Help me give my students access to visual tools in color! Our tight budget doesn't allow for us to offer color printing to our students with visual needs.
Our students are 18 to 21 and come to us with a wide range of abilities. We strive to create experiences for them all to feel included. Some are great artists while others enjoy seeing bright colors in their spaces. Some thrive on touch while others respond to smells. Finding out what moves a student to respond to their surroundings in the most independent way possible is what the staff strives for. We are helping some of them navigate college courses, while for others we are creating a sensory experience that invites reactions. Our hope is that we can find the things that give our students a purposeful life and that they can use that information to build from as they transition out of school and into their lives.
My Project
Our program is very unique. We operate separate from the high school and focus on life long skills. Our students that experience disability come to us with a wide range of abilities, obstacles, and needs. One area that we are always lacking is the ability to use color in our classroom. We use color in both signs and in visual tools for those that work best by working with pictures rather than words. Currently we have to get very creative to add color into what we do including donating our personal time and home printers to bring in visual icons.
One of our main goals is to guide independence in life and by planning and preparing their own meals our students learn everything from personal choice to budgeting and all sorts of cooking and storage skills.
A big area we use color is in helping students participate in this as much as possible by offering visual meal planning tools and checklists to use while in the kitchen. Not only does it help in identifying food items but we also can color code things like temperatures to use and timers.
Another area that we are struggling with is how much time it is taking to prepare breakfasts and lunches. Toast is always a hit and so extra cooking space for that would be a huge help in making sure we have enough time for all of our students to participate to the fullest of their abilities.
The final piece to this project is portability. We have come up with needing the ability to move projects from one place to another and flash drives are one of those perks that are not afforded in our regular budget.
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