Community Trips to McDonalds

Now that we are getting into the swing of things around the school, I am starting to think about community based instruction (and my kids keep asking about it every day as well!).   We choose one destination each month to take the kids to.  Today, I wanted to show you the ordering board we use for our non-verbal students at McDonalds to order a Happy Meal..  Some of our other regular field trip destinations throughout the year include:  



Grocery Store
Subway
Sit down restaurant
Dunkin Donuts
Trip Downtown




Most of these field trips involve either walking, taking the city bus, or taking the train.  We work on so many skills on these trips such as money management, how to utilize public transportation, how to cross the street, functional communication, and appropriate community behavior.

When we go to McDonald's we use a visual ordering board.   Students pick one picture from each category (foods, sides, and drinks) and place them on the sentence strip at the bottom of the page.  The sentence strip is velcroed on so it can be removed and handed to the cashier.  People in the community have been very receptive to our students and allowing them to use their various communication devices!  We always practice several times before we leave (at school), on the bus, or before we get in line at a restaurant.

I have a comprehension sheet I use as well for when we return to school after the trip.  It looks pretty similar to the ordering board and all kids have to do is circle what they ordered.  These are great to send home to help parents facilitate communication with their children.

Also important, is a good way to store all your visuals for each field trip so that they are easy to access.  As I'm sure you are aware by now, I LOVE binders...so of course, I have a field trip binder where I store all my visuals, social stories and comprehension worksheets utilized for all of our different field trips.