Two classroom tools for autistic students: a sensory chew fanny pack filled with chewable items to reduce disruptive behavior, and a visual ring system that holds first-then cues and reinforcers for quick access across different specials areas. Also covers sensory-break choice boards and numbered task boards.
Hi Autism Helper world! I just wanted to hop on here and show you 2 life hacks for the classroom that is really saving my life right now. The first one is this Sensory Kid fanny pack, and the next one is this ring of visuals. So I'll explain one each first. This first one is a visual of this fanny pack. My— one of our occupational therapists who is a sensory guru came up with this, well, for us. You might have seen this before. I haven't. I made this because it's great for students who need to chew on something to help them organize themselves. I like to think of it as, say you're in a meeting and you're having a really hard time paying attention, you might grab a mint or you might do some other kind of behavior that helps you kind of get yourself focused and stay on task. And for this student, chewing is really, really helpful in order to keep him on Task. Uh, it's so cute. It's just this little— it's like the tiniest fanny pack I've ever seen. I'm looking for them on Amazon. She's had this one for a while, so I don't have a direct link at this time, but it does have a little bit of a weight inside just to keep it on the student. And believe it or not, um, he doesn't try and take it off, which I was really surprised at. It's also tied on here because it keeps the student from putting them down and losing the pieces or throwing the pieces because that is a preferred activity. So it just has little pipe cleaners on there if he wants to feel them. And then of course, um, we clean this all the time for chewing. I know a lot of people use pencil toppers or the little necklaces, which are awesome, but sometimes if you have someone who puts them down constantly or throws things, having it tied to the little pack is really helpful. And we do keep this on, um, the student all the time. However, you just have to use it based on the needs of your kid. So really cool. We had TheraBand also tied on here, but that came off and, um, wasn't really using it that much, so it wasn't really necessary. But this, um, little piece of TheraTube has been awesome. So just a little idea for you. The next thing is this sensory, or excuse me, not sensory, visual ring hack. Nothing crazy genius about it, but I found myself running around like crazy to different specials with my kids that needed these visuals, and I only had one set at the time because I wasn't sure if they were going to be appropriate or not. So I had the one set and I was, you know, forgetting them in the classroom, and then I would be in the special with the kid and need them and need to call someone to go get them for me or watch the kid. So I just ended up putting what we needed on the ring for the kids, and this happens to work for several of my students in the class. But you can make them for, you know, different visuals that you need for the kids. But I just put a simple first and visual reinforcers that these students happen to really like. It could be anything though, you know, we don't want to ever assume they just like Goldfish crackers, but that is reinforcing for these kids. And specials is incredibly hard for a lot of my students, and these kiddos are only 4, so it's even a little bit harder. So for us, we might think, well, art's really fun, but for them it's a lot of work and it's a lot of sitting. There's stools in there, it's darker, it's just a different structured activity. So for them, since they need a lot of movement, we do— we try to go into art for a little bit, and then I reward them by going into the gym because they love to run. It's at the very end of the day, it's at 2:30. And they need that time to move. So I have a little first then, and it's amazing. As soon as I put it down, I said, first art, then gym. Perfect. Right away we got to work. And then another thing is a sensory break choice board, because sometimes these kids need to move even within, you know, maybe a 10 or 15 minute period of art or music or library. Those are our hardest schedules, um, scheduled specials. So I just put out I want, and I didn't have removable pieces on here because again, I have students who throw and it's just, it's just more feasible for them to just point to what they want. I want to walk. I might need a trampoline, beanbags for throwing, sensory ball for throwing instead of throwing objects in the classroom, and a stretchy band on the door. And I also want to make a note about the structured walk. It's not just a walk around the school. We were doing that, and we found that it was hard to go back to the classroom. So we actually have a number board in our hallways, and the student has a certain number of walks, and we just kind of go up and back. And each time we do that, we take the number off the wall and put it in a finished box. That way they know when they get to number 5, all the walks are finished. And that's been really helpful too. That way they don't just think we're gonna aimlessly wander around forever. Um, so this is something that our kids need. And then of course, I talked about in this— my blog last week, a BCBA just gave me this, just a simple little rocket board. It breaks up work tasks any way you need it. That way when we're in art or in media or in music, whatever we're doing, we don't specifically need an actual label for it. I could say, you know, okay, song number 1 is finished. And if they're really struggling, we might go through 1, 2, 3 faster. It does go up to 10, but I don't usually use all those numbers just because they're, they're kind of little and we don't have that many tasks. But you can use as many numbers you need. You can put them on as you do a task, or you can take them off. It's whatever is more motivating for your student. Um, so that's just a little lifestyle classroom hack you can use. Put them all on a ring, and then I like to hang them up in each specials area so that I'm not running around. And also putting them on the ring kind of keeps you from taking over all their walls. Sometimes, um, you know, teachers, it's their home, and when we come in with all of our stuff that we need, we tend to, you know, we need a lot of space. So I feel like this isn't like a non-intrusive way of having our visuals in there to make sure our kids truly have what they need. So hope you enjoyed it and found it helpful.
