Using Special Interests for Learning Activities

I’m so excited to bring you a new blog series about using special interests for learning activities. This series is going to be hosted on this main page. This blog series is going to be all about how we can use our students’ special interests as part of our learning activities.

So often I hear from parents and/or educators that they are struggling to get students to work on anything because they just want their special interest. And honestly, use it! For many years I worked with students who’s first experience of school was with me. So, I had to really work hard to get them used to school, settled and understand what happens in school. Using their special interests helped to not only get them used to school, enjoying learning and working on more activities, but also building strong relationships with staff in the classroom!

What are Special Interests?

Many autistic children have strong special interests of preferred toys/activities. This can look different as well, so it’s not always obvious. One student’s special interest may be cars, while another may be capital cities.. Another student’s special interest may be food.. Or famous people. It is going to look different for your students.. You may have students who don’t actually have a special interest, and are happy to learn about lots of different things.

Why Use Special Interests?

There’s a lot of reasons why, but I’m going to share the biggest benefits that I have seen from incorporating students’ special interests into the classroom;

• Helps give you and your student a chance to connect on something, thus building a strong relationship together and trust.
• Students will be more excited to learn.
• Gives students an opportunity to share what they know about their special interest. And a chance to build those communication skills.
• Opportunity to introduce students to learning and get them used to learning and completing activities.
• Students will feel more involved in their learning exprience.
• Motivates students to want to learn and take part in learning experiences.
• Great way to teach difficult skills in an engaging way.
• Can help students to retain information that they are learning better; as they are more engaged in the activity and enjoying their learning.

But, HOW?!

I think the biggest hurdle is getting over how hard it might be to incorporate the interest. Just be you! We are always faced with planning for different themes, events and skills. So treat this just like you would anything else!

My favorite thing to do is draw up a mind map. I put each subject in a bubble of its own, with the special interest in the middle. Then, I brainstorm activities for each subject using that special interest. I love to use Pinterest for this as well to find different activities.

I also list out what that student’s specific learning objectives are in different areas. Then, I try to create activities for those skills using their special interests too.

Ideas for You!

Over the years I’ve had a lot of students with different special interests.. And so I have a lot of resources, activities and ideas that I have saved for these. Because, if there’s one piece of advice I can give you as a teacher… It’s to save your lesson plans, brain storms and everything else. That way, when you work on that theme or holiday in the future, you already have a lot of the work done already!

Click the below special interests to go to separate blog posts. These posts discuss that special interest and the ways that you can use it as part of different learning activities.

(I will add to this list as I get the blog posts published! Current published blog posts are listed below)

• Toy Cars

If you found this blog post about using special interests for learning activities helpful, please consider sharing it with your friends and colleagues on social media.

Thanks,

Nikki

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