Blue Cat PIES - PROVIDING INNOVATIVE EDUCATIONAL STRATEGIES

Blue Cat PIES creates Interactive Teaching Materials
for Students with Special Needs

The folks at Any Baby Can recognized the need to support parents and teachers of children with autism though support groups and training.

Parents and teachers discussed the challenges they faced building academic skills for their children with diverse learning styles.

Specialists in the field of autism offered their support through training and consultation to parents and teachers.
Specialized teaching materials were developed and made available through Blue Cat PIES.

Profits of Blue Cat PIES go directly to the Reaching Families Facing Autism program at Any Baby Can of San Antonio.

What are Blue Cat PIES?

	Fun and interactive multi-page learning activities specifically developed for the student with special needs in mind.
	Each activity is spiral bound with durable laminated pages and Velcro to hold pieces in place.
	The strategies used incorporate visual teaching methods such as color coding, outlining and highlighting to help increase understanding and successful learning of skills.
	Blue Cat PIES activities offer students with special needs support in accessing the general education curriculum.

How can they help students learn?
Blue Cat PIES activities allow the student to learn using their tactile and visual senses. Visual teaching strategies such as color coding, picture dictionaries, and highlighting are just a few methods incorporated in the Blue Cat PIES activities. The use of movable cards using Velcro tape allows students to interact with the activities and thus increases attending skills and motivation to learn. Students are more likely to be meaningfully engaged when using structured teaching activities such as Blue Cat PIES activities. The activities help clarify meaning and solidify learning. Targeted curriculum areas: reading, mathematics, science, and social studies.

Who can use Blue Cat PIES activities?
As we began developing the Blue Cat PIES activities, we had students with autism and other students with special needs in mind. That’s the reason for the visual teaching strategies we incorporate into every activity. Because these students often enjoy puzzles and Velcro type activities, Blue Cat PIES activities are perfect!
We invited special needs teachers and general education teachers to several focus groups to share their opinions on our products. What we found out surprised us! The general education teachers told us they would love the activities for their classrooms and can’t wait for them to be produced. Special education teachers described the activities as excellent teaching supports for their students with special needs because the activities do not require any handwriting to complete and as a result allow their students to continue to learn. Both groups of teachers commented on the time-saving aspect of Blue Cat PIES. Teachers who use our products have ready-made activities they can immediately use allowing them more time to spend on other teaching duties.

Curriculum skills targeted are Reading, Mathematics, Science & Social skills.