Author Archives: jd785

May10

Numbers

Posted on May 10, 2020 by jd785

We are taking a mathematical turn this week with a unit all about numbers—-enjoy!

SENSORY

Time to break out the messy play again—but this time with shaving foam! Place a generous amount of foam on a tray, cookie sheet, or if you are feeling especially adventurous—-on the kitchen table 🙂

Have your child use their fingers to practice writing numbers in the foam.

GROSS MOTOR

This week use dice or playing cards to determine how many of an activity your child does. For example, roll a dice or pull a card from the deck to see how many jumping jacks, wall pushups, or frog jumps your child does. Or to determine how many seconds they can stand on one leg or how many times to catch and throw a ball without dropping it. I have some oversized playing cards and light up large dice that I like to use at school, but you could us regular playing cards or dice, Uno cards that have numbers, put number magnets or strips or paper with numbers written on them in a cup/bag and draw one, or make your own dice out of a cube shaped box if you want to. Make up your own rules and use activities that your child enjoys. The fun part is letting the dice or cards decide how many you do.

Online, I found an activity where you tape various pieces of paper on a wall (choose the wall and ball carefully, so that the paint doesn’t get messed up and nothing gets broken) with numbers on them and have the child throw a ball to the requested number. You could have them draw the number out of a cup as mentioned above and throw the ball to the matching number or call the number out to them verbally. This could be done in standing, standing on a pillow for a challenge, in tall kneeling or 1/2 kneeling, in bench sitting, supported sitting, or while sitting in a wheelchair. It could also be done by touching, reaching, or looking at a number to identify or match the number.

Also, you could make number lines out of tape, paper plates, or chalk and have your child move to a requested number. You could also incorporate addition and subtraction, by having them start on one number and take steps forward and backward and see where they land. You could also have them crawl while pushing a toy car to a requested number or “numbered parking spot” if they are non-ambulatory.

Hopscotch is also a fun game with numbers. Make a path out of chalk or tape, either a traditional path or create one of your own. You can play by traditional rules or make up your own. You could incorporate different movements in the game such as side stepping, walking backwards, bear walking. Be creative and have fun.

Have a great week!

FINE MOTOR

A scavenger hunt is perfect for a numbers themed activity! Below is a list of items to find around the house.

After you count the item, there is a visual motor activity included with each to target a wide variety of skills.

Happy Hunting!!

1—backpack: practice opening/closing the zipper.

2—shoes: practice tying shoe laces.

3—pillows: identify the shapes.

4—spoons: scoop water or rice and pour from one spoon to another.

5—toy cars: drive the cars along straight, curved, and zig zag roads.

6—coins: hold out your hand palm down at chin level, stack the coins on your hand.

7—stuffed animals: sort from biggest to smallest.

8—books: stack the books, and then read one of course 🙂

9—crayons: use each color to draw a picture.

10—socks: match the pairs.

LANGUAGE

Because a lot of our students are motivated by food, our language group typically consists of recipes to make. This week, though, I have a few different things you can do with counting while cooking:

Count ingredients one by one. Start with a small number (1-3) and help your child count the number of pieces of food, using a finger to point to each piece. Children often don’t realize that each piece only gets counted once, or they try to count too quickly and skip numbers. Help them to keep track by moving the already counted pieces into a new pile.
Count the total number of ingredients. Help your child count the pieces of food and then say how many pieces there are all together. After they finish counting, ask, “How many?” Move up to larger numbers as they get more comfortable with counting.
Guess which pile has more ingredients. Make two small piles of food and ask your child to show/tell you which one has MORE in it. Count the number of pieces in each pile to see if they are correct. You can then talk about the pile that has LESS in it.

Here are numbers 1-10 along with cards with dots and animals to count and match to the number. The number cards can be used as visuals during your cooking activities or you can also use them to help your child count the objects and match them to the number. Here’s the link: Numbers 1-10

LITERACY

We suggest this book from April 2015: I Can Count to 10

Join us again next time for more fun and home learning—-Group by Group!

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May3

Let’s Go On A Picnic

Posted on May 3, 2020 by jd785

Let’s Go On A Picnic

The weather is pretty nice outside right now and perfect for picnicking—-in your back yard, porch, or on your living room floor 🙂

Enjoy the activities our OT, PT, and SLP have come up with for you this week!

SENSORY

This week our focus is on tactile (TOUCH) input. For this activity you need sunscreen (if you are going outside) or plain lotion (if staying inside). If you are using scented lotion, be sure you let your child SMELL the lotion.

Rather than a quick slather, gently massage the lotion on to your child’s arms, legs, etc. concentrating on each body part as you go. Go slowly and talk about the body part you are applying the lotion to—perhaps even make up a little song to go with it!

GROSS MOTOR

Whether you have your picnic inside or outside include some games. There are many kinds of games you can play. I looked online and found lots. There are games for inside and outside. There are games that include water (for a hot day) and items that you have around the house.

