January 19 was National Popcorn Day so we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to do another movie theme—they are just so much fun! Our sensory groups explored colorful movie themed boxes. The fine motor groups made cartoon character art projects and the language group got to be movie critics!
SENSORY GROUP
Students searched for letter M’s to find in this box of popcorn kernels.
The students loved the feel of the kernels running through their hands!
Math access point: associate quantities with number names.
Lots of fun movie themed items could be found in this box. There were some plastic and plush characters from movies in this box including Winnie the Pooh and Toy Story.
Since it is fun to eat a snack during movies, we put in a popcorn box and some play food.
Science access point: recognize a model of a real object.
For our Peter Pan box, we put in a Captain Hook figure and a crocodile cookie cutter.
The green kinetic sand was especially eye catching and so much fun to explore!
Science access point: recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move.
We thought these potato flakes resembled the look and feel of sawdust. They are soft but have a crunch quality—-very intriguing!
In addition to the various circus figures, there was a spoon for scooping fun.
Science access point: recognize and respond to different types of sensory stimuli.
Follow the Yellowbrick Road was recorded on a voice output device to go along with Wizard of Oz discovery bottles.
The students had fun finding “ruby slippers” and “witchy shoes” in one of the bottles.
Glittery swirls in both bottles were mesmerizing and a huge hit with all the students this week!
Science access point: track objects in motion.
Insta-Snow filled our Frozen box. The students were intrigued with the snow, not only is it fun to sift through fingers but actually FEELS cool—-just like the real thing!
Of course, we included some fun figures and a little scoop!
Science access point: recognize objects or materials as warm or cold.
Both Dory and Nemo could be found swimming around our little ocean this week. Not only were the colorful fish very eye catching but, they wiggled when strings were pulled!
Lots of fun with this splashy box!
Math access point: recognize differences in size of objects.
We used Bath and Body Works “be enchanted” scent this week….. because doesn’t everyone want to be enchanted when they go the movies!
The students are encouraged to use the Pixon communication boards to indicate WHERE they want the lotion.
Science access point: recognize one or more external body parts.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
On Wednesday, the students made Troll wigs using these templates: boy troll girl troll
First, the students identified the color of their paper wig. We used PURPLE paper for the girl wigs and BLUE for the boy’s.
Science access point: match objects by one observable property, such as size or color.
Then they used textured paint rollers to apply glue to the wigs. The rollers didn’t work quite as well as we had hoped, but the students still enjoyed using them.
Science access point: recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move.
The students used either BLACK or PURPLE glitter on their wigs. Everybody sang the glitter song of course! In case you are new to the blog, we sing “shake, shake, shake that glitter” to the tune of that old KC and the Sunshine band song 🙂
Math access point: recognize when an object is added to a situation.
TA DA!!!
Such cute hair!
Such cute Trolls!!!!!
On Thursday the students made Dalmatians using this template: dalmatian
First, they identified the color of the ink and the shape of the stamp they were using.
Science access point: identify objects by one observable property, such as size or color.
Math access point: recognize objects with two-dimensional shapes.
Next, the students stamped UP and DOWN to make spots on their Dalmatians. We made the stamps by adhering sticky back craft foam circles to sewing thread spools. The size of the spools makes them easy to grip for our students.
Math access point: recognize when an object is added to a situation.
Then they glued their Dalmatians DOWN on to a piece of red construction paper.
Math access point: recognize a movement that reflects a spatial relationship, such as up and down.
TA—-spotty—–DA!!!
We have 101 Dalmatians!
Well, almost 🙂
LANGUAGE GROUP
We changed things up a little bit this week. Although we still had food (we HAD to have some popcorn), our students didn’t participate in the making of any food.
Instead, our students acted as movie critics. Each student had a chance to request to watch a movie clip from one of the movies from our book.
They had to use the sentence strip that was provided to say “I want to watch” and then they had to point to the movie they wanted to see.
The movie clips weren’t longer then about 2 1/2 minutes. After the clip ended, each student had a chance to indicate that they thought the movie was good and they liked it, or they thought the movie was bad and they didn’t like it.
We used a voice output device that the students used to indicate if it was good or bad.
After watching the movies, our critics’ outcome was that the best movie out of all of the movies was Sherlock Gnomes, but there were 2 close seconds–Toy Story and Finding Dory.
We noticed that once we were all done, the room looked a little bit like a movie theatre with all the popcorn on the ground 🙂
Join us again next time for more fun and learning——Group by Group!
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