MindWing Concepts Blog

The Toontastic app has long been a good companion for interventions with Story Grammar Marker^®. The original app, released in the early 2010s, was designed with scaffolding in mind, as a “patch,” so to speak, on the problem of decreased play time and increased expectations for students to “write stories” as they reached first grade. Toontastic has undergone some changes after being purchased by Google a few years ago, and is now available as a free “Toontastic 3D” version for both iPad and Android...

“In the Jingle Jangle Jungle on a cold and rainy day, four little friends found a perfect place to stay.” Thus begins our journey with Zebra, Moose, Lion, Sheep and Bear! The Very Cranky Bear by Nick Bland is a delightful presentation in rhyme which will surely entertain Pre-K–Grade 1 students. I am reminded of my teaching mentor, Gail O’Connor. She was so skilled at taking stories and adding simple props, then letting students add their own touches to characters! Following are a few activities that may be presented; modify to meet the needs of your students...

I thought this would also be a great way to review SGM components, create centers for individuals and story specific centers, and/or send weekly tasks home to parents! With this in mind, I went on a hunt to find these albums, which are plastic, hold about 25 photos, and measure 4”x6”. In my day, we referred to them as “brag books” and would have them filled with recent photos of children, dogs, garden, etc., whatever we wanted to share (“brag about”) with family and friends! I found a few at our local dollar store and our CVS had a good number for about two dollars each. The following are a few examples of how I will be starting to use these along with MindWing’s STAMPede Stamp Set this year. This is a work in progress and one of which I am excited!...

I know some of you are already in school, so forgive the “Summer Study” aspect of this post, as I am holding on to the last days of summer (which goes until September, anyway). I have been impressed of late with ASHA’s publication of “tutorial” style articles that offer a synthesis of research and practical ideas and techniques for intervention. One of these recent articles is particularly relevant to the topic of this blog and to MindWing’s tools for narrative intervention: Telling Tales: Personal Event Narratives and Life Stories (Westby and Culatta, 2016). In this post I will discuss this article along with tech tools particularly related to the intervention suggestions around eliciting and scaffolding event narratives. Westby and Culatta set out to emphasize the importance of personal event narratives...

It’s amazing how quickly summer flies by! I have mentioned many times that throughout my 38 years of teaching, I always appreciated the fact that each school year brought about new opportunities to improve my teaching techniques. Not all occupations offer one a chance to reflect on what worked and what could be refined, both in materials and delivery, with the overall goal of building upon children’s strengths. From our group at MindWing, we wish you a successful school year and hope you enjoy the following blog to help with ideas to “KICK-OFF” your school year!...