File Folder Games, Work Station, TEACCH, Tasks, Desk, Workjobs

So yesterday I spent the better half of the day making up some file folder game work tasks for Alana for her workstation... I even have the mess I made to prove it. And as promised I said I would share. If you have no idea what I am talking about you might want to check out this post first. There is a few more I want to do this coming week, one with pictures of animals with the word. A few with alphabet flash cards.. the picture of the apple and she has to match the letter A to it etc. Oh the possibilities.

Tips:
1. Flash Cards usually are not tolerated by kids with autism as it is a dual activity. Utilizing those flash cards in a file folder form is much more efficient.
2. If you are glueing or even velcroing a back of a card to the folder and you need that other side for any reason (like copied the number answer to the how many picture on the other side) always keep a folder of a copy of the backs of the cards.. THIS way if you lose the copied number etc.. you will have a backup, because once its glued you will not be able to copy it again. Think of it like when you keep the original worksheet and only utilize copies.
3. Some people prefer not to glue at all but use all velcro, this can be beneficial because you can rearrange the picures/cards to thwart off your child purely memorizing where they go. This can also be aggravating if you have the type of child who would rather remove them all then actually do the work.
4. Laminate, laminate, and laminate. As much as possible laminate. I did not laminate the cards on these because I dont have enough laminate paper but if you do laminate the cards too! Always laminate anything that is not a cardstock, normal paper will never last unless its laminated. You don't need a fancy machine, I just buy self laminating paper in the office section of Walmart. It comes in many sizes I buy the photo size normally. The larger letter paper size is a little harder to manipulate plus I dont want to waste a large one if I have a small piece to laminate.
5. Have lots of velcro on hand.
6. You can add envelopes to the front of the folders to hold the pieces.
7. Most of my flash cards, I found near the puzzle section of the thrift store, and the dollar store as well. Very few were actually bought at Walmart, etc. but even those are cheap.
7. I am steering away from "pure" matching because that takes Alana 1 second but that would be the first step in these file folders for younger kids or kids that are new to this concept. I am matching words to pictures, versus picture to picture. Matching things by category, alike, opposite, etc. rather then just matching the same picture to the exact same picture.

This picture shows the "answers" that I photo copied off the backs of flash cards you will see below. I then cut them and placed them on the laminate paper. I have double sets of the numbers because I will be using those on the actual bins themselves so she goes in number order instead of just picking what she wants.

All cut up, laminated and ready now.

These are my extra copies that go in a folder since I will be gluing the cards on the folders I won't be able to access them again and if she loses a piece of one of the file folder games I can simply make another one from these "originals".

Laminating paper.

This folder is go togethers. How they use this is there would be one in each section and the "matches" would be in the bin or an envelope on the front and they would need to put them where they go (this goes for most file folders). Place it back in the bin and to the finished side of the desk. This one is all velcro, no glue so I can move around the pictures if I want if she starts to memorize them. These cards were made as a go together set.





This one is also go togethers in carebears, this was just a flash card set of "words" but I found a few that went together and am utilizing it that way. Also all velcro.

Inside of above folder. need to draw lines on it though.. oops.

This one is cards that are ryhming pictures, same idea as the go togethers you leave one on and the "matches" are set aside for them to place where they go. Also all velcro.

Inside of above folder.

This one is opposites in sesame street of course. This was also a "words" flash card set that happen to have alot of opposites in it so I utilized this one in that manner. Gotta draw lines.. oops. but same idea as the others just a different way of "matching". All velcro.

More opposites from sesame street.

This one I photo copied both sides of these flashcards and used the photocopies laminated to be kind of a dry erase activity. The child has to circle which number is the correct one for how many there is. You could always just laminate the actual cards and do this but I wanted the cards as backup in case something happened to these.

These I bought at the dollar store I think. They are a dry erase, one side has the words with all letters and the other side has the "red" letters missing and they have to fill it in. So it shows them what goes there just makes them write them in, which as we all know writing instills it into our memory better then just seeing the word.

These are her name worksheets, the same ones they use at school because we wanted to be consistant with the name writing. She traces these. and hates it. She is a huge perfectionist and gets mad. lol. Other worksheet ideas are dot to dots, they have some sticker dot designs and letters too that most kids like and requires no actual writing. Also tracing anything shapes, lines etc. Also cutting tasks are good get a clearly defined cutting paper like a person that the background is all black.. they cut the person out. Just place it and the scissors in a bin. I will post about worksheets, etc. more indepth another day.

Pooh go togethers this one is one card glued to the folder and the "match" velcros to the card it goes with. I took the spoon off the bowl and the flowers off the vase to show you the cards underneath :-).

This one was just a few cards I found in one of the sets that I found task worthy, I think I will make up a middle, under and over answer pieces to change it up every nowand then. The cards are glued down. We are tring to encourage readin and word recognition, that is where we are right now.

This shows the answers place on it. (answers were on the backs of the cards)

I think these time ones are over her head right now but I had the cards and its never to early to try new stuff! Its only the hour and half hour times, no 7:08 etc. The clocks are glued down and the times are velcro answers she would place where they go. (answers were on the backs of the cards)

Colors.. The first step to this well after just matching the exact pictures to the same exact picture would be to match color to color, one way to do this is make the "answer" word blue in blue font, word orange in orange font etc. So they are matching the color but also see that word associated with it. Alana is beyond that step so I am trying to branch out to the just the words. This requires some level of "reading" which really isnt reading in our normal sense but more so memorization that she knows that particular word is associated with that object/color. Cards are glued down and answers velcro to the cards. (answers were on the backs fo the cards)

Same idea with shapes/word recognition. (answers were on the backs of the cards)

This one is a combo folder I did, when first starting out you wont want to do mix tasks like this. Its directions with word recogonition, and identifying money/ word recognition again. Money and arrows are glued and the "answers" are velcroed. (answers were on the backs of the cards)

More time..

Number/counting recognition. The numbers were on the backs of these cards, I copied them and velcroed them into little answer pieces. I think I am going to make number words like four, six etc as answers to change this one up as well every now and then. Cards are glued answers are velcroed to the card.

Directions, cards are glued answers that were from the backs of the cards copied and laminated are velcroed.

More Pooh go togethers. One card is glued and the matching cards are velcroed to the glued card.