Visual Supports for Play Activities

Even though I was planning on writing this post about two weeks ago, it managed to sneak up on me and I almost forgot about it!

I wanted to share with you some visual supports I keep handy around the classroom to support our non-verbal students during free play/center activities. I started making these boards a few years ago when I realized there was no way I could expect to keep visual supports for activities like this in a student's communication book for PECS. They just aren't big enough for something like that.

These play boards were my solution to providing students with visual supports during play opportunities without cluttering their communication books with pictures that would be used far less seldom than the pictures to communicate their every day wants and needs.

I should have snapped of photo of this, but of course that didn't dawn on me. I use command hooks on the wall in my play centers and punch a hole in the top of the play boards. Depending on what toys are available in the different centers, I hang the play boards up on the hooks. This keeps them out of the way, but makes them quick and easy to grab when you're playing with a student, or they're even excellent resources during push-in speech services. They are also hanging at student height so they can go up and access the board themselves.

You can grab this board for Free from my TpT store if you want to try something like this with your students. I have a few more I've already created that I'm working on getting added to my store.

What creative ways have you found to provide your students with visual supports during games/activities? And don't forget to follow We Teach Sped on Facebook to keep up with each of the daily posts and see what's coming next on the calendar!