Michelle, a special ed teacher, shows how to adapt worksheets with Velcro so students who can't write or hold a pencil can still match, sort, and identify. Cut answer choices, apply hard Velcro to pieces and soft to the worksheet, laminate everything, and store together. Same skills, actually accessible.
Quick question: How do we take a worksheet like this and make it accessible for all learners, especially students who aren't writing or cutting yet? Because I still want them practicing the same skill, just in a way that they can actually do. Hey, I'm Michelle. I've worked with autistic students for about 20 years, and I love finding simple ways to adapt activities so students can be independent and successful. Here are the worksheets that I'm starting with. The goal is matching, identifying, sorting, or filling in. But for some of my students, writing, holding a pencil, or even scanning the page can get in the way of showing what they know. So I'm keeping the same skill and changing the response method. All you need is the worksheet, some scissors, some laminating sheets, and Velcro dots. I will show you how you can use this sheet as the page that holds your icons as well. First, I decide what part do I want students to move or place. For this one, it's very simple. I'm going to cut these out for my students and turn these into the movable pieces and then use the extra laminating sheet as the base for the pieces. After I decide what I'm going to do with my worksheet and its pieces, then I cut out the answer choices first. I like to cut them first and then laminate and then cut again. In my professional opinion, this just lasts longer in a special education classroom. Then I stick the rest of the worksheet into a 5mm lamination sheet, and I leave this area blank so that I can then stick the answer choices down here. Okay, so here I have my answer choices and it's time to cut them out, but before I cut them out, I'm going to turn them over. I'm going to get my Velcro dots and I'm going to put my Velcro dots on before I cut. To keep our materials consistent in the classroom, I have a rule that we always put the hard Velcro onto the movable pieces and then the soft Velcro is what goes onto the actual page. Now that I've added my hard Velcro onto my movable pieces and my soft Velcro onto my paper, I'm going to go ahead and cut my movable pieces, and I'm going to leave a thicker line of lamination to just make sure that the card is sealed. I'm hoping you can see that I left quite a bit of lamination on the sides, and I also clipped the corners because the 5mm lamination gets a little pokey for our students. Now my tasks are ready, and you can see that by keeping the lamination on the bottom, I'm able to store my pieces so that everything stays together. These are now repeatable tasks that students can do again and again. Zero plus one equals one. Good! Four plus Equal. 7? Yeah. Good. Yes, those are little. Big. Help! Big. Help me! Help! Big. Big. Very good. Thank you. So the big idea is it's the same worksheet skill but a different way to respond. This is one of my favorite ways to make activities accessible quickly without reinventing the wheel. Accessible doesn't mean easier, it means reachable. Now I know you're looking for more ideas for students who aren't writing yet, so I want you to check out my next video.
