I recently posted on Instagram about making an AAC bin of activities including wind up toys and got several questions about where I got them and how I plan to use them so I thought I’d write a post to share more information about these super fun windup toys!
First, I got the wind up toys on Amazon and would absolutely recommend the bundle I purchased. All of them are unique and durable so far! They were about $1 each when I bought them.
I plan to use the variety to switch out different windup toys every few weeks or every month or so. Hopefully this will keep things exciting!
Now you might be wondering how I’m using them? They will be part of my AAC activities box that I’m making for a resource room in our school. I’m hoping the aids who work with students who use AAC will use the box when they need a quick activity to do with any student who uses AAC.
It’s super important to make sure that the whole team is on board when working with students who use AAC devices! I like to provide supports for my team through 5 steps of AAC implementation. These windup toys would be perfect to include or suggest when giving training on core vocabulary in particular!
The box has activities in the front and vocabulary the student has learned in the back so they can target vocab words as well. In the activity folders are ideas of how to use the item to elicit and model vocabulary. This amazing handout on wind up toys is from AssistiveWare Core Word Classroom. I’d 100% recommend signing up now because they have so many useful handouts that I’m printing and using each week.
Stay tuned for a post in the future where I show more about this box and what’s in it!
Hope that helps give you some ideas for wind up toys!
For more tips on access and materials for training your entire team on AAC, click here to check out my AAC Implementation Toolkit! It contains everything you need – how-tos, handouts, challenge tracking sheets, resources, core word activities, goal writing helps, and more!
{thanks for reading}
Wow! What a treasure trove of information. Thank you for sharing!
You’re absolutely welcome!! Glad it was helpful for you 🙂
Wind-up toys are a great way to get communication out of kids! I have several in my bag, too…they love them!
I have found many of my wind up toys at Michaels craft store!
Nice!! Thanks for the tip!
I have been collecting wind-up toys for years; they are awesome! Thanks for sharing!
Does anyone have a Core Board to use with wind up toys that they could share?
Do you have a pre-made communication board for wind-up toys?
I don’t, sorry! Sometimes I will use regular core boards to try to focus on those words (like “turn,” “play,” “help,” “more,” “on,” “off,” “in,” “out”) instead of more fringe vocabulary.