Wheel of What

Wheel of What is the kind of simple app that any clinician would benefit from having on an iPad. A spinner is useful in many situations, and with a digital one you won't have to dig one out! Plus an engagement factor of offering a digital version is always handy. With Wheel of What, a bonus is that you can create customized spinners in seconds.

One activity I like to do in social groups (even up to high school) is to make up our own games or "same but different" versions of other games. That vocabulary as well as the STOP strategy (Space, Time, Objects, People-- Ward & Jacobsen 2014) provides a guide to making this type of activity clinically focused. Recently, our group made up our own version of The Floor is Lava and had to consider Space (Where to Play), Time (how much time we had, also the order of events in the game and the if/thens), Objects (e.g. construction paper tiles and the spinner, also furniture), and People (cooperative or competitive roles, how would we Think of Others during the game to keep it positive).

Hope you find this free tool useful! What might you use it for? Let us know in the comments.

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Check your public library...

Recently I was trying to get a copy of a book, Sally Gets A Job, that would align with a vocabulary set from one of my favorite apps, WWP-Vocabulary. The set featured good Tier-2 words such as skill, operate, career, successful, earn. Sally, dog hero of one of my favorite series, seemed a great match.

A quick search on Boston Public Library's website revealed that the book was right at my fingertips, free, via their connection to Hoopla, an electronic media service. Hoopla allows you to view books on a laptop or your iPad after signing in through your public library, if this service is offered to you locally.

So, this is just a suggestion to check out your library website's resources for picture book therapy materials. They may vary, of course (mine has connections to lots of picture and other books through Overdrive, but not Tumblebooks, which you may have), but probably offer you some great options of free materials!

Also, don't forget, EPIC! Books for Kids has scads of picture books, free for educators.