Teach Through Games: Bug Trails

Age level: Early Elementary
Description: This is a 6-legged domino game designed for kids ages 6 and up. This is played as a domino game typically is, except that you must match up the colors on all legs touching the bug that’s already been placed on the table. This game is put out by Thinkfun, a company that consistently puts out great games and toys for students.
Skills & Modifications: The primary skill for this game is high-level matching. This is a great game to play with multiple students because you can easily differentiate based on each student’s skill level and/or IEP goals.

• Matching – This game is well-received by typically developing students between 6-8 years old. However, it can be difficult to play as designed with students with autism. For those students who are struggling with matching skills, I have found that this is frustrating for them because while they may be able to match the colors of one leg to another, matching two or more legs to legs of another bug is too difficult. For these students, instead of playing by the rules, I will place two to three options in front of them so they can choose which one would match the bug already placed on the table. In some cases, I may just place one bug and let them figure out how the bug should be oriented to match it to bugs already placed on the table. Another way to practice matching is to set out several bugs and have the students find the bugs with the same faces.
• Scanning – For students working on scanning skills, I will change the game so that it is not a turn-taking game. Instead, I will spread out several bugs with the direction of finding one with two blue legs or one yellow leg. We will then match the bug to one already placed on the table.
• Taking Turns – This is a great game for taking turns, especially if you working with your student on taking turns with more than two players.
• Accepting Losing – This game does have a definitive winner so if you have a student struggling with accepting losing games, it’s a good one for practicing.
• Counting – This is great for preschool students who are learning to count a specified item in a field of items. For example, I will ask the child to count how many blue legs a bug has, with the distractors being the legs of other colors on the bug.
• Seek & Find – To practice this skill, I’ll spread out several bugs on the table and ask the student to find a bug based on a specific characteristic, such as “Find a bug that looks angry” or “show me a bug with two red legs.”
• Identifying Emotions – I love that each bug has a different facial expression. If you’re working with students with autism who have just started to identify basic emotions, this is a great way to test for generalization or use the student’s motivation to look at the bugs as an introduction to emotions. I will typically ask “How does this bug feel?” or “Is this bug angry or happy?”
• Alike & Different – For this skill, I will place two bugs side by side and have the student describe how they are alike and different.
• Intraverbal Skills – The last skill I work on with this game is describing the bug. I will say “Tell me about the bug” and the child can tell me about the colors of each leg, the facial expression, parts of the face, etc.

Pros: As mentioned in the How section, when I’m considering whether or not to buy a game, I look to see if the game has a natural hook. The design of the bugs in this game are a great hook for early elementary students. The kids I’ve introduced this to enjoy looking at and talking about the bugs.
Cons: For students with autism, this may not be the most appropriate game when played as designed. For students struggling with matching skills, this is frequently too high level, while for students ready for higher level matching skills, this game may no longer be age appropriate.
Cost: $14.99 Should I buy this? I think this is a great purchase if you are a classroom teacher or work with multiple students because there are so many skills you can practice with it. If you are a parent, it’s a good purchase if your student would be highly motivated by the bugs.
ABLLS: B3, C16, C24, C38, C47, G13, G22, G42, H40, R3, R4, R5
VB-MAPP: VP-MTS 2, Listener 7, Tact 11, Listener 11, Math 13

Teach Through Apps: Toontastic

Age level: Early elementary, upper elementary, middle school, high school
Description: Let me start by saying that I love this app. It is highly motivating for a wide range of students, and can be used to teach both low- and high-level learners. At it’s most basic, this app allows students to draw, animate, and share a cartoon. It splits the cartoon into five scenes: setup, conflict, challenge, climax, and resolution. For each scene, the child can choose the setting and characters, then click “Start animation” for that scene. They can move the characters around the screen AND record dialogue and sound effects. After creating each scene, they can add music to each scene, a movie title and their own name as the director.  Then they can label what their story is about from a menu within the app.
Modifications: I use this app for a variety of skill levels. For some of my early learners, I may create a story on my own and use it to teach a specific skill, especially for social skills for my students with autism or language delays. For some students I will create the entire story except for the resolution, have them listen to the story, then have them create the resolution on their own. The app also easily works for teaching story structure.
Students with autism or language delays can use this app to practice a conversation between characters. Because you can record dialogue for each scene, they can listen to what they have said and make improvement/adjustments on their own. I also work on requesting with these students if we are creating an animation together. I will ask them where they want me to move my character and require them to use adjectives, prepositions, and/or adverbs in their response. Additionally, because this is a highly motivating app for typically developing students, it can be a great tool for initiating age-appropriate peer play.
Finally, it is a fantastic skill for teaching recognition of emotion to older students with autism. Identifying the emotion the character might be feeling, having them respond appropriately to that emotion, and identifying music that would match that emotion are all important skills to practice.
Skills: Intraverbal skills, Story structure, Sequence, Retelling a story, Summarizing, Picture comprehension, Problem solving, Peer play
Pros: This is very user friendly, highly motivating, easy to modify, and a great tool for teaching a variety of comprehension and language skills.
Cons: After you have created a story and want to re-watch it, it is a little too easy to accidentally record over your initial dialogue. When you want to watch the animation, instead of pushing “Start Animation” you should push the clapboad in the upper right hand corner.
Cost: Free, with in-app purchases of additional scenes and characters. Should I buy this? Did I mention it’s free?
ABLLS: F16, F17, F22 G2, G10,  G13, G21, G39, G43, H48
VB-MAPP: Social Behavior & Social Play 12, Social Behavior & Social Play 13, Social Behavior & Social Play 14, Social Behavior & Social Play 15, Intraverbal 13, Intraverbal 14, Intraverbal 15, Linguistic Structure 15

Teach Through Games: Rhyme Out!

Age level: Upper Elementary
Description: In this game, players race to respond correctly with three rhyming words to the three clues on each card. For example, a card might say “A preserved cucumber, a way to make someone laugh, a very slow flow of water” with the correct responses being “pickle, tickle, trickle.” There are two levels of play, easy and difficult. The first person to guess all three words correctly gets to keep the card, and the first person to get ten cards wins the game.
Modifications: The instructions for the games include three additional ways to play, modifying the game for younger learners and for more advanced learners. For some students, I play this as a taking turns game instead of a race to collect the most cards. It allows learners who struggle with intraverbal skills to have more time to generate responses.
For other students, I make it a collaborative game instead of a game to win. I create a small pocket out of a folded sheet of paper, and place the card inside of it so the clues are visible but the answers are hidden. Then we work together to try to figure out the rhyming words.
Some of the cards may contain clues the learner has not been introduced to, especially for students with developmental disabilities who struggle with generalization or intraverbal skills. (For example, while many of my students may be able to identify a pickle, they may not be able to identify that a pickle is a “preserved cucumber.” Before playing the game for the first time, you should pull out cards that you know the learner is familiar with so they can experience some success with the game before introducing more challenging cards.
The final modification I frequently make is to remove the “Steal Cards.” Sometimes I reintroduce them once the learner has mastered the basic rules of the game.
Skills: Rhyming, Intraverbal Skills
Pros: This is a great age-appropriate game for teaching basic rhyming and intraverbal skills to older learners. It’s also relatively easy to play with learners who are on different skill levels.
Cons: As mentioned in the modifications section, if you are working with students with developmental disabilities, many of the cards (even on the easy level) may be too difficult.
Cost: $12.99 Should I buy this? If you are working on the skills listed above with older learners, this is a great game to play with them. It would be extraordinarily time-consuming to try to create the game on your own.
ABLLS: Q12, H36, H44
VB-MAPP: N/A