The Power of Theater and the Expanded Core Curriculum

A graphic that reads The Power of Theater and the Expanded Core Curriculum for students with vision impairments. A new blog series for youth with vision impairments with Blind Ambition's Frankie Ann Marcille. 

As a visually impaired adult now working towards developing a career in teaching the Expanded Core Curriculum, I have thought a lot about what the most meaningful experiences were throughout my teenage years. I’ve thought about experiences that gave me real time, true to life opportunities to learn valuable lessons in the ECC. One such experience was my time participating in theatre.

I first started participating in theatre when I was just two years old. My parents signed me up for dance classes and let’s just say-that was it! I fell in love. I have never stopped dancing. From there my passion only continued to grow when I performed in my first musical at age six. I continued performing, participating in at least two shows per year with my various schools, dance studios, etc. from elementary school through high school. I even went on to major in Theatre for my undergraduate degree.

Looking back, I realize how much the arts did for me as a child/teenager with a vision impairment. Participating in theatre/dance programs taught me discipline and advocacy. Because I was the only person in all of my programs with a vision impairment, it was up to me to let my instructors know what I needed and work with them to find a solution as to how I could best participate. They taught me confidence and self determination. Theatre showed me how I could be confident in myself and my abilities as a woman with a vision impairment. I felt like if I could get on stage and perform for crowds of people, I could stand up and tell people about my vision/ I could engage with others in meaningful discussions about my future and my dreams. 

Most practically though- theatre helped me to understand basic social interaction skills. There was so much that I realized I didn’t understand as a person with a vision impairment. I didn’t realize I didn’t make eye contact. I didn’t realize sometimes that my facial expressions said more to others and I often missed seeing other’s facial expressions and picking up on subtle cues. However, theatre helped me to work on these skills. Because of this, I have come up with a new way to teach social interaction as a part of the ECC.

I have put together a curriculum of social interaction based theatre games to help other blind and visually impaired students to learn these same skills in a way that is more than just educational. This curriculum is emotional, engaging, true to life, and did I mention...FUN!! I am so excited to share some of them with you here on “The Independent LIttle Bee”! Keep an eye out and until then…

Stay Ambitious!

Frankie Ann

Your New Favorite Read: Blind Ambitition

Hi everyone! My name is Frankie Ann and I am a legally blind, twenty-something who is just trying to live her best blind life! And this is Blind Ambition- a weekly blog column where I will be sharing Accessibility Tips, Expanded Core Curriculum Hacks, Skills for Advocacy, Personal successes, struggles, and so much more!

Here’s a little bit about me! I was born with septo-optic dysplasia which is a really fancy way to say that my optic nerves are underdeveloped. I have poor distance vision (20/400 in my left eye and 20/800 in my right) no peripheral vision (tunnel vision), no depth perception, severe light sensitivity, degrees of night blindness, slight nystagmus, and a partial astigmatism. Mix that all together and you get me: a large print reader (24 print Arial bold font for the win) and partial cane user (at night and in excessively crowded or unfamiliar environments) who has spent her life trying her best to adapt to every situation that comes her way and never back down from a challenge!

I met Robbin back in 2010. At the time, i was going through a serious hard time coping with my vision impairment. I was just about to turn sixteen and while all of my other friends were getting hyped up to get their driver’s licenses, I got my very first white cane and was taking street crossing classes with my Orientation and Mobility instructor.  I felt totally lost, insecure, and frankly embarrassed by my vision impairment. But Robbin helped me to see past all that- both literally and figuratively! She taught me that it’s not about what I could see, but about what I could do. Once that seed was planted, everything changed!

Though my final high school and college years had their fair share of challenges and hard times, i was equipped with a new found confidence and pride in my self that helped me to rise above and keep pushing through. That confidence helped me to make the decision to leave my home in Connecticut and move to the biggest, busiest, and most visually overstimulating city in the country- New York City! My hope is that by sharing my experiences here, I may be able to help other blind/visually impaired individuals work through their own struggles, find solutions to their challenges, learn that they are DEFINITELY not alone, and chase their dreams!

