Contributed by: Cindy Wang, MA
I have been working on monocular scanning skills with my 3rd grade student for about a year now and everything I have tried so far has been very boring and uninteresting to her. She always seems very self-conscious using the monocular and very bored during the lessons. The only way I could keep her motivated was with a prize bucket at the end of the lesson. However, this lesson was an instant success– she even told me after the lesson that she was very happy she came to school that day.
The Lesson:
I started the lesson by introducing the paper friends I made. Immediately, she was interested. I picked out 4 or 5 from the group and set the rest aside. Then, we took turns naming them. She really enjoyed coming up with names to give each of the friends. After we finished naming the friends, I had my student take her monocular out of her case while I taped the friends up on a wall, making sure they were all decently spread apart. Once everything was set up, we got started. How it worked was I would ask my student to find the friend with a particular feature. Then, my student would use her monocular and scan across the friends until she found the friend with the feature I asked for and she would tell me the friend’s name.
Examples:
“Find the friend with the purple smile”
“Find the friend with the their tongue sticking out”
“Find the friend with blue eyes”
This lesson can also be used for facial/people recognition skills.
I loved this idea so much it inspired me to look for “paper dolls” on pintrest. I looked for ones that were the kids favoriates and I also tried to tie it into the season. Since it was cold outside and my sweet little 3rd graded was having a Frozen themed birthday party. I found the cut out for Olof
The reason this worked so well was I cut ( I sometimes use a hard card stock) the parts to the character out that came on Pintrest and hide them so she had to look around the room for each of the parts which made his entire body. This is also great, becuase I can have an assistant pre-cut them and label them in an enevelop. They come in so many different types and I was even able to find a few from differenal cultural backgrounds. They also male characters, like Iron man and superman so eveyone feels included.
I don’t see a way to post photos, but I have a photo of my student with the finished product. I can also include a sample.
So much fun! Thanks for the fun idea which got my creative juices rolling.
I love this idea! It’s very creative and probably so fun for students! I’m imaging it like a puzzle and they have to locate each piece with their monocular? Did you have to have the images enlarged? And then they find out it’s their favorite character is very motivating! You probably have to email me pictures and I can upload them for you.