Katie Armstrong's blog

A resource for teachers or parents of tactual learners

Recently a friend from college, Kitty Greeley, was observing in my classroom for research she is doing as part of her doctoral degree at Florida State University.  After her observations were complete, we spent some time chatting about what she observed and early childhood for visually impaired learners in general.  During this conversation, she brought up my beautiful classroom job chart that she didn’t see me using.

Here is another resource for teachers and parents of young tactual learners!

Handwriting Without Tears (now called "Learning Without Tears") is a multi-sensory writing curriculum created for early childhood through 5th grade.  I have been using the pre-school program called, Get Set For School, in my early childhood classroom for children with visual impairments. 

These activities are designed to support fine motor skills, pre-literacy skills, math, and overall independence in the preschool children I teach.  I have been slowly but surely introducing more independent work activities into my classroom and try to change them to fit a theme and to keep interest.  Most of these skills can also be practiced in the natural routine or environment, and easily set up for home use.  I keep these activities on low shelves and try to keep them set up so that all the needed materials are readily available in the same location.  A big part of the works outlined be

Is it Winter or is it Fall?  In Phoenix, Arizona it is hard to tell!  In my classroom it is Winter, however when you look at all the leaves under the tree on the playground you would think it was Fall!

By Katie Armstrong, Preschool Teacher at the Foundation for Blind Children, Phoenix, Arizona

(This blog post is a follow-up to Story Box Ideas for Holiday Stories)