went out to the the bookstore for the internet access. I had one more Thanksgiving activity that I just had to post before the time has gone!

At preschool, we spent the last couple of weeks reading "Feast for 10" The kids made a small art project for each of the first ten items in the book: 1 shopping cart, 2 pumpkins, 3 chickens, 4 children, 5 kinds of beans, 6 bunches of greens, 7 pickles, 8 tomatoes, 9 potatoes and 10 helping hands....

My assistant and I laminated and cut out ALL of their artwork and made these cute take home story telling bags.

Inside, the children's art projects were hole punched, tied together and labeled for easy story retelling at home! We also included a page with an abbreviated version of the first half of the story. Here's a look inside:

Happy Thanksgiving!