January 18th is Winnie the Pooh Day! We had a blast creating the book this week and our students looked adorable in their costumes. Ms. Judy and her students came through again with an amazing backdrop. All in all, it was a super fun week! We celebrated with colorful character themed sensory boxes. Our fine motor groups made some super cute crafts and the language group made a snack with Pooh’s favorite food—–honey!

 

 

 

SENSORY GROUP

Pooh’s adventures take place in the hundred acre wood. We filled our box with silk leaves and a variety of characters from the books. We even included 2 tiny Winnie the Pooh books. Since we had different versions of the characters, similarities and differences could be discussed such as hard/soft and big/small. Just for fun, we also recorded the Winnie the Pooh song on a voice output device.

Recognize similarities and differences in size of objects is a math access point.

 

 

 

 

Our Winnie the Pooh box had red and yellow pom poms to sort. Of course, we chose those colors based on Pooh’s yellow fur and red shirt as seen in the Disney version of the story. We did a similar box last week but our students can always practice sorting and counting, so we decided to do one again.

Identify objects by one observable property, such as color is a science access point.

 

 

 

 

We are pretty fond of owls around here, so we had to have a box dedicated to Owl! This box was totally touch worthy with a couple of “owl feather” boas and a large plush owl that looked a lot like the character.

Recognize and respond to one type of sensory stimuli, in this case tactile, is a science access point.

 

 

 

 

Our eye catching orange and black box rice box was totally Tigger-rific 🙂 We put in some letter T’s for the students to find and a picture of Tigger at the bottom of the box.

Match objects by an observable property, such as size, shape, and color is a science access point.

 

The science access point recognize a change in an object is addressed in this activity.

 

 

 

 

 

Piglet is Pooh’s best friend so we made some pink play dough in his honor! We added a letter P—-for Piglet—- cookie cutter.

The students found the color very eye catching and of course had lots of fun manipulating it.

 

Recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move is a science access point.

 

 

 

 

Honey is Winnie the Pooh’s absolute favorite treat so after adding yellow food coloring, we made our oobleck with a honey like consistency this week. We also added a couple of craft foam bees to fly around in the “honey”.

Apply a push to move an object is a science access point.

 

 

 

 

We couldn’t find any honey scented  bath gel for our water play this week, so we used Bath and Body Works vanilla sugar scent—-we figured it was a pretty close match to honey. The students had lots of fun with the different sized scoops and we also added a letter P—for Pooh!

Recognize differences in sizes of containers that hold liquids (capacity) is a science access point that can be addressed in this activity.

 

 

 

 

The students really liked the honey scented lotion from Madina. They used verbalizations, gestures, or body movements to indicate what part of the body to place the lotion. The sweet scent was a wonderful reminder of all the fun we had visiting with Winnie the Pooh and his friends.

Recognize one or more external body parts is a science access point.

 

 

 

 

 

FINE MOTOR GROUP

On Tuesday we made Winnie the Pooh faces out of yellow paper plates—-we got 20 for $1 at the Dollar Tree. That was a score! We used this template for both our fine motor groups this week: winnie-the-pooh-and-piglet-template

First we told the students we were going to use a lot of CIRCLES to make our art project and asked the students to identify a circle using communication symbols.

Recognize common objects with two-dimensional shapes such as circle or square, is a math access point.

 

 

 

 

 

Then they used a large hole punch (with some help) to make 2 ears which were then glued on to the large paper plate.  Some tape was added to make sure they stayed on.

Apply a push to move an object, is a science access point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next they glued on ANOTHER circle, pre-made with the eyes and nose! We made sure to point out the different sizes of the circles we used for this project.

The math access point recognize similarities and differences in size of common objects can be addressed with this activity.

 

 

 

 

They finished by using a black marker to make a mouth. One of our students used a switch operated vibrating massager with a marker attached but the others just did it free hand.

After we were done, we realized we probably should have used a thicker marker (like the one we used in our sample) to make it show up better but our students creations still look pretty cute 🙂

Recognize a change in an object is a science access point.

 

 

 

 

TA Pooh diddly Da!

                                                           We love that Winnie the Pooh!

 

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday the students made some Piglet puppets out of pink paper bags.

First our students identified the color PINK using communication symbols.

Identify objects by one observable property, such as color is a science access point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To make the stripes on Piglet’s shirt, we encouraged the students to draw horizontal lines ACROSS the paper bag using black markers.

Recognize a movement that reflects a spatial relationship is a math access point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then the students glued 1 face and 2 pre-cut ears onto their paper bags.

Associate quantities with number names is a math access point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ta DA!!!!!!!!

                                                                  Such cute little Piglet puppets!

 

 

 

 

LANGUAGE GROUP

During our language group, we made a sweet treat that we know Winnie the Pooh would like!  We made mini banana-honey cheesecakes.  Here is the recipe: lets-make-a-mini-honey-banana-cheesecake

We started out by letting each of our students FEEL the milk.  We talked about how COLD it was.  We had a student HELP POUR the milk into the bowl.  Then we added the pudding mix to the bowl as well.  Everyone got to look at it before we started mixing it up and we talked about how it would CHANGE from liquid to solid.

 

 

 

 

 

Once each of the students had a chance to turn the mixer on using a switch and the pudding was set, we added some whipped cream to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we have a couple of students who are on a puree diet, we decided to SQUISH up the chopped bananas so that we could add them to our mixture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our students helped STIR up all of the ingredients.  We then counted out our pie crusts and spooned some of our pudding mixture into each one.

For our final step, each of our students got to help SQUEEZE some honey on top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided it was a totally Pooh worthy dessert 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a really fun unit, who doesn’t love Winnie the Pooh! Join us again next time for more fun and learning——Group by Group!