Ideas for Game-ified Learning Activities

By Shao L Salimzi

This is a combination of 3 pieces first published on Shao’s blog – Story of a Little Star . Shao is a mum to an autistic girl who is known on her blog and social media accounts as Little Star. They are a SonRise family and Little Star is homeschooled. Shao shares some of their fun learning activities on her blog and social media account when she can. The following are 3 activities which Shao and Little Star had fun doing…

Flash Card Games…

Flash cards are incredibly tricky to “gamify” i.e., to turn into fun games. Whenever I talk with parents who say they play with flashcards a lot with kids, little bells go off in my head.

Despite trying to maintain an open mind… in all honesty, I have almost never heard a parent describe a flashcard activity as a game, even if they describe it as one. The struggle is real, because I am also constantly challenged to not make flashcards too academic.

I only know of one parent who can make flashcards and things fun, and it’s Angie on Instagram here – she truly brings joy into the autism playroom!

So how did we gamify flashcards? The most important ingredient surprisingly, is not the game itself.

The most important ingredient is… YOU! If you are having fun, if you are being silly, then that is half the game already. If you can let go of needing the child to do the activity, of trying to “teach” instead of play, then that is another huge point.

The second ingredient is… Yep you guessed it. YOUR CHILD. Is your child fully invested and engaged in the game of his / her own free will? Does she want to pick those cards on her own, and not being cajoled or forced? Is SHE finding it fun, and laughing / being silly right along with you?

And there you have it. Your flashcards are pretty much gamified. Heh. Not so hard right? But why is it then? That is something each of us has to ask deep down.

So I made silly animal noises for Little Star to guess the animal. Acted like the animal. And she made some back at me. It could have been academic. But because we kept to the two strategies, playing flashcards was a blast!

The above was first published on 21 July 2021 here

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Birds Themed Activity

Our autism homeschool theme this March is BIRDS

Little Star chose this theme herself. In a monthly BRAINSTORMING zoom chat, some friends and I discussed giving our special kids more control and autonomy. Encouraging her to choose her own theme is one of them!

Starter Table

In this photo, we lay out a starter table of books and theme related objects for her to explore at leisure. She already absconded with the ducks and took them to bed last night.

We don’t have a huge collection of books as we used to rely on local libraries for reading material. Thanks to lockdown, however, all libraries are closed since October 2020. Super sucks but what can we do! I still managed to scrounge for a small collection, including some adult bird watching books. YouTube is also an incredible source for read-aloud books and educational videos, which we use extensively.

Beyond Object Oriented Theme Activities

Last night, I spent hours planning out our homeschool BIRD activities. These are not supplementary to our online curriculum. They are standalone, holistic activities addressing various areas of a special child’s development. Including the need to have fun and enjoy playing with people!

The thing with our autastic kids is that their play can be very object-oriented / centric. As parents planning activities for our kids, we can fall into the same trap, placing priority on objects and academics.

This might not a problem for a neurotypical child, who is naturally motivated to be social. A neurodiverse, autistic child however, might be wary, even fearful of social interaction and communication. Not necessarily because they don’t want to, but maybe because they do not know how to, can’t cope, find it too unpredictable, or have had stressful engagements with people in the past.

It is important for us as their play partners to give them lots of opportunities to engage with us in supportive, fun, social activities. Where the objects are the side show, and we are the centre.

CREATING THE FUN

And here is the hardest part. It is actually easy for me to come up with learning, educational activities. There are so many resources online. All we need to do is look up a topic, and we are flooded with information.

Games that are fun and motivating for Little Star is the challenging one. Am therefore grateful to have my small group zooms with a few friends. As well as our monthly Special Parent Support Group, where we are in the midst of a series of GAME BRAINSTORMING sessions in 4 social developmental areas. The tribe can be helpful, and seeing everyone grow together since LohZ and I started this support group last year is inspiring.

So when I sat down to plan for the month last night, there were already a couple of games in our treasury thanks to the zooms. And they gave my brain a much needed kick to think of even more fun, socially engaging activities for Little Star and I to do together.
* Find out more about the Social Developmental Model at the ATCA website. It is available for download here.

The above was first published on 2 March 2021, here

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The Story of Nian – Chinese New Year themed Activity

Little Star is showing interest in super animated story telling! Am so excited. We told the story with props and enthusiasm. Spelled key words with RPM (rapid prompting method). And played chase with the DIY Nian monster

The stuff we used for the activity + game! Except the play dough we planned to make our own monster with play dough but didn’t have time.

You will find a guide to activities below. Download PDF printout story here

STORY-TELLING: YOU WILL NEED

• A DIY Nian Monster

• Little dolls for the villagers

• A doll house (cardboard box will do)

• Drums and tambourine

• Red paper (or something similar)

YOU WILL DO

• Start the story with the Nian monster

• Wear the monster and make good use of the room space.

• Fly the Nian monster. Have it chomp on random things, including your child!

• Animate the dolls according to story

• Play the musical instruments and have the Nian monster flee

DIY NIAN MONSTER: YOU WILL NEED

• A box

• Origami paper / paper

• Blue tac

• Something for the horn

• Scarf

YOU WILL DO

• Use on of the box flaps for the mouth

• Use papers to decorate the mouth and eyes

• Attach object to the top of the box with blue tac for horns

• Punch 2 holes on the side of the box and tie on the scarf for the monster’s body train

For those of you doing RPM, spelling key words or just doing Q&A after the story with you child, here are some basic questions. Duck & Flamingo relates to levels for the child.

NIAN STORY Q&A:

Duck (closed Qs)

• Where does the Nian monster live?

  • Sea

• What scared the Nian monster away?

  • Red

  • Loud noises

  • Bright lights

Flamingo (Open-ended Qs)

• What was your favourite part of the story?

• If you did not have paper, firecrackers or musical instruments, how would you scare away the Nian monster?

Pro tip:

Some ASD children do not like to be asked questions. If this the case, reformulate the questions as fill-in-the-blanks. E.g. “The Nian monster was scared away by ____ noises”. Or “My favourite part of the story is ____”. For my daughter, I find this works well.

BONUS GAME: MONSTER CHASE

• Use the DIY Nian monster and initiate a chase game with your child!

• When you have caught her you can tickle her with the scarf or horn (provided she likes being tickled)

• If she doesn’t like tickles, do an action that your child loves instead. E.g. rough housing, scary sounds, squashing her with a pillow etc.

• + 1: Tell her to chase away the Nian monster, she just needs to bang the drum / tambourine

• + 2: If she bangs with a rhythm, it will make the Nian monster dance!

We made a horn with a feathered toy! Fun for tickles

Doing activities with a child on the autism spectrum is different but fun. First, it is a spectrum, so our kid’s response varies depending where they are on it. We can’t introduce an activity and assume it will take instantly.

Sometimes we have to experiment and modify it a fair bit before hitting on the angle that appeals to her.

Timing also matters. Introduce at the wrong time and she will be completely uninterested. Get the timing right and she will be engaging and involved. There are so many interesting variables in playing with an ASD child!

The above was first published on 20 February 2021, here

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Shao is from Malaysia.