It got a little chilly this week, perfect for talking about Fall in our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups! In our Language Group we learned about words starting with Ms. Joy’s favorite letter—J. We hope you are enjoying seeing our students—we think they are awfully cute 🙂 One of our teachers, Ms. Bennett, has been projecting the blog onto a big screen and her students have been having so much fun looking for their pictures.

Sensory Group—Fall

Jumping into a pile of leaves…….AKA the sensory room ball pit!

Is this fun or what!

Our students love both jumping into and burying themselves in the colorful balls. So much wonderful vestibular and proprioceptive input to help build body awareness!

This also helps address the science access point of recognizing one or more external body parts as we discuss which parts of their body are covered by the balls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, back to the classroom…..

We started with Cara’s book, as usual, and

when we got to the page about the wind

blowing the leaves we turned on the hair

dryer (on “cool” setting of course). Each

student got a chance to hold the leaves

and feel the “wind”. They all loved it!

Lots of smiles all around 🙂

This activity addresses the science

access point of indicating awareness of

air moving.

 

 

 

More leaves in our next box, along with a variety of fall related items. We put in a small football, scarecrows, squirrels, playfood apples and hamburgers (for tailgating at those football games), pine cones, pieces of yarn in fall colors, and LOTS of silk leaves. A lovely assortment of textures to feel and examine.

Finding objects in the box involves both visual and tactile discrimination skills.

This box also addresses the science access point of recognizing that plants have leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

Our colorful pom pom yarn was so much fun.

It reminds us of nice warm sweaters that we

wear when it starts to get chilly outside!

We found this yarn at Michaels.

Its wonderfully soft and fun to pull apart

addressing bilateral skills.

It also addresses the science access point

of recognizing clothing worn by humans

in different weather (seasons)

Of course, its so great for draping over

and around you like a scarf  or hat.

This, of course, addresses the access point of giggling at least once daily 🙂

 

 

 

A box of assorted dried beans made us think

of some yummy warm soup on a cool

autumn evening. Our students love to bury

their hands into the beans as well as

empty and fill the different containers.

You have to love the two fisted approach

shown here 🙂

This addresses the math access point of

recognizing differences in sizes of

containers (capacity).

 

 

 

Here in the south, fall means FOOTBALL! We put in some pom poms, mardi gras beads and shakers in the colors of our favorite teams. Our students LOVED the shakers—they were a huge hit.

Most of them even ignored the mardi gras beads in favor of the the shakers—and the beads are usually a favorite!

This box addresses the science access point of recognizing an action as fast or slow.

 

 

 

 

 

Our cornflakes sounded just like dried leaves.

Wonderfully noisy, our students had a great

time with this box.

A few did try to sample

the “leaves’ but for the most part they just

enjoyed smashing and crunching them.

This activity addresses the science access

point of recognizing and responding to

common sounds.

 

 

 

 

Cool weather means warm breakfasts…like oatmeal!

We searched for the letter F as we sifted through it. A delightful tactile experience.

You can’t really see it in this picture, but a piece of paper with leaves was taped to the bottom of the box to be found as the oatmeal is cleared away. With these boxes being clear, we can tape pictures to the bottom of the box thus being seen without getting torn up as students explore the contents.

Our own little genius moment 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Fall means camping and campfires—and

that means s’mores! Yum Yum!

Our oobleck looks

just like melted marshmallow don’t

you think?

As the oobleck changes from a solid

to a liquid this addresses the science

access point of recognizing that the

appearance of an object or material

has changed.

Always fascinating!

 

 

 

Fall is also apple picking time and our Country Apple scent from Bath, and Body Works was the perfect scent to help us remember all the wonderful things we did today.

Smell is an important memory trigger, so we always end our group with some aromatic water and lotion activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fine Motor Group—Fall

Fall is our theme so OF COURSE on Tuesday

we had to make a colorful tree! First we

passed our our rectangular pieces of paper

and practiced writing our names on the

back. Then we used our assorted

adaptive scissors to snip colorful pieces

of paper. What a great way to practice our

emergent cutting skills.

This also addresses the math access point

of recognizing a common object with a

two-dimensional shape.

 

 

 

 

 

The colorful paper pieces were dipped into glue and placed onto the tree.

Those tiny pieces of paper are just perfect for facilitating a pincer grasp. In addition, eye hand coordination and spatial relationships are addressed in this activity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a fabulous colorful fall tree!

TA DA!!!

Love how the artist added his

own touch by crumpling

some of the pieces to add

more dimension.

Pure genius!

 

 

 

 

 

On Thursday, after reading Cara’s book again, we made some cute little scarecrows.

First we used our adaptive scissors or paper cutters to cut 4 strips of yellow paper.

This addresses the math access point of using quantities to 4.

As the paper cutters are shared with classmates, the students address the science access point of sharing objects with a partner—-sharing and taking turns is a very important skill!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We said we needed 4 strips…

Here is 1!

They need to look just

like this 🙂

The science access

point of recognizing a

change in an object is

addressed here.

 

 

 

 

We glued them to a round white paper plate and……

…..added a precut brown hat.

This addresses the math access point of recognizing common objects with two-dimensional shapes.

Next came an orange triangle nose and 2 googlie eyes!

More math access points!

 

 

 

 

 

 

TA DA—done without any assistance…..

pure AWESOMENESS!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These little scarecrows are ready for duty….

…..you crows out there better watch out 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Language Group—-Letter J

We started with Cara’s sound game.

It had some really cute sounds this week.

This activity addresses the science access point of recognizing and responding to common sounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We helped Tigger…..

Jump!

This addresses the

math access point of

recognizing a

movement that reflects

a spatial relationship.

 

 

 

 

Then we unscrewed a Jar…….

……to find a Jungle animal.

Unscrewing the jar addresses bilateral coordination and wrist rotation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finished by making Jingle bell Jewelry!

Threading the pipe cleaner through the bell addresses bilateral skills.

Counting the bells also allows for the opportunity to address more math access points—-and we love that.

Jazzy and Jingly….totally fun don’t you think! These were a total hit with our students, they really loved shaking their arms and listening to the bells.

 

 

 

 

 

We loved finding all those cool J words today!

Join us again next week for more fun and learning—–Group by Group 🙂