Tips, Tricks, Modifications and Strategies
Phase II: Visual Journal/Days of the Week
May 9, 2020
Creating materials for students with CVI is always fun for me and I often wish I had more time to be creative. During these days of self-quarantine, I finally have some time to create all of the materials and books that have been on my, “To Do” list. I will be posting photos of materials, along with tips, tricks, modifications and strategies regarding materials created in the hope that you too will try your hand at making some unique, child-specific materials for your student or child. When appropriate, I will offer templates and other materials for you to use, to complete the project as well.
For this post, I will be sharing my interpretation of an idea from the blog titled, “While You Are Home: Activities for Children With CVI” by Dr. Christine Roman. In the blog, Dr. Roman suggests creating a Visual Journal, where the student chooses an image (or several images) that represent activities completed each day of the week. You are encouraged to read Dr. Roman’s blog first, so you will better understand how this activity might be used. You can access this blog at Dr. Roman’s website cviresources and at Paths to Literacy;
http://cviresources.com/while-you-are-home/
https://www.pathstoliteracy.org/blog/while-you-are-home-activities-children-cvi
What you will need to create this activity:
- Several exact, realistic color photographs of some item (or element) that represents an activity (or activities) that happen each day of the week for your child or student.
- Office Depot Shipping Labels (8 ½ X 11 inches), or some other premium full sheet shipping label https://amzn.to/2VpNVIf *affiliate income
- Heavy card stock or tag board for pages
- Hook and Loop compatible material if you plan to make pages compatible with Hook and Loop. I usually use Velcro brand black woven wider loop https://amzn.to/2VInTjE *affiliate income
- Tacky Spray Adhesive (similar to Aleenes All Purpose Tacky Adhesive Spray https://amzn.to/2xPBdK4 *affiliate income)
- Roman word bubbling tool https://roman-word-bubbling.appspot.com/
- Notebook, 3-ring
- Days of the week color bubbled and printed
- Reading stand, if needed
To create this activity, you will need to think about your child’s or student’s daily activities. Next, download an image, take a photograph or locate an image of something that represents each activity. For example, if on Monday, your child or student goes to swimming lessons in the morning, then after lunch might look through books, then later on that same day, helps to fold clean laundry, you might collect images of a pair of swim goggles, a shelf holding books, and a laundry basket. Print or cut out the images and attach them to small rectangles (approx. 2” X 3” in size) of heavy card stock or tag board. If you print the image from a color printer, use 8.5” X 11” label sheets so you can peel off the backing and stick each image right on the tag board rectangle. Attach the Loop side of Hook and Loop self-adhesive tape to the backside of the images, if you plan to use Hook and Loop pages. See photo below.
Alternately, you can simply use heavy card stock pages and glue images right on each day-of-the-week named page. The advantage of using Hook and Loop pages with images that can adhere is that if in the future, in another week, you work on this activity and the child needs the same image, it can be reused.
For the notebook, I used a ready-made, approximately 7” by 9” black, 3-ring binder.
For the pages, I cut 8 pages out of heavy, black card stock to fit the notebook and punched the 3 holes. Pages 1-7 are for the days of the week with Journal images and page 8 was used as a “home” for the bubbled words. Using the Hook and Loop compatible fabric, I cut rectangles to fit each page, cutting the fabric about ½ inch to ¾ inch narrower than the page, to accommodate the 3 punched holes.
I used Tacky Spray Adhesive and sprayed each card stock page, then carefully fit the Hook and Loop fabric onto the glue/page. I weighed down each page with heavy wood until it was dry. Some trimming was needed after each page dried.
Finally, create your bubbled days of the week. Using the Roman Word Bubbling Tool, choose your child’s or student’s preferred outline color and create your words (days of the week) in 3 ways; Each day of the week “Bubbled” with a black background, the color outline of each day of the week with a black background, and the printed days of the week with a white background. See below.
To use the Roman Word Bubbling tool, I create the bubbled words in the text box, choose my student’s preferred font and outline color, then decide on my font size, outline width and gap width. I keep all these preferences the same for all the days of the week I create. The first set of days of the week I created with the feature, “dark background”. The second set of days of the week was created with the features, “hide text” and “dark background”. The third set of days of the week was created with neither feature checked. After each set was created, I used screen shot on my MacBook Air to capture the image. I then put all 3 images on a Word Doc. Since I was printing it off on a color printer using Label Paper, I wanted to fit in as much as I could on the sheet. Therefore, I added some of my images that needed to be printed. One of Label Sheets I printed looked like this;
At the end of the week, your child or student will have fun looking back over their Visual Journal and recalling all the activities that were completed. You can talk about the image and what it represents, including the salient features of each item. If you are using Hook and Loop pages, all the images can be pulled off at the end of the week and put into a small box for future use. At this point, you’ll want to gather new images which represent activities that will happen during the following week, or make them “on the fly” as activities and experiences happen. At the beginning of the new week, this activity can be started up again.
Please note: One or more of the links noted on this blog are affiliate links. This simply means that if you click on a link and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at NO EXTRA cost to you. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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