Yoobi Highlight: Yoobi Items Help Your Special Needs Classroom
Meet Jeanette Washington. She is the founder of Bearly Articulating, a resource for educators of special needs learners and students alike. Jeanette reached out to Yoobi to share her love for our vibrant supplies, and in doing so provided some amazing insight on how Yoobi has benefitted her work with Bearly Articulating.
Bearly Articulating was created because of a lack of easily and readily useful information a dyslexia. Sure a teacher can go online and read a search through thousands of opinion pieces on dyslexia and complete what seems like a years worth of student teaching in one sitting. However the average classroom teacher has a limited amount of time, so sifting through articles is not only time consuming but draining. We offer comprehensive yet flexible teaching sessions for general education teachers looking enhance instruction for special needs learners.
As a service driven professional I am always looking to unique opportunities that serve the betterment of students and the educators that serve them. A typical supply trip to Target turned into much more as I made a dash for the school supplies aisle. I don't know if it was the pretzel erasers that caught my eye or the brightly adorned Yoobi logo that made me stop in my tracks. Then again, it could have been the slogan/mission that left me immediately dazed, but I immediately became intrigued and ended up buying up the entire rack of pencils and erasers toppers. I followed up with a quick Google search, which led to a conversation with Justin Wolff, Yoobi’s Chief Giving Officer. Since then I've been Yoobi-ssed. Yoobi Obsessed!
I'd highly recommend Yoobi for instruction with special needs learners. Our students with special needs frequently come into the classrooms defeated, and I believe a little brightness can be the difference from a grueling day of school to a glowing day of school. Don't think for one minute that this is the only factor that will change instruction for special needs learners, but we all have to start somewhere or else be doomed to wonder what if! Combining knowledge of disabilities from Bearly Articulating and my love for Yoobi Products, below is additional information on how Yoobi items help to enhance learning for special needs learners.
Yoobi Pencil Grips
Yoobi pencil grips help students with Dysgraphia because they often exert too much pressure while writing and hurt their fingers. Their intense grip causes notable discomfort and essentially is the source for students to dislike writing. Like cursive, traditional writing has often become obsolete in many classrooms due to technology. If a student dislikes one part of the writing process, it is almost impossible to turn them around. Yoobi pencil grips give us hope as we instill a love of the writing process to every type of learner.
Yoobi Pencil Toppers (Available at Yoobi's retail store in Santa Anita)
The brilliantly bright Yoobi pencils and their toppers are an exciting way to engage reluctant writers with attention deficits. Our students with ADHD are always busy and fall short to stay on task. The color your world #2 pencils are always a great positive reinforcer for ADHD students to stay on task and make solid efforts to complete their work.
Pretzel Erasers
Additionally, fidgets like the pretzel eraser help ADHD students with their focus because they are small enough to fit in their hand, teacher approved, unobtrusive, tactile and silent. Great for students to absently move between their fingers while listening to the lesson for the day.
Students that exhibit executive functioning disorders need color coded plastic Yoobi dividers so they can strategically organize their class notebooks/folders, book bags and study materials. This enables them to mentally compartmentalize, store and retrieve information for learning based on the color it represents. It will make it easier of the students to make sure they have everything they need for that specific class and to distinguish notes from class from notes taken while studying at home. To take it a step further, students with executive functioning can benefit from color coding their school supplies for each class (i.e., red supplies for science, all blue supplies for math, etc.).
