CVI and Arctic Animals (and a freebie!)

In December and January, there are so many themes out there to teach. While many teachers choose Christmas and/or Hanukkah, there are many schools that don’t allow teaching these topics. There are also other schools that use a curriculum that assigns a different theme to these months. One of the non-holiday winter themes that I love is Arctic Animals. In this post, I share some ideas for teaching the Arctic Animals theme in your multiple disabilities classroom, as well as a free download, which you can grab at the end of this blog post! Within this blog post, I share recommendations for prepping the resource, as well as utilizing the adapted book with your student or child with CVI. Within these recommendations, you will find some affiliate links.

Free CVI and Arctic Animals Adapted Book

To help prepare your Arctic Animals unit, I am sharing this free, high-contrast, CVI-friendly, Arctic Animals adapted book. This book contains 8 pages with corresponding identical matching pieces. There are two versions of the cover included as well. One cover includes word bubbling, while the other cover includes a large, yellow font. 

How do I Prep this Adapted Book?

Adapted books are relatively easy to prep. Follow these few steps, and your adapted book will be ready to use in no time!

1. Print the pages. I like to print on cardstock for durability, but you can absolutely print on regular printer paper.
2. Cut out the interactive pieces and trim the pages of the book. I am a cut, laminate, cut supporter (lol!), however, you can absolutely jump right to the next step if you don’t cut the images out first!
3. Laminate the images for durability! I like to use matte lamination, as the glare of regular lamination can be very distracting for some students with CVI. 
4. Cut out the interactive pieces and trim the full pages.
5. Bind the pages of the book. I like to use binder rings to bind my books. I find it to be very cost-effective, however, you can also use a binding machine!

How do I Use this Adapted Book?

The options are endless when it comes to incorporating adapted books into your classroom or story time at home. In this post, I am going to share three ways I recommend using this Arctic Animals book. 

• The first way is as an errorless book. To set this up, you will provide the child with the single, correct picture that corresponds to each page that is read. Even though the child isn’t working on identifying the matching image from a larger field, they are still working on picking up the image, placing it in its designated location on the page, and turning the pages. In the above image, I placed the interactive piece on a black felt board. 

• The second way is as a matching activity. To set this up, you will provide the child with multiple interactive pieces for each page. This way still allows you to differentiate based on your child’s needs. Some of your students may benefit from only two choices, while some of your students might be able to select the matching image in a field of 8. Again, in the above image, I placed the interactive pieces on a black felt board. 

• The third way that I like to use this book is in a sensory bin. To set this up, you will provide the child with anywhere between 1 (errorless) to 8 interactive pieces in the sensory bin. Then, as the student needs to find the corresponding image, they will search in the sensory bin for the correct image. This is a fun and engaging way to complete this adapted book activity. Some of my favorite sensory bin fillers for winter activities include cotton balls and glitter pom poms.

Additional Arctic Animals and CVI Materials

One way to make this adapted book even more engaging is to pair the book with animal figurines. These animals can be placed against a black background as students explore them. 

An additional way to make the book more engaging is to add tactile components. For example, a white feather can be added to the owl page, a cotton ball can be added to the polar bear, brown felt can be added to the moose, etc.

Want to grab this free adapted book?? Fill out the form below!

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