Tuesday Tips – Virtual Learning Tips for Students with Disabilities Webinar

Stella: Good morning, everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. I am Stella Beard with Kentucky SPIN and we are so happy that you have decided to join us on this Tuesday for Kentucky SPIN’s Tuesday Tips. We are going to be talking about Virtual Learning for Students with Disabilities. We have a very special guest speaker today, Dr. Laura Clarke. She is with the Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Education Services, and we are so happy that she has joined us today to do our presentation.

[00:00:36] So before we get started just a little bit of housekeeping, you will see a dashboard on the right hand side of your screen, on that dashboard you will also see a box that says questions. So if you have any questions throughout the presentation, please feel free to type those in there. And we are going to have some time near the end that we will answer those questions for you.

[00:00:58] I have Kellie Smith who is also with Kentucky SPIN on the call with me and Michaela Evan. And they will be helping with some questions and if we need any other assistance. So we’re really happy that you’ve joined us, I want to tell you all just a little bit about Kentucky SPIN and why we do what we do. But we are Kentucky SPIN, actually is Kentucky Special Parent Involvement Network. We are the parent training and information center for the state of Kentucky. And we have been in that role since 1988, We are funded by the U.S. Department of Education. And we are actually mentioned, or the parent training information centers are mentioned in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. There’s one in every state,. Some States have more than one, but we actually hold that title for the state of Kentucky.

[00:01:51] What we do is we provide training, information and support for children and youth with all types of disabilities birth through age 26. And we really provide resources and information for parents, families, and professionals. So we love helping families and helping them navigate the world special education.

[00:02:12] We do not though act as attorneys. So what we like to say that we do very well, we feel like we do, as we empower families to effectively advocate for their children and we provide that peer support to help families access needed information and resources. So we can help families with one-on-one questions. And we also provide trainings like these. Since March, we have moved all of our trainings to a virtual platform. So we have been providing those trainings online for families and professionals since COVID hit back in March. And so we’re real proud of the work that we have done, and real excited to present this information for you all today.

[00:02:57] We share this almost at every one of our webinars and together we can accomplish great things for our children. And none of us have all the answers, but we are working for the pandemic and adjusting as we go. And I feel like we create really good partnerships with other folks around the state. And that’s what we’re doing today by having Dr. Laura Clarke with us who is going to talk to us a little bit about, she’s gonna tell about herself. But then she’s also gonna talk to us about this virtual world that we’re all living in now with our families at home, our kids at home, all working from home. So I’m going to get Dr. Clarke to unmute herself so she can hear and then I am going to turn it over to her. So Dr. Clarke, can you hear us?

[00:03:49] Dr. Clarke: I can thank you so much for having me. Can you all hear me okay?

[00:03:58] Stella: Yes, we can. Sorry I muted, my dog decided to bark right at the time that I’m getting ready to give this to you. So I’m going to go ahead and mute myself. Dr. Clarke, you can go ahead and introduce yourself and then I’m going to transfer it all to you.

[00:04:13] Dr. Clarke: Perfect. Wonderful. Well, thank you so, so much for having me today. As you can see in the pictures, we have a happy, busy house. I’ve got four fantastic kids with my husband, Dan. And we’ve got three daughters and our son Dan and we laughingly say, Dan is the Rose among the thorns because he’s in a house full of bossy women, and we love to love on Dan.

[00:04:38] So Dan just turned 21 in January and aged out of IDEA services. He has a diagnosis of autism and epilepsy. We still consider him pre-verbal or nonverbal and continue to work with Proloquo, as a communication system for him. But I definitely live in the land of a parent first, for all my kids and for Dan. And I’m happy to share, not just from the role of an educator, but also from the role of a mom to Dan and our girls.

[00:05:16] So I have my doctorate in special education and I did not start in the world of education. I actually started in the world of marketing and worked with the Girl Scouts. And when we realized that Dan was going to require significant supports throughout his life, I went back to school and got my teaching certification. So I have in Kentucky, my LBD and MSD, or my mild to moderate and moderate to severe teaching certifications as well as my director of special ed certification and my doctorate. And I was faculty at EKU for a while and now I’m with the Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Education Services as a special ed consultant.

[00:05:56] So I was going to share a little bit with you, we’ve developed a remote learning parent support site, and I wanted to kind of walk you through some of the things that we have on this site. So Stella can you let me know, can you see the remote learning parents’ supports?

[00:06:16] Stella: Yes, we can. I could. Now I —  yes, there it is.

[00:06:21] Dr. Clarke: Okay. Perfect, wonderful. My apologies for my sideways glance. I’ve got a computer with a webcam and then my big screen. So I’m looking at the same thing you are, sideways glancing, sorry. On the remote learning parent support site we wanted to put resources that we thought would be quick and easy and help you in your work with your children. So on the front page, we’ve got kind of those big rocks, that are most likely to support our kids in remote learning.

