Welcome to the After Party! Each week after the weekly blog featuring activities in the elementary department is posted, our sensory cart is parked in the media center where it is available for check out by the rest of the school.

Here are photos teachers have sent of their students exploring the different sensory boxes during the month of February—–enjoy!

 

 

 

 

One of our paraprofessionals is from Minnesota, so we started the month learning about that state.

 

 

 

After learning that the monarch butterfly is the state insect,

the students sorted RED butterflies and GREEN caterpillars.

 

 

 

 

Judy Garland hails from the state of Minnesota.

 

 

 

 

Her rainbow rice box contained letter M’s and a map of the state.

 

 

 

 

Another Minnesota native was the musician Prince.

 

 

 

 

For his box, the students stamped the state’s initials in purple Bubber.

 

 

 

 

Our next box contained a variety of symbols of the state.

                                                                    Including Babe the Blue Ox!

 

 

 

 

The Minnesota NFL team is called the vikings and their colors are purple and gold.

Great to twist and wrap around each other.

 

 

 

 

The students had a little fun with the chenille stems in the team colors.

                                                                                   Kids will be kids 🙂

 

 

 

 

It gets pretty snowy in Minnesota in the winter.

                                                           So we may snow with shaving cream!

 

 

 

 

Minnesota is known as the land of 10,000 lakes.

Fishing is popular there!

 

 

 

 

For our scent this week we used Bath and Bodyworks dancing waters. The students really liked the soft scent!

 

 

 

 

Our next unit celebrated the Grammys! This unit also had a fun book with students dressed as famous singers—–check it out!

 

 

 

 

Since the Grammys are all about music, we put a variety of musical instruments in this box.

 

 

 

 

The finger drums are always a favorite with the students!

 

 

 

 

Taylor Swift’s “Red” box (red velvet cake mix) had 2 heart shaped scoops because she writes lots of songs about love.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                       Our students loved the box 🙂

 

 

 

Fun to sift and scoop—-and it had a pretty nice aroma also!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ziggy Marley comes from Jamaica, so we made some rice in the colors of the flag.

                                    This bright and colorful box was VERY eye catching!

 

 

 

 

Eric Church is a country singer so we thought a farm themed box would be appropriate for him.

There were a number of different farm animals to find in this box filled with birdseed.

 

 

 

 

Katy Perry had a hit song titled “Roar” so we made a jungle box for her!

It was a fun box with lots of jungle animals to find and listen to.

 

 

 

Bruno Mars is from Hawaii so his was a beach themed box!

                                 There were shells to find and flowers to stamp into the sand.

 

 

 

 

 

One of our teachers got to visit Machu Picchu in Peru so we decided that would be perfect for our next week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part of the Andes mountains are found in Peru! Our students made their own mountains out of Floam,

 

 

 

 

and added 4 llamas (laminated pictures) to climb them.

 

 

 

 

 

Potatoes were first grown in Peru!

The students enjoyed the crunchy feel of the potato flakes as they uncovered a map of Peru at the bottom of the box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copper is one of Peru’s leading exports.

The students stamped the letter “P” into our copper colored kinetic sand—–or just enjoyed the way it felt on their hands!

 

 

 

 

The students looked for 2 jaguars hidden in some tropical flowers.

They also had fun with the flower petals!

 

 

 

 

 

The colors of the Peruvian flag are red and white. We put a variety of red and white items in this box for the students to sort and explore.

The vibrating crab was a HUGE hit!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part of the Amazon rainforest is located in Peru.

We also recorded some rainforest sounds on a voice output device.Our rainforest umbrella was a hit!

 

 

 

 

We traveled again for our next unit, but this time a little closer to home—–Louisiana!

We had lots of Mardi Gras beads.

                                                                     Always a big hit!

 

 

 

 

 

We had discovery bottles in the state colors——

white, blue, and gold!

There was also a box filled with Louisiana state symbols.

One of the state songs was recorded on a voice output device.

 

 

 

 

The students stamped letter L’s into our sunshine yellow play dough.

Included was a rolling pin with sun”rays” to make impressions in it.

 

 

 

 

Shaving cream was sprinkled with blue and gold glitter.

As usual, lots of fun!

 

 

 

 

We had colorful Mardi Gras rice—-

                                                                    with letter L’s to find in it.

 

 

 

 

 

The students scooped up plastic crawfish out of water.

We finished with some beignet (actually vanilla sugar) scented lotion—-yummy!

 

It’s been lots of fun—–see you next month, Group by Group!