The themes this week were Hanukkah for our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups and the Letter N for our Language Group.

Sensory Group—Hanukkah

We learned about Hanukkah by reading Cara’s “Happy Hanukkah” book and then started our explorations!

Our first box contained an assortment of Hanukkah goodies. We used smooth gold mardi gras beads for the “gelt”, soft big chenille stems in the colors of blue and white, small rough gold chenille stems, curly white and blue ribbons—all these allowed us to compare properties of materials (science access points).

Other Hanukkah symbols included the Star of David and dreidel cookie cutters,  play food donut, and wooden driedels.

Our students loved exploring this box, the curly ribbons being a particular hit!

 

 

 

 

In this box, our students looked for the letter H (for Hanukkah) and the number 8 (for the 8 candles on the menorah) in blue and white rice.

Either scooping or sifting—so much

fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our next box contained some potato flakes (to remind us of latkes).

They have a soft, yet crunchy feel which our students really enjoyed.

A plastic “latke” was fun to find and also use as a scoop. Visual tracking was addressed as the light flakes drifted down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our students also enjoyed our pompom yarn in shades of blue. One of the Hanukkah colors.

So soft and nice to grab a hold of, shake or drape over shoulders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White (another Hanukkah color) shaving cream, nice and fluffy like the filling of yummy doughnut.

Such fun to swirl around and practice pre writing patterns and letters.

So proud of this young lady, her writing is really improving—look at those perfect letters 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finished by rinsing hands in vanilla sugar

scented water and then rubbing vanilla sugar

scented lotion—leaving the yummy aroma of

doughnuts wafting through the room.

Happy Hanukkah!

 

 

 

 

 

Fine Motor Group—Hanukkah

On Tuesday we started by reading Cara’s book, using our voice output devices for the repetitive line then proceeded to make a handprint menorah.

First, our students chose the color of their paper. To  help increase literacy, the color choice cards also have the color names written on them.We discussed its rectangular shape and counted them as we passed them out.

Then we applied paint to both hands.  

Some of our students pressed their

hands into the paint tray, for others

we painted their hands using a foam

brush.

 

 

 

 

Candles have to have flames and glitter glue is perfect for the task!

Squeezing the glue is great for hand strengthening but glitter glue is really hard to squeeze! For some of our students, we used brushes instead.

Asking the students to place the glue “on top” of the fingers addresses directionality concepts.

 

 

 

 

 

We glued on a stand and Ta Da—our

finished menorah.

Such cute little hands!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And don’t you just love this Modernistic approach to the classic menorah!

Adorable!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thursday, we read Cara’s book and again used the voice output device for the repetitive line. We love how much more readily our students are reaching out and anticipating their turn.

After reading the book we began our project—dreidels!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeannie saved and cleaned juice cartons. Then inserted a small colorful dowel through the middle.

Cara printed the symbols on blue paper.

We found this idea on a number of websites (some people are so creative!) and adapted it to fit our needs.

 

 

 

 

 

We used paper cutters to cut our strip into 4

squares (math access points are just

everywhere!).

These paper cutters work well for cutting

straight lines and our students really have

fun using them.

 

 

 

 

 

The symbols were glued to each side—working on hand strengthening and eye hand coordination again!

We also discussed the meaning of each symbol and how the game is played.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here it is–a fabulous, fun dreidel! 

Happy Hanukkah 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Language Group—letter N

We played with Nuts and bolts. This activity addresses so many hand function skills—–bilateral coordination, grasp patterns, wrist rotation!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we practiced finger isolation            

turning on and off the switch to the

Neck massager.

The students loved draping this

around their Neck and shoulders.

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we used scissors to snip yarn—Nice cutting!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We glued them onto the bottom of a rectangular (oh yes we slipped that math access point in!) piece of paper.

Picking up the  yarn works on pincer grasp skills.

We didn’t have to be Neat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, more cutting! We cut along the lines of a paint sample. We made sure to Not go off the road.

Paint samples are of a heavier weight card stock that make them easier for beginning cutters.  Its also nice that they come in varying widths and pre printed lines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We used our 3 strips to make a letter N

and used our electric stapler to hold it

together—Nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We glued the N into its Nest—Now how about that 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had fun playing Cara’s sound game.              

There are is always a New sound to listen for. Some of them are Noisy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, we looked at some of the N words we found today.

Fun, fun, fun this week! Please join us next week as we finish up our holiday unit and learn about the letter M—-Group by Group 🙂