[00:06:52] The first big idea is definitely offering that reassurance that we can do this together. That this will work. I, and among our four children, we have two that are learning right now. One in elementary and one in middle school. And we’ve already had several of those conversations in the past few days about it is okay. We will make it, let’s take a break. Let’s take a walk. Let’s get a drink and keep moving.

[00:07:22] Maintaining a schedule for all of us is important. Those schedules might look very different and we might have to modify them as we go. For our kids, we have made our own visual schedules. We started out by saying, you know, at nine o’clock, we’re going to do reading and at 9:30, we’re going to have math. And we quickly found out that did not work very well, so we changed that to we’re going to do reading for 30 minutes. And then our daughter sets the Alexa timer and says, Alexa, you know, let’s tell me in 30 minutes when reading is up. And then when reading is up, then we do a free Go Noodle activity.

[00:08:04] So however a schedule works best for you, the key there is just maintain a schedule and know that it’s okay to modify that schedule when you need to. I’ll share with you some resources that we’ve been using to build picture schedules at home that might help you in your work.

[00:08:20] Providing information is super important. And I’ll share with you some links where you can go to provide information, to help your family understand what COVID-19 is, why we’re remote learning, why we wear masks. I will share with you, personally. The mask, is a challenge at our house with Dan. And so we started with baby steps because Dan, sensory  does not like anything on his head, does not like things touching him. He will not wear a hat. So what we’ve been doing is masks in short bursts. And so one sister holds a hand and I put a mask on while I hold the second hand. And then he does the whole motions to try and take the mask off, but he will let us hold his hands and keep it on his face, to get from the house to the car. And then as soon as we get near the car, we let go of his hands and say, we’re all done with masks, great job, Dan. And he rips it off and hands it to us. And, but we’re doing it in really short bursts. And we’ve found that to be helpful. We also have a picture of wearing a mask before we go out and we say, we’re going to put our mask on and then and we do that. So whatever is working for you, but definitely, and we celebrate the small successes at our house and try and do things in really small bursts rather than trying to go for a long period of time.

[00:09:47] Understanding emotions is challenging for a lot of us but definitely we’re really working at helping name emotions when our children are crying or getting upset, you know, I see that you are upset right now and it’s OK to be upset, here’s the way it’s okay to be upset. It’s not okay to pull your sister’s hair. It is okay to chew on a pillow. It is not okay to throw your drink. It is okay do something else and try and provide those options.

[00:10:19] So those are our kind of four big rocks. And hopefully those are rocks that are important to you also. If you’re looking for some of our favorite resources, we have linked to them in here on this site. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the website, Headspace, there’s also another one called Calm, they have apps and videos that have lots of different mindfulness activities that might work for your family.

[00:10:45] If you’re supporting young children at home, there is a fantastic list of all the YouTube channels that are helpful for elementary students. Along the lines of mindfulness, MindUP also has shared with us lots of great resources and all of these are hyperlinked in here.

[00:11:05] If you are kind of wondering what, KDE and Kentucky expects for students in any grade, they’ve created some action, excellent family guides that we linked in to kind of walk you through the curriculum for each grade if that’s something you just want to be informed about. If you’re working on wearing a mask like we are and finding it to be challenging, there’s a great infographic. And then there are some social stories you can use and I’ll share those in a second. The Ceedar Center has some fantastic resources for teachers, they’ve also built a lot of family guides for at home learning. And the Ceedar Center focuses on supporting students with disability. So, you know, they are our people and have some great information.

[00:11:49] In addition, there are some excellent behavior resources at the NCPMI site that you can dive into. So those are kind of our big favorites. Across the top we have all kinds of different resources and we’re continuing to add to these resources over time. So feel free to bookmark this one and check it out again and again.

[00:12:13] If you are in a spot where your child regularly has to have their temperature checked, there’s a great social story for that. Some growth mindset resources. This website, the Lessons for SEL, the founder, Byron has created all kinds of videos and it really this site started growing in the last six months. And every week he adds new videos that focus on social-emotional learning. Most of them are six minutes or less and they definitely fill the need for a lot of elementary and middle school students.

[00:12:51] So, as you can see, we tried to just link in helpful resources, that you could quickly dive into, lots of guides for setting up successful expectations at home. How to give choice checklists, all kinds of evidence based interventions. If you’re wondering like what kind of evidence based interventions are there? What is likely to make a difference for your child? These recommendations here are some of the highest researched, highest evidence based interventions. Providing behavior specific praise, giving kids choices. This concept of pre-correction, which sounds really fancy but, actually is just, identifying an area where you know your child might have a challenge and rather than waiting for the meltdown to happen, we do what we call pre-correct it. Which just basically means teach it ahead of time in a positive and proactive way.