I am so excited to be launching Blind Ambition! Each week will cover an aspect of living life with a vision impairment. Stay tuned next week for our first topic: “Vision Statements: How Do You Explain Your Vision Impairment to Someone who is Sighted or Just Doesn’t Get It?” In the meantime, follow my Instagram @blindambitionblog for daily posts about Accessibility, Advocacy, and more!

Thanks for reading! I can’t wait to keep sharing with you!

Stay Ambitious,

Frankie Ann

Teach the ECC Using a Hoverboard

Teach the Expanded Core using a.....hoverboard? YES! A hoverboard!! Why? How? Huh? Let me start at the beginning. I spent a few weeks mulling over the activities for STEM Camp. I already knew the theme (STEM Camp in the Old Pioneer West) but needed to do my research for other activities. I look for STEM activities that are popular with all kids. I want to keep our students looped in with what their peers are liking. I walked passed a hoverboard while buying some supplies and instantly made a U turn. I was going back for the hoverboard. I had an idea! 

I knew that it would be a total blast to teach my students how to use a hoverboard at STEM Camp. I loved this idea not just because I thought it would be cool but because my ECC lightbulb went off. There were so many things I could teach to build an awesome ECC experience! It was just hoverboards that I purchased, I rounded up different types of helmets, photos and pieces for location and got to work. 

Before we even got on the hoverboards, we needed to do some serious concept development, STEM instruction and pre-teaching. First, I set the stage and we discussed what everyone knew about hoverboards and all things related to them (helmets, locations, etc). 

Then we get to the STEM of it all. We talked about the parts of the hoverboard, the science of it and how they work. This was a bonus because I could teach STEM and the ECC at the same time. Students learned where to place their feet, how wide the foot pad sensors are and positioning. We sat on the floor and extended our legs to practice tipping our toes and working our heels. I bought different types of helmets on purpose to discuss the features, uses, etc. of the helmets. 

Can you see all of the attention I'm giving to the details? Too many times I see teachers just pass the object to a students a move on. I purposely gave students a variety of helmets and bought different brands/types of hoverboards. I wanted them to get a rich experience and concept development. 

Can you see how many areas of the ECC we are hitting? I was so excited throughout our initial hoverboard lesson because it was like an ECC buffet! We hit lots of orientation and mobility--from spatial awareness to directionality and balance. (Once students got their balance, we did have them use their canes if they were a cane user). We even hit career education. How? We discussed the rules and earning your dues at the skate park. We also discussed what types of jobs you could have in the skate industry. 

Let me share some of my instruction progression on how we taught the hoverboard. Most important, use a chair to get on and off! The very first thing we did was just simply having students stand up, balance and then sit down. Once they could stand up and maintain their balance, I knew they were ready to move on. Students must wear a helmet at all times. 

Students then learned how to move forward and backwards. This was great because they learned a lot about body awareness and control. Each student had an adult staff in close proximity. I also had a teenager who had typical vision there to model, support and talk with students about her experience.

It took all of the students about one full day of hoverboard practicing to grow to mastering it. Everyone, students with low vision to no vision were rocking their skills on the hoverboards! It was awesome to watch my students with no vision cruising along with their canes. They just adjusted their speed and coordinated with their canes to find their way up and down our hallways. 

The next time you are looking for a fun ECC lesson, consider a lesson with a hoverboard! I bought my boards from Walmart. (I actually price matched walmart.com and got an even better price). I purposely bought different boards to compare and contrast. I even bought one with a bluetooth speaker built in!

Another bonus: the confidence that all of our students gained by mastering the hoverboard! Yaaaassss! They learned the physics behind the hoverboard. They were fearless with gaining speed and fluidity. It was just an ECC party with students learning skills a lot of people probably don't think blind kids can do! It's not about what we see, it's about what we do! 

