Our students are learning about the American Constitution and Bill of Rights as part of their Unique Curriculum unit this month. To compliment the unit, we decided to learn a little more about the people who helped form our country. Our sensory groups explored boxes related to different patriots. The fine motor group discussed shapes while making their art projects and the language group “invented” a dessert.
Due to the Labor Day weekend and another hurricane day, we had a shortened week and couldn’t do all our groups but we still had lots of fun!
SENSORY GROUP
Paul Revere, who road his horse through the streets sounding the alarm that the “British were coming”, was a silversmith. We filled his box with silver beads and 2 different sized horses. As usual, the students had a blast with the beads—-always a favorite!
Recognize differences in size of objects is a math access point.
Abigail Adams probably drank lots of tea—–that is before her friends dumped it in the Boston Harbor 🙂 There were upper and lower case letter A’s and a picture of Abigail herself to find while sifting through the tea leaves.
The students enjoyed both the feel and the aroma of this box.
Recognize two objects that are identical to each other is a math access point.
The Marquis de Lafayette was a frenchman who came to help with the American Revolution. The colors of the French flag are red, white, and blue like our rice! We put in the numbers 1776 and a picture of the Marquis to find at the bottom.
In addition to visual and tactile discrimination, the science access point: track the movement of objects that are pushed or pulled, can be addressed in this activity.
Thomas Jefferson not only wrote the Declaration of Independence but was also an architect.
Our students got to be little architects building their own buildings with blue Floam!
Recognize that the appearance of an object or material has changed is a science access point.
We learned that Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals! For his box we put in Wikki Stix strands that could be shaped into CIRCLES like glasses.
Yeah, we had a little fun with this 🙂
Recognize objects with two-dimensional shapes, such as circle or square is a math access point.
Shaving foam was used to add hair to George Washington’s head. Of course he also ended up with “hair” on his chin, cheeks, and nose!
The science access point recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move is addressed here.
Patrick Henry enjoyed hunting and fishing so we had the students go fishing in our little pond. There were 2 fish to catch with a large scoop.
Since the fish could be counted, the math access point associate quantities with number names can be addressed here.
We thought that Bath and BodyWorks country apple scent was perfect this week. After all whats more american than APPLE PIE! This yummy scent was a hit with our students and a great reminder of all the things we learned about the people of the American Revolution.
Recognize one or more body parts is a science access point.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
This week our students made Ben Franklin kites.
We started by discussing the shape of our kite—–a DIAMOND. We also discussed the TRIANGLE shapes that could be seen as part of the kite—-we thought that was pretty cool!
Recognize an object with a two-dimensional shape is a math access point.
Then they decorated their kites using colorful markers. This was also a great opportunity for our students to practice their communication skills asking for “more” markers or letting us know they were “all done”.
Recognize a change in an object is a science access point.
After they finished coloring their kites, the students used glue to attach a key made with this: key-template. We love the story of how Ben Franklin attached a key to his kite to study electricity, so of course we had to have keys for our kites! After they students put glue onto their keys they had to turn their key over and pat it DOWN onto their kite.
This activity addresses the math access point: recognize a movement that reflects a spatial relationship, such as up and down.
TA DA—-
—–lets go fly a kite!
LANGUAGE GROUP
We kind of stretched it a little bit this week to incorporate inventing, one of Ben Franklin’s specialties, into our group. We decided to invent a new recipe—–we’ll call it, Banana Split Pudding!
Here is a link to our recipe: lets-invent-a-banana-split-pudding
We used Pixon picture symbols throughout so that our students could request and inform.
The targeted symbol was presented to each child and they had to locate it on a Pixon board with 50 symbols on it.
We started by making some instant banana cream pudding. When getting the milk out, we passed it around and talked about how it was COLD. We poured 2 cups into a measuring cup and then poured in into a bowl.
Recognize the temperature of items, such as food, as cool or warm is a science access point.
Then we carefully added the pudding mix!
Our students got to use a wireless switch to activate the mixer.
This is always fun for them and everyone got a turn!
Recognize a predictable cause-effect relationship is a science access point.
We then counted out how many cups we needed for each student and found that we needed 6. Everyone helped count!
We put 3 spoonfuls of the banana cream pudding into each cup. Cara had already whipped up some chocolate pudding since we know that time is of the essence 🙂
We scooped in one big spoonful of the chocolate pudding into each cup.
We all know that banana splits have whipped cream and cherries so we topped off each cup with whipped cream and chopped up cherries.
Lastly, and most importantly, we ate our newly invented dessert! In the opinion of our students———YUM!
Thank you for joining us and we hope you enjoyed learning a little about some of the people of the American Revolution! We will see you next week for more fun and learning Group by Group!