[00:13:49] So for example, Dan hates the mask. So I know he hates the mask. I know the mask is going to be a struggle. So my choices are to fight with him about the mask, wait until we get to the car and then do what I sometimes really want to do and be like, you’re shut off, wear the mask and have a meltdown myself, you know, truth, right, it sometimes happens. But, that’s what we don’t want to do. Pre-correction means I know it’s going to be a problem. So I pre-teach it ahead of time. Dan we’re getting ready to wear a mask. You know, here’s the picture, remember we’re wearing our mask What are we doing? We’re wearing our mask. We’re going to put a mask on. And I mention that several times. I put my mask on, my daughter puts her mask on and then we help Dan get his mask on. And then we praise the dickens out of him, you’ve got  your mask on. Great job! Let’s go! And off we go to the car. And as soon as we get close to the car, I’m like, you wore your mask way to go! And then let him take his mask off in as fast a fashion as he would like. So that pre-correction, super important strategy.  (coughs) Excellent resources there.

[00:14:55] If you’re looking at hoops, supporting social-emotional needs, we’ve got all kinds of resources here. A lot of visuals. We picked some of the folks, whether you like social media and like Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, some of the folks that are really coming out with lots of different visuals and resources that you could follow over time, so Lucky Little Learners, Brad Weinstein and The Counseling Teacher have lots of great resources, as well as Counselor Chelsey and Wholehearted Counseling, they share lots of free resources on social media that you can tackle at any time.

[00:15:38] If you’ve tried it mindfulness with your child, this is definitely an evidence based practice to support social-emotional regulation so we’ve got lots of mindfulness supports. And then some resources around supporting your children, if they’re experiencing anxiety or stress. What does that look like? And how can we help our children calm and provide that regulation that we would like them to have?

[00:16:08] We’ve got some schedule ideas and different resources that you can download that hopefully will be helpful. We are continuing to add to our literacy support. These are kind of the best folks in literacy that are out there. The same with math. These are some of my favorite, I’ll be honest. I just love these virtual math manipulatives. One of our math consultants, Kim Snowball, created these and so when you click on these, they are, will take you into a variety of books to look at virtual manipulatives that you can use to help your child with math. And they’re divided up elementary, middle school and high school.

[00:16:49] If you are supporting a child who is an English learner, we have some resources for you. We also have resources set up, just for early childhood and for our younger elementary students. If you haven’t had a chance yet to explore or Conscious Discipline, they have tons of free resources and excellent visuals that you can use with your child. And I would use those up until later elementary school, depending on which resource that you are looking for, or have opened up.

[00:17:23] We know for young children, it’s really important for us to support play. And so some excellent resources on how you can incorporate play into learning. A few more social stories and some mindfulness videos for younger children.

[00:17:40] If you are utilizing some technologies for schooling and are not sure how it is supposed to work or what it should be doing, we did share some of the main technologies that are being used across Kentucky with kind of the quick tips or quick checklists that you can use. And we’ll continue to add to those as more systems are being used across our state and across your schools.

[00:18:10] We have Joe Bertucci, a co-op who does a lot of work with the arts. And so Joe has shared a bunch of arts education tips. How you can incorporate arts into learning and things that you can access together. Some beautiful resources that you might enjoy. And if you are a foster or adoptive parents, we also have some resources for you.

[00:18:34] So, like I said this site is growing and we’re continuing to add to it. We want to make sure that we’re filling a need and providing supports that are helpful. One resource that we are getting ready to add to the site, and I thought I could preview with you ahead of time, if you are using lots of visuals with your  student at home, one site that I love, it’s called LessonPix, and I like it for a number of reasons. One is it’s super affordable, it’s just $36 a year. It’s also easy to use, I’ve tried to use it some picture schedules and they’re not easy to access. So once you develop an account, you can search for pictures and they have a really extensive clip art library. But what I really love about it the best is that you can download your own pictures.

[00:19:31] So I’m gonna log-in really quick into LessonPix, on my account, just to show you kind of what I’ve done with that. So I have, am working with a student who really wants to be able to request breaks, needs a lot of breaks to be successful both at school and during remote learning. And if he gets frustrated, then he starts throwing things and hitting people. So we’re working on teaching that request to break when you get frustrated, it’s okay to request a break and we’ll honor your breaks. So I pulled some pictures together for him. So I’m always going to work off of this tray, and as you can see, I’ve been working on music here. Favorite music sources for Dan, but I’m going to clear that tray out.

[00:20:22] And then I’m going to pull over, I created this tray with my break images, and I’m going to say that I want all of these images I like the walk image, we’re definitely going to do some bubble gum and I like this take a break ticket. So I’ve got some pictures I chose but maybe I want more pictures so I can search right up here and maybe I want a different picture of gum and I tell it to go. It’s going to pull on all the images of gum. So maybe I’ll like this one of the piece of gum. I’m going to add that one. And I’m going to add this one over here. So once I’ve got the pictures that I like, then I click on this create materials button, and it has so many different choices of things that you can create, so from do and do not cards, to picture schedules.