Spring & Easter ECC Activities

Happy spring! Spring season bring holidays like Easter and a lot of fun opportunities for Expanded Core instruction. Check out some quick, fun and easy to do ECC spring activities. The bonus: you can do these for Easter, too!

Let's start with Easter. One of the most difficult parts of traditional Easter activities is the egg hunt. Many people have adopted the beeping eggs or using balloons on strings. Those are great ideas and I have done them. The problem I ran into with the balloons is that it ended up being super windy and the balloons were blowing around everywhere--gah! The beeping eggs are nice but what do you do if you have students with hearing impairments, in wheelchairs or have under developed sound location skills? That's what I was thinking about this year when putting together our Spring Carnival. 

I was in Walmart gathering supplies when I saw a clearance bin with these colorful, soft and lightweight "egg looking" pillows---yes! They were only $2.50--score! I purchased a handful of these pillows. I knew that they would be perfect "eggs" for many of my students. They are easy to see, fun to touch and lightweight to hold. Yes! They were such a hit! The students used them in so many ways. I made sure that I bought a red one for some of my CVI students. I have many students who use gait trainers, walkers, etc. Check out my Instagram--9MoreThanCore to watch how some of my students used it. 

I also purchase "large print" eggs for $1 because they are easy to see.

That wasn't the only egg hunt we had. Who say you have to have just one egg hunt when we have students of all different abilities and interests?! My kids have participated in lots of family egg hunts where each child is assigned a color or a sticker for their designated egg. I took that idea and put my ECC thinking cap on. Again, what is an egg hunt that my students can fully interact with? 

I assigned students based on small groups (small classroom sizes) a designated color egg. The big eggs were hung on walls for the hunt. Each classroom looks for multiple eggs of the same color that are mounted to the wall. Each classroom is designated a spring decoration (i.e. bee, flower, polka dot) and will decorate their eggs as they find them. The decorations were in buckets. Students matched their color to their egg and bucket. We used Braille labels on both buckets and eggs for literacy purposes and for students who have no vision.

It worked out great! Students still did an egg hunt but we packed in a lot of other bonus skills. I considered popular IEP goals (scanning, matching, fine motor skills) and infused them into this and the other activities for meaningful instruction. They were also easy and inexpensive to make! I used poster board from Dollar Tree. I bought a white poster board and used a shiny wrapping paper for one color. They were nice and bright and easy to see. (We laminated them so we can use them again!). We used die cuts for decorations and painters tape for easy application. 

Another fun activity was the gardening station. This was a mix of live plants, artificial plants/flowers and gardening tools. I headed to Walmart nursery clearance rack. I wanted crocus flowers because they are super fragrant. I also nabbed some oregano and parsley for their scent and textures. 

I found a great idea from Pinterest for the sensory play component. I picked up some black beans and filled some containers to have "dirt". Bright color artificial flowers provided great contrast. 

Target Dollar Spot had some great cheap finds! I purchased kids gardening gloves, gardening tools and fun rocks. They also had some fun carrots and veggies that were soft. You can easily open the seam and fill them with some weights to give them a little bit more weight for sensory feedback. (We had the same idea for the spring friends!).  Dollar Tree had these awesome carrot eggs. I filled them with different amounts of beans for shaker eggs. I found a super cute bee and lady bug decoration from At Home which added to the garden table.

I always love having a motor activity. I created some motor movements that all my students could do (wheelchairs, supported standers or independent standers). I also added numbers on dowels. Students selected a motor skill and a number. Our PE teacher ran the activity. 

We had a spring dress up station with all kinds of fun items. Why? We had a parade! A parade infused some fun ECC skills. It was fun to watch students dress up with all kinds of decorations. We worked some fun social skills with smiling and waiving in our parade (very simple parade so we can focus on skills). 

