Jen, a K-1 autism classroom teacher, uses Mr. Potato Head to teach body-part vocabulary while building turn-taking and communication skills. Students pick parts from a bucket, communicate their choice on AAC devices or through speech, and Jen models the language back. Advanced users navigate menu choices like eye color to build device skills.
Need a quick whole group lesson? I've got you, and it involves Mr. Potato Head. I'm Jen, I teach K-1 and 2 self-contained autism, and we are really focusing on using AAC in whole group lessons. Your students can learn so much in whole group lessons, don't be afraid of them, even if they're messy. And I'm gonna tell you, this lesson will probably be messy. It's a lot of redirecting, it's a lot of skill acquisition, But whole group learning is so important for our learners. They can't just learn in a one-to-one environment all the time. So even though my learners' needs are significant, having them work in a whole group environment in my classroom is super important. So here's how it's gonna go down. Every kid will get a Mr. Potato Head body, but no body parts. We are gonna put a spinner up on the Promethean board. If you don't have a Promethean board, you can just go around your circle and have students wait for their turn. When it's their turn, they're gonna tell me what body part they want, and then And they are going to reach into my giant bucket of Mr. Potato Heads and grab out that body part. I know it seems like the silliest, simplest lesson, but there is so much that I'm teaching beyond just body parts. I'm teaching waiting, I'm teaching attention, I am teaching kids to focus, I'm teaching kids to communicate. There's so many skills in whole group lessons. And so students are gonna use this page on their AAC devices. If they are not an AAC user, they can use sign language, they can use any means of communication, obviously vocal communication works too, and so we are going to see what kind of Mr. Potato Head they build. I will be modeling on the AAC, and so as students give me an answer, I will go ahead and show the answer here, so I am supporting all language learners. So if a student asks for an ear, I will go ahead and show that here on the AAC as well. For my students who are just learning AAC, having them identify that body part is enough, but for students who are a little bit more advanced at using their AAC devices or communication, I will give them choices throughout our group. So for example, "Do you want blue eyes or black eyes?" And then students will have to navigate home and then to colors and then be able to tell me what color eyes they want. This super simple activity was a huge hit in my classroom. In fact, they asked to play it again and again and again, and finally I had to stop my group and tell them that we had to build Mr. Potato Head one more time, and then we were done. I was so impressed at how well my students were able to maintain interest and focus within the classroom. Mind you, it was messy. There was lots of reminders, lots of prompting, but we did it, and we are learning to attend, we are learning to wait, and we've thrown in some great academic skills and some language modeling. Whole group doesn't have to be hard or complicated, and it can be fun and engaging, and that's what I wanna encourage you with today. Try to find something fun that your students will learn, even if it's as silly as Mr. Potato Head.