[00:21:11] I’m going to maybe make a picture schedule. So I’m going to tell it next and I’m gonna tell it I want all the pictures. If you want to change the background in pictures, you can. I’m going to pretend like I like what’s there and then you can change up what it looks like, so maybe my child really loves dinosaur. So I’m going to use this dinosaur schedule or I say, ehh that one doesn’t look very good, I’m going to do this number schedule. Whatever you want to do. And you can pick the number of steps, you can do a lot of personalization. But we’ll pretend like I like what’s here. When I click finish, it’s going to give me a PDF and then that way I can print this out. I could send this to school to share with the teacher. I can share it with grandma, and it’s set forever and ever. Then I can go back and create a whole new one really quickly. So I love this one.

[00:22:02] Under my LessonPix I’ve also added lots and lots of pictures as you can see, we really like music on Spotify. So I’ve added a bunch of images here. We’ve got some task boxes, so we added those. I went to my Kroger’s website and downloaded a bunch of food. So if you have a child who loves jello, but it’s gotta be exactly the picture of the jello, it’s really easy to add those pictures in here. So LessonPix is kind of one that I use a lot to create my own picture supports for my son and for other children who need them.

[00:22:39] I’m going to kind of pause in the sharing here for a second and let folks, if you would like to ask a question, if there’s a resource you’re specifically looking for, or an area that you’re really wanting some help in. If you can type those in the chat and let us know what you’re looking for, then I’m happy to kind of share from that angle specifically.

[00:23:08] Stella: Dr. Clarke, I wanted to also ask, do you know of any, and I loved that last site, I thought that was really cool, do you know of any sites where parents could go to, to download any like a free place that they can get clipboard and stuff like that to create their own? And also I wanted to let everyone know that we will send these links, in a follow up email this afternoon. The link to the website that you’re showing, so I didn’t want anyone to think they weren’t going to have that because we definitely will send that.

[00:23:46] Dr. Clarke: Perfect. Excellent. And, do you have, did you grab the link or do you want me to add it?

[00:23:55] Stella: I’ll get it from you to send later.

[00:24:00] Dr. Clarke: Perfect. All right, so I’ll share with you a few of my favorite, quick tips, if that’s okay. And then, you feel free to use anything you’d like that I share. So one of my all-time favorite sites, if I’m looking for real pictures, if you haven’t explored this site yet, it’s called pixabay.com and they’ve got all kinds of free pictures. If you go over here to this spot, if you can choose from graphics, illustrations, or images, and pull in what you want. So, say I really want to have a lot of pictures of kids that are smiling.

[00:24:42] So I typed in the word kids in the search, up here at the top, these are images you would have to pay for. Here are free images that you can use. So say I want an image of two kids that, this kid is working. Let’s choose this one. So I’ve got this image, this child is working. I click on free download, download the picture and I personally have signed up for a free account. If you don’t sign up for a free account, you’ll have to go through this prompt every time, but it will download the picture. You can see my pictures down here at the bottom. And then personally, what I do is because Google has all kinds of free resources, I have my free Google account, so for my kids, I just create a new set of Google slides. The reason I use Google slides is because it will let me choose the size I want and I can resize things easily, but here I am in my Google slides and then I just drag that picture up that I just chose. And then you can resize that and you know, type in anything you want.

[00:25:52] So maybe I’m making a first-then support for my child. So move my picture around and then I’ll type in the word first, make it smaller. So there’s lots of things that I can do here. And then maybe after we get done with our schoolwork, then we’re going to go play outside. So I’ll just type in outside. And then, often I let my kids choose the pictures that they like. And so I think while those pictures aren’t right. So let’s go back and let’s do playground and see if that gives me some better choices. Oh yeah, that’s much better. So after that, then we’re going to go to the playground. And so I’ll choose this picture and download it. So to me this is really, really fast and an easy way to make my own picture schedules that can be exactly what I want and I don’t have to go outside and take some pictures and upload those myself, although you definitely can do that, but now I’ve got my first-then contingency and I’m ready to go. So this is one of my favorites.

[00:26:55] You definitely, within this world can, insert Google images. if you are a Google fan, not to go too deep in the Google. If I go too deep, Google, I could play here all day, but I won’t go too deep. Stella, just stop me if I go too far, if you click on add-ons, these are free and you click on, get add-ons. One add-on that I really want like, is this one called insert icons for slides and docs. When you click on start, this is called flat icons. Flat icon is the word. And, it has that really in my head, they’re cool pictures, I liked them. So I will use these a lot. And again, you can do the same kind of thing. So, you know, start, we want to start our work. So I’ll choose an image and I’ll use that image every time for my students. So maybe go is the one we agree that this means start. So I’ll insert this one and they’ve got cute pictures. My kids tend to like these icons a lot, so this might be our start. And then same thing if I want you to stop is over here, to find those pictures. So flat icon has been really something I use quite a good bit.