 A lot of my students enjoy music so the spring friends table was just the table for them! I found these fun spring friends that dance and move. I also went to the baby section and found super soft bunnies and a large turtle. Again, you can open the seams and add some weight to provide more sensory feedback. 

 You don't need to save these activities for Easter. These are spring activities you can do do throughout spring! Plus, buying these right after Easter gives you a nice savings to your wallet. 

Study Abroad ECC Australia

I am so excited to share this post with everyone because this is all about Study Abroad ECC Australia! This has easily been added to my top 5 education experiences. I almost don't even know where to start. Just kidding! I will start at the beginning. The beginning is gratitude to my school, the Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind, for supporting this idea! Two years ago I led us on an exchange program with Camp Abilities Ireland and that kicked off our study abroad program. I learned that Australia also has a recognized Expanded Core Curriculum and started researching schools. And now we had a study abroad location: Australia! 

We partnered with RIDBC Sydney and SA School for the Blind (SASVI) in Adelaide. 

It was critical to us that our program was a true education endeavor from start to finish. Students had to apply for the program based on a college application. After a review committee used a rubric, scored the essays and selected the students, we were in business!

We spent the next 2.5 months together in an Expanded Core Curriculum bootcamp! The entire study abroad program was based on the ECC--my dream scenario :) Each week students completed projects from transportation to recreation and leisure. We used distance education, technology and on campus sessions for our work. One of my favorite instruction tools was using some of my former students as mentors. These former students are all domestic and international travelers. We had Zoom sessions (like Skype) and students asked questions and listened intently to advice from mentors. 

 Here are some of our examples of lessons that we did in preparation for traveling to Australia:

• On campus session. Students had to work with their mobility instructors and themselves to coordinate traveling to campus as a group. No parents could provide transportation to campus.
• Financial Academy. They also had to be enrolled in our distance education financial academy. Coursework went beyond budgeting but also covered accessibility for banks, where they want to live and the real world budgeting. 
• Fundraising and coordinating. Students organized a variety show to help support their financial needs. They were in charge of coordinating, entertainment and ticket sales. 
• Transition. We spent a lot of time focusing on skills (for right now) that would be needed later in adulthood. We used the Transition Skills Competency Checklist.
• Weekly ECC in the real world projects. The main goal of the program was to help students see how the ECC is every where in their daily life. They learned all the skills that comprise the ECC. It was more in depth than just saying "independent living skills". They could list skill after skill that were included in the ILS section. 
• Communication & presentation. They developed their public speaking skills for sure! The students were responsible for all presentations. They gave ECC presentations at schools, with Aussie students and teachers. They will forever remember all the areas of the ECC!

There are few experiences these days that teachers can really feel like they are doing it right. This was my experience. We often write IEP goals, do lessons, camps, etc. but it's tough to see it all through. For the entire program I was able to "see it all through". It was fantastic to teach, coach, model and then watch them not only implement it but to get it in the marrow of their bones. These super six students learned to see how the ECC is part of everything they do and how it is the most important part of their education.

 What else besides the Expanded Core Curriculum did we do? The ECC was the most important objective of our instruction. However, in order to show how important it is, it needs to be taught through meaningful experiences.

Here are some of our adventures:

• Touch tour of the Sydney Opera House. We had a special tour with a lots of hands on! The tour guide even brought out a small replica of the opera house. We got to get hands on and go back stage and see the sets, one of my students had the opportunity to sing and we got to learn so much about the famous opera house. 
• Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb. This was an unforgettable experience! We suited up and climbed the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge. Many of our students had very limited vision but we were still able to do so much on the bridge climb. We divided into small groups and got hands on and ears on with the climb. 
• Sports, recreation & leisure. We had a variety of different recreation activities that were a blast! Most notably, we learned how to play a variety of sports that were accessible for people with vision impairments. We loved learning how to play blind cricket and Australian Rules Football. 
• Australian Rules Football match. This one needed its own line because this was another unforgettable experience! We got to get on the field and high five the players as they came out. We had never seen this before so we loved learning the game. Thanks to our friends at SASVI who taught us how to play. 
• Our koala cuddle. We loved visiting the Australian wildlife parks and learning about all the different native Australian animals but our favorite was the opportunity to hold a koala!

