Hey Stranger!

It has been 6 months since my last post and I have been a busy bee trying to implement all of the things I last talked about. In my last post I shared with you about my wonderful trip to the 2014 IDEAS conference and everything that I learned about and planned to introduce into my classroom. Since then, I have attended 3 other trainings/conferences and have even more ideas to share! But first things first, I want to update you on my progress with interactive/sensory books.

Before I took my two-year break from teaching, I had several interactive/sensory books in rotation but those didn't seem to make it into my classroom when I began teaching again and I sort of forgot about them. This is one reason why I love going to conferences or trainings- I not only learn new strategies but I also have my memory jogged on things that I already know but am not putting into practice.

I'm trying not to overwhelm myself with creating a ton of these interactive/sensory books this year so I am keeping it simple right now. If you remember, these were some of the incredible ideas that I saw this summer at training:

Beautiful! I plan on making ONE- yes, just one of these this year. Right now, I am adapting board books to make them into interactive/sensory books. Here are a few of the ones I have done this year with the units I have taught:

This interactive book allows for students to identify the front of the book and then the main characters on each page. I usually pass out the pictures beforehand and then as I read about the character in the book, students will match their visual to one in the book.

This interactive book allows students to identify how many lights are on each page and match the numeral with the number in the book. 

I made a simple sensory book using my favorite unit that I teach, Brown Bear.

I literally made this one in 5 minutes one Friday afternoon. It is super simple but I think it gets the job done. I used items that I found in my closet such as foam, cotton balls, ribbon, velcro, pipe cleaners, etc. and hot glued them into the book. I hope to make a lot more of these in the future. 

There are so many great ideas out there for creating interactive/sensory books. These are some of my favorite pinterest boards: this one, this one, this one,  and this one!