[00:28:22] Stella: Wonderful. And you will send, you can send me that link later and I will make sure that I, I wrote down the Pixabay one, but I didn’t get the one you’re doing now. So maybe we can, you can just send that to me and I’ll make sure that everyone gets all of these, so they’ll have them following the presentation today.

[00:28:41] Dr. Clarke: Absolutely.

[00:28:42]Stella:  I do have a question.

[00:28:44] Dr. Clarke: Yes.

[00:28:45] Stella: Someone says, do you have any recommendations on how to get a child to sit in front of the computer when the parent is busy working from home? Cause you know, we’re all we’re running into that now too. Lots of families are of course working from home themselves and you know, trying to keep up with their child also. Do you have any recommendations for that?

[00:29:08] Dr. Clarke: Yes and so some of these are doable, easier to do than others. Depending on the type of clock you have at your house, what I’ve done is just modified picture schedule with my child. We did end up having to rearrange the order of work. So, this schedule that was sent home from the teacher, said do math, then do reading, then do social studies, then do science. And I have a child who is very literal, so the schedule said do math, then do reading. She was like, I’m going to do math. And then I’m going to do reading. And I said, well, you know, math requires more help from mom, reading you’re really independent. She was like, no, the teacher said do math then do reading. So I emailed the teacher and I said, can you send me a new schedule that says, do reading and then do math. And the teacher very kindly did that. I said, Oh, look, the teacher said, do reading and then to math. So we did rearrange the schedule because I needed her to be independent in the morning on activities. And then we rearranged math, just a little funny side note. She said, my teacher says do math in the evening. I said, did she now? Well that’s I guess we have to do it. Cause that’s when I’m done with my conference calls and I can help her with that. And you know, the teacher said it, so it must be true. So she’s like, I didn’t think we were supposed to do school after hours. I was like, Oh, that’s what the teacher said. I’m just her humble servant and have to do what the teacher said. So anyway, we rearranged our day. That helped a lot.

[00:30:45] The other thing that we did is I gave her tokens. And she has six tokens, and so she gets to come and ask me for help and she can only have six tokens all day. So, in the first day she came in the first 30 minutes, she used all six tokens. And then the next time she came, I was like, you’re out of tokens. I don’t know what to tell ya, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow when you get more tokens. So, she then spread her tokens out, so that helped some.

[00:31:13] The other thing that sometimes helps,  we’re using Alexa a lot. So if you have some version of a robot device in your house, you can talk to, we talk to Alexa and Alexa sets the timer. So I do have to go upstairs and get her started on tasks. And then when Alexa goes off is when she’s allowed to come and ask for help, if she doesn’t want to use a token. And so I could arrange my work around that schedule and I set it up that way. So that helped us out a lot.

[00:31:48] I also, depending on how much they are able to write, we have some kids that are writing out their questions. So if they can’t do one task, they close that task and then they write it the question, you need help with X. And then in my breaks or in the parents breaks, they go back up and help during those breaks. So that worked out really well with our middle schooler. Those were our big, those were our big tips so far.

[00:32:22] Another support that is super helpful, there’s an intervention that we use in schools a lot, and it’s called a check-in, check-out system. It’s got a huge evidence-based behind it. And I’m sorry, I’ve got to think for just a minute where I, where we put it on our parents’ support page. I think it’s on this main page. I’ll scroll down a little bit.

[00:32:46] I will share with you the check-in, check-out system. So check-in, check-out, is what it sounds like. We check-in at the beginning and we have a list of two or three targeted behaviors we want to see. And then we check-out later in the day to see how successful our kids are. So teachers use that a lot. But we as parents can definitely use check-in, check-out. So if the check-in, check-out is that you’re going to work at your computer, independently for 30 minutes and you’re going to, you know, write down your questions or you’re going to bookmark the spot where you couldn’t work by yourself or whatever works best in your world. And only ask those questions when the timer goes off, you know, that might be the three behaviors retargeting. And if your child is able to do that successfully, then they might earn a token or earn a ticket or earn free time. My daughter likes to earn, YouTube videos. She likes to watch five minute crafts. So she’s been earning five minute craft videos. Is that helpful at all? Stella are we on the right track?

[00:34:01] Stella: Absolutely. Yes. And were you trying to show your screen then? Because I don’t think we can see your screen now.

[00:34:07] Dr. Clarke: Oh, I’m so sorry, I don’t know how I unshared it. Let me see if I can do that again. Alright, my apologies.

[00:34:16] Stella: That’s ok. That’s ok.

[00:34:18] Dr. Clarke: Did it, let’s see, does it look like it’s showing Google does it?

[00:34:23] Stella: There we go.

[00:34:24] Dr. Clarke: There we go. Excellent. So, Stella I’ve got a list now. I will share with you, the LessonPix links, flat icons, Pixabay and the check-in, check-out system.