The students had lessons on everything in the ECC (are you sick of me saying that?) especially in transportation situations that they don't always encounter. We did the traditional bus lessons but we also did lessons for taking a ferry, taxi/Uber, train and finding our way all over Sydney! That was no small feat as there is a ton of construction in Sydney.

The best part is that this isn't our only program. We are so excited to continue our Study Abroad programs! It truly has become one of my most treasured teaching experiences.

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Teach STEM & The Expanded Core: Winter Lesson

Hi friends! This is the first of many new posts about teaching STEM and the Expanded Core Curriculum together. I started running a STEM camp two years ago and have immersed myself in learning about the relationship between STEM & ECC. Good news--there are ton of ways you can teach the Expanded Core and STEM. I'll keep sharing tips, lessons and ideas. 

I use STEM lesson plans for my STEM side of things. My favorite place to hit up is Teachers Pay Teachers. 

I used this lesson plan from TPT:

 https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Winter-STEM-Challenges-January-2231074. Pay attention to the terms of use when making copies or sharing. The lesson plans for this lesson are only $4 and you can buy digital extras for a good price. There are 3 different STEM lessons in this bundle. Below is a picture of my STEM lesson plan and my ECC plan (we added Braille labels using Braillables when we did the lesson).

The first part of my lesson focused on the Expanded Core areas. We spent some time digging in to learning about winter and sledding. We brought in several different types of sleds/tubes and had students check them out. Students climbed on the sleds, checked out their details and learned how they worked. Then we discussed the special clothing needed for winter (independent living skills), how to access weather conditions (use of AT) and how to get on the sled (orientation & mobility). Social interaction skills are always an important piece of community instruction. We had single person and two person sleds to discuss social pieces. We also addressed social communication (the type of language/words they may hear to need to know) and nonverbal body language. 

Below are pictures of the students checking out different types of sleds/tubes.

Discussion & hands on learning:

·      What is a sled?

·      What is a sled ramp?

·      Tubing vs. sledding

·      Where can you go sledding?

The STEM activities were pretty fun. The sledding lesson went well with the ECC part. The lesson asked for card stock paper to make the sled but we had plenty of Braille paper hanging around so we used that. We swapped standard font sized rulers for our LP/Braille ones. We did a few practice rounds so that our students who had no vision could get the hang of sending their sled (bottle cap) down the sledding ramp. We used tape to mark the sled distance. This makes it possible for our students to measure with their ruler. 

Note: we followed all of the lesson plans for learning the concepts covered in the STEM lesson. I like to use meaningful terms for our students so we are hands on as much as possible. For example, we rubbed our hands together and then palms on the table to learn about friction and we discussed units of measurement that students know for distance.

Here's how I incorporated ECC areas in this lesson:

Expanded Core instruction: Students will strengthen their understanding of sledding.

·      Compensatory skills: concept development of sledding

·      Social interaction skills: people go sledding together; social vocabulary, social etiquette

·      Independent Living Skills: what type of special clothes do you wear for sledding?

·      Orientation & Mobility: body & spatial awareness; directionality, mobility in the snow

·      Sensory efficiency: how does being outside in winter affect your senses?

·      Recreation & Leisure: exploration of sledding as a recreation activity

·      Career Education: understanding the rules or etiquette of the hill; who works at resorts?

·      Use of AT: how can you access weather reports and other information to find out more information about sledding?

·      Self-Determination: developing new skills; making preferences for different types of sledding (tubes vs. sleds/going solo or with friends)

SSTEM is a growing area for all students. Students with vision impairments do not need to be left behind! There are so many ways our students can have meaningful STEM experiences. I love that it also a great opportunity to extend learning by incorporating the Expanded Core.