[00:34:36] Stella: Wonderful. And those were great suggestions, you know, I think that’s what a lot of people are kind of struggling with right now is how to balance it’s everything. You know, for example, one of the issues that we’re having in our house is I do work from home and I do a lot of webinars, of course well, my son is a senior and of course he is trying to get on our internet also for his class work and guess what we live in the country so our internet is, I mean, we pay for what’s called best effort, that’s what we pay for. And so therefore, having us both on at the same time, isn’t even an option.

[00:35:22] So I know that something that, you know, a lot of other families are probably struggling with too. So what we’ve had to do is we’re fortunate enough. We have an alternate place that he can go on our farm that has a whole separate, we have a cabin and it has its own WIFI there, so that has helped us, but I know that’s not going to be for a lot of families. So, you know, there’s just so many that we have to think about when we’re all trying to work and learn remotely. So your suggestions have been wonderful.

[00:35:55] Dr. Clarke: And I would encourage us all to just  work cooperatively with our schools. You know, definitely,  I’ve been emailing our teachers and saying, okay, you know, here’s what’s working and here’s what we need help with. You know, can you send me a modified schedule? This is what I need it to say, or, you know we need to be able to do work in the evening when I can help with math and this topic. And they’ve been very understanding that, yeah, absolutely let me help you out with what you need to do to be successful at home.

[00:36:28] Stella: I love that. And, you know, parents should feel comfortable doing that and working and partnering with their schools like that. And like you said, most of the time, they’re going to be very understanding and work with you to try to figure out the best plan that works for you, especially  under the circumstances that we’re in.

[00:36:45] Dr. Clarke: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:36:48] Stella: Some, a couple of comments, one said wonderful resources. And then we also had someone give us another website, for some resources too. And, if I don’t ha, I was gonna try to show that real quick, but I think we’re just wait and maybe provide that resource, but it’s some virtual support. It’s a first-then board, it says for picture schedule.

[00:37:12] Dr. Clarke: Yes.

[00:37:12] Stella: So that’ll be a good one. I can share now too. But I’m telling you these resources have been wonderful and I think it’s exactly what families need. It’s nice to have a place that they can go to find everything, you know, all right there together. Do you mind going back, and under the special education tab again and just reviewing some of those when you get a second?

[00:37:33] Dr. Clarke: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, let me click on this resource. If you haven’t accessed Teachers Pay Teachers, there are quite a few free resources, that you can access. Another site that we really love, is the site is called Autism Little Learners, and she has shared just a ton of free resources and free picture schedules. She’s got a whole tab that’s called COVID-19 and lots and lots of different coloring pages, and visual supports, picture schedules. She’s created all kinds of social stories. They’re all free and available. You know, everything from getting my temperature taken? To why am I learning at home? Just tons and tons of resources. And even if  the pictures that she has chosen aren’t exactly what you need. I’ve still taken the concepts or the script that she has, and then used a site like Pixabay or flat icon or whatever visuals your child likes best and just replace them, you know, using Google slides. So I appreciate that, you know, she’s shared those all for free.

[00:38:50] The other site for our kids that are really experiencing a lot of stress, is called, WholeHearted Counseling. And she has shared a ton of fantastic resources and I’m on a different computer right now, and my other computer goes exactly to where I want it to go. WholeHearted Counseling she has lots and lots of free resources or inexpensive resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, but just as you can see here, just a ton of great visuals.

[00:39:27] The nice thing about the visuals that she’s created, there’s usually a colored version and also a black and white version. And so I’ve printed out those non-colored versions. And then we’ve kind of used those as coloring sheets and kind of an opportunity for me to provide some instructions. So, you know, my kids, like your kids probably are just, there are moments when everything is fine and this is no big deal, and then 10 minutes later, you know, they’re stressed and anxious and frustrated. And what’s happening a lot at our house is our kids are just shutting down, right, where normally they might power through something that’s frustrating, with everything else that’s going on it’s like that iceberg analogy right. Underneath they’re just kind of simmering, simmering and so very little things will cause them to erupt.

[00:40:17] So on the WholeHearted Counseling, she’s got a lot of great visuals that we can use at home to just kind of explain what’s going on. Breathing and mindfulness resources, just a ton of really great ideas that you might find to be helpful. She is across all social media. So here we’re looking at her Pinterest page. She’s also on Facebook, she’s on Instagram and then Teachers Pay Teachers, so you can find her resources. And Twitter, you can find her just about every place. I haven’t looked tik-tok yet, but other places she’s got lots of great resources. So WholeHearted Counseling and Autism Little Learners, they have lots of resources that they’re sharing for free.

[00:41:00] Stella: That’s great. I mean, I’m like going, I can’t believe all this is out there, you know,  (laughs)

[00:41:06] Dr. Clarke: For free and just available for sharing it. Yes. So—

[00:41:10] Stella: You know that’s I think that’s what a lot of parents at this point need, even though, you know, I’m definitely not a good DIY person, at all, it’s nice to know that there are people out there who are that you can go and just utilize their things that they’ve already created. And I love that. I think that that helps family so much, especially the families who are out working full time and just don’t have time to go in and create all that themselves.

[00:41:38] Dr. Clarke: Absolutely. So this is on the special education page, if you like on the social-emotional learning, Byron’s SEL page, and he has a YouTube channel that he’s developed with just tons of great videos and going through all those social-emotional learning skills. So social awareness, what’s right versus wrong, you don’t quit. They definitely are some of the best I’ve seen for being more appropriate for middle school and high school. But I’ve used them with my younger children and they, you know, appreciate that too.

[00:42:13] If you go to YouTube, you will find, and type in SEL, he’s there and has lots of great videos that you can access. Some of my all-time favorite folks on YouTube, if you’re really trying to navigate all of the technologies that we are using. Sorry, I’m thinking and typing at the same time, he is started here at Lessons for SEL, all of his videos are here and like I said, he’s just shared so many free resources, I can’t thank him virtually enough for all of that he has shared out, the great resources.

[00:43:01] There are also quite a few fantastic, quick tech videos that I found to be really helpful. So if you’re really struggling, if the teacher says we’re going to be using jam board in class and you’re like, what? Some of the tech people that are out there that you might want to check out, let me scroll real quick. Oh, and I just should do a plug if you haven’t followed Kentucky SPIN, they also have a YouTube channel and all the videos from past webinars. So if you want to catch up on all the webinars check there.

[00:43:36] LessonPix, which we looked at just a second, they have a YouTube channel, with lots of different tutorials. So if you decide to try out LessonPix, there’s all kinds of videos to support that learning. The guys that I am looking for are a group of tech folks and their videos were super easy to access. So we’ve got the Technology for Teachers and Students folks, lots of great videos. So like I just mentioned jam boards, so if you’re wondering what I’m talking about,  a great video here. So Technology for Teachers and Students, they have nice short videos and they kind of give you a step by step tutorial, so I access them a lot.

[00:44:26] Stella: I love that, and again, well, you’ll send me these, correct?

[00:44:30] Dr. Clarke: Absolutely, I will send them.

[00:44:32] Stella: Awesome, and then I’ll make sure everyone gets them in their follow up email. Well it looks like I have one more question and I think you’ve answered it, but just maybe review it. It says, do you have any suggestions on strategies to use at home to keep children invested and on task? I like that word invested because I think that’s something that is difficult for families and parents to do right now. How do you keep them invested and on task?

[00:45:01] Dr. Clarke: Absolutely. And I’m going to go a little bit out of the box or not out of the — but I want to just I’ll share from the heart, how about that? Sometimes the work that is school, especially when it’s challenging work, I think it’s hard for us to be invested in it. And I use like my own life examples, so if you think through tasks that you hate and I’ll  just share with you, I hate doing the dishes. Like I love to cook, but I hate to do the dishes. If my kids weren’t really earth conscious, we would eat on paper plates and use silverware every day and throw it away because that’s where I am in life. So dishes is my, like I hate it and I’m not invested in it. And even though my kids remind me to be earth conscious, I don’t care. I’m sorry. I just don’t. And no matter how hard I try and tell myself, it’s better for the world and you know, it’s nice to have family dinners and our china’s so pretty, like any of those things, I still don’t care.  (laughs)  

[00:46:00] It’s just. So, here’s how I manage that. I have a, I’m just going to whisper because my kids are upstairs, I have a large bag of Dove chocolate, it’s the dark chocolate with the peanut butter. It’s hidden behind the healthy granola bars that we’ve had the box for two years and everybody hates them and I’ve kept the box, the box is now empty, but I keep the box, like it’s sitting there and behind that is the Dove chocolate. And after I do the dishes that I still at the age of 50 hate, then I move that box of granola bars really quietly and I grab two pieces of chocolate, I hide them in my pocket, and then, and then I go and fold the laundry because my kids don’t like to fold the laundry and I eat my Dove chocolate down in the laundry room. It’s my reward.

[00:46:48] And I feel like it’s the same for our kids a lot of times. No matter how much we talk about the value of the work and you need to read to live. And math is important because blah, blah, blah. Sometimes they just are not going to invest in that. And so I offer them an alternative, what do you invest in? So for my third grader, her big motivator are these craft YouTube videos, she can’t get enough of them. And so I dole them out like my Dove chocolate and she earns them. And I’m like, I know that math is not your favorite topic, but if you finish the 30 minutes your teacher assigned, then you get two craft videos  and she will work through and power through. And sometimes when it’s really hard, like we were doing to the a hundred thousands last night and it almost killed both of us, in my head I promised myself some more Dove chocolate and I got a bonus piece last night and she earned an extra video, for her growth mindset.

[00:47:46] Cause she kept saying, it’s too hard, and I was like, well, if we have a growth mindset, you can earn an extra video. So two for working through the math and another for the growth mindset. So sometimes that’s what I found to work best in my teacher life, but definitely in my mom life, that’s saved my child’s life in my own personal mental sanity. So if you haven’t tried the dark chocolate with peanut butter inside, that’s my side note, it was a bonus.

[00:48:13] Stella: I love that. That’s awesome. That is that’s a great answer. That’s a great example, because we all love to be rewarded for something that we do. So, and why would our kids not want that too? So that was wonderful.

[00:48:29] Well that is, I don’t see any more questions. Is there anything else you wanted to share before we close?

[00:48:40] Dr. Clarke: I would love if folks don’t mind, if you can share with us, you know, the site is new, we’ve just piloted it in the last week, and so we would love input on what other resources would be helpful. What other things would you like to see so that we can have resources on our parent’s site that, you know, really truly are meaningful. So if you don’t mind adding in the chat any suggestions for things that in our quick tutorial, you’re like, eh, you didn’t show me this, or I didn’t see that. I took notes on the questions that we had and so I’ll definitely try and add a few more resources there. And I think that motivation question was excellent because you know, it is hard, especially if that’s an area where our students are struggling or that’s an area of deficit or growth for our child, finding that motivation is just challenging.

[00:49:32] And so if we can’t find motivation within the content itself, then you know, what other kinds of things can we share with them that will help motivate them to finish the work that is just really challenging.

[00:49:44] Stella: Exactly.

[00:49:45] Dr. Clarke: I don’t think I mentioned, one thing that’s really helpful for our kids, I’ve been reminding my kids too, in school you guys have had reading for 30 minutes or 90 minutes, but hopefully you weren’t sitting all of that time and you know, it was broken up by activities and in remote learning a lot of times they are sitting with an iPad. So we’ve been breaking that time up into chunks and kind of making it as developmentally appropriate for our age as possible.

[00:50:19] So we’ve developed some different work areas. So, you know, we might have reading is sitting at your desk. Math, you do that in the kitchen and you’re standing at the bar stool height. So we’re standing for math and spreading out. And then we might sit on the front porch and do so social studies, but kind of moving locations helps. We’re also really being mindful of breaks and building that into our schedule. So making sure we get enough water and enough movement.

[00:50:52] If you haven’t had a chance to check out, if you’ve got elementary kids, we’ve been doing a lot with Go noodle. They have free videos that are available and you can do those either through YouTube or at the Go Noodle site, but as for movement breaks and that’s been really powerful for my middle school student who’s too cool for school. She has been doing a music video breaks in between activities, and not that she’s standing there dancing, but she’ll play a favorite video and, she calls it, pace the house. So she’ll pace from one end to the house to the other a few times to get in her, she makes a step goal every day, how many steps she wants to get. And so she’ll listen to her music and pace.

[00:51:41] But just trying to remember those breaks, because I think they get goal oriented and want to sit and power through and, that doesn’t work well all for our long-term learning.

[00:51:53] Stella: That’s great. Absolutely. Those are some, you’ve just done a wonderful job and we appreciate so much. About all of your knowledge and information, and we are going to be sure that everyone gets your suggestions. And if anyone does type anything, I didn’t see anything or anyone had commented, about other than the one resource that we had that I’ll be sure you get.

[00:52:16] Dr. Clarke: Perfect.

[00:52:17] Stella: And send that to you, that maybe you can add to yours and thank you for plugging Kentucky SPINs page. I know Rhonda has worked really hard getting our web page updated with all wonderful information for families also, and our videos. And the slide that’s on the screen now we have started, as I said at the beginning, we have been doing webinars pretty much every week since March. And we’ve started now what we call Tuesday Tips, which is what you’re doing today. And so what we’re doing every Tuesday at 11 is trying to, just provide families and professionals and tips that might help them, not only through COVID, but just through any other area that we feel is important at the time and also give an educational update on that day.

[00:53:07] And then every Thursday at 11, we’re also offered additional webinars on a variety of topics. So folks can go to our website and visit those and our visit our website and find all of those resources available to them also, and sign up for upcoming webinars, our Tuesday Tips, like I said, we are doing those every week, so that makes them, you know, available for everyone.

[00:53:35] So, and then the last thing is just when you leave today, you will be prompted to complete an evaluation. And so we would like for you to do that, if you don’t mind at the end of the webinar, complete the evaluation and let us know how we’re doing. If there is something that you would like to see on Tuesday Tips, please put that in one of the comment boxes, and we will be sure and take that into consideration. Some of the things we have been doing have been suggestions from people that have been on other webinars. So, we definitely read them and take note of it and possibly turn them into a webinar that we can share with others.

[00:54:19] But again, thank you Dr. Clarke for joining us, we really appreciate it. And thanks everyone. You will be getting an email with these links later today. So we appreciate you and, Dr. Clarke, is there anything you want to say at the end?

[00:54:35] Dr. Clarke: Thank you guys so much for having me and  I appreciate the fantastic questions and we’ll pull resources and look for additions to the parents’ support website. I’ll add what we shared out today.

[00:54:47] All right. Thank you so much, everyone have a wonderful day.