Play some sort of a game where you have to throw an object to a target. Games like horseshoes, washers, corn hole, ring toss, or bowling. Use what you have from home to play your game. You could use bean bags, foam balls, swim rings, laundry baskets, boxes, cones, recycled plastic bottles, etc. If you want to challenge your child’s balance have them stand on a pillow while throwing objects to the target. If you are outside, you could use water balloons and buckets. These could all be played while sitting or standing. You could also play by having your child reach to place an object in a container while they are seated in their wheelchair or chair. Move the target up high, down low, to the side, forward, etc. to place the object in/on the target (bucket, box, cone, etc.). Have them cross midline and use both hands.

Also, include a game that requires running. Games such as relay races (there are many online that include water balloons and sponges if it is a hot day), freeze tag, red light green light, hide and seek, or kick ball. If your child is in a wheelchair and they can self propel their chair, have them push their chair to play the game. If they are unable to push their chair, have a sibling be their partner and move them as the game requires.

Try a game that involves gross motor movements such as sack races, hopscotch, and obstacle courses. Make your own hopscotch path using sidewalk chalk or hula hoops. You can also use sidewalk chalk, hula hoops, pool noodles, cones, etc. to make an obstacle course for your child to move through.

Maybe, end the day with a scavenger hunt to find a hidden sweet treat. Have fun and enjoy!

FINE MOTOR

Have fun blowing bubbles! If you are doing this inside, you probably want to have a towel handy to wipe up spills. As the bubbles drift into the air, encourage your child to follow them with their eyes. Ask them to catch them by waving their arms, clapping the bubbles between their hands, poking them with a finger, or even isolating the index finger and thumb to “pinch” the bubbles.

Hold the bubble container and ask your child to dip the wand in to work on eye hand coordination. If you are really brave, let your child hold the container——make sure to have that towel handy 🙂

Blowing bubbles is a simple but oh so much fun activity—-enjoy!

LANGUAGE

The weather is so beautiful right now and PERFECT for a picnic! Here’s an activity you can do inside or outside: What Should We Bring To The Picnic

Talk with your child about the different things that they might want to eat at a picnic. There are picture supports in the link above. You can use the picture symbols of food that are in the link or you can cut food out from magazines.

Since you won’t be too far from home while on your picnic, here’s a little recipe that doesn’t require many ingredients and will be yummy to have when it’s hot outside. Take a look at the recipe to see our students putting this treat together from 2018 🙂 Here’s a link to the recipe: Lets Make Strawberry Sorbet

LITERACY

We suggest this book from January 2015: The Little Brown Owl Makes a Healthy Snack

And this book from this book from October 2013: Who Did Alice See

Join us next time for more fun and home learning—-Group by Group!

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Apr26

Animals

Posted on April 26, 2020 by jd785

Animals

Distance learning continues with a fun unit about animals. We have done lots of animal themed posts in the past so it made picking photos from our library extra hard—-so many cute ones to choose from 🙂

Our PT, OT, and SLP have come up with some more fun activities for you to do at home—-enjoy!

SENSORY

Every week we make sensory boxes—our students LOVE them! It’s easy to your own animal themed box at home—-you can find the perfect material right in your kitchen such as rice, beans, pasta, oatmeal, popcorn, potato flakes, or cereal. Just remember if you have a child who likes to “taste”, make sure it is something that’s okay for them to swallow! Gather up some plastic animals and maybe add some measuring scoops and a funnel for extra fun 🙂

You might even try going out of the box and using dried coffee grounds, birdseed or even make a swamp out of green jello!

Have fun!

GROSS MOTOR

So, this week, you can try moving like animals would move.

Use some books around the house that have animals in them and as you read the book talk about how the animals move and have your child do the same movement as the animals in the story. Some of my kids’ favorite animal books were Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See or From Head to Toe.

You could also look up different animals online, watch how they move, and have your child copy the animal’s movement. You could also use movies with animals in them, and as you watch the movie pause it to act out the animal’s movements. A family favorite of ours was The Jungle Book.

Some movements that my kids and I came up with are the bear crawl, crab walk, frog jump, bunny hop, elephant walk, inch worm, duck walk, fly like a bird, swim like a fish, slither like a snake, swing through the trees like a monkey, stand on one leg like a flamingo, waddle like a penguin, kick like a donkey, cat/cow stretch. Just to name a few, but I am sure you all can come up with some more.

If your child is unable to do the movements independently help them to move their arms and legs to mimic the movements or you or a sibling do the movements and have them chose between a choice of two or three of which animal movement you are acting out. This can be done in supported positions (standing or sitting) to work on balance and strengthening.

Have fun moving like some of our animal friends. Animal sounds are optional! Have a great week!

FINE MOTOR

Here is a fun way to practice writing strokes!

Draw some spiders on a piece of paper. Have your child start at the TOP and draw a DOWN line to the spider. Proficient writers can then turn the paper sideways and write the word SPIDER on the line—-making sure letters touch the line and are aligned correctly.

Draw an animal on a piece of paper. Have your child start on the LEFT side and draw ACROSS to create a fence. Proficient writers can write the name of the animal on a line. Again, making sure letters touch the line and are aligned correctly.

Draw a fish on a piece paper. Have your child draw CIRCLES to make bubbles. Proficient writers can write a letter in each bubble—-making sure the letters stay within the bubbles.

LANGUAGE

Here’s a fun animal themed recipe for you to make at home! Here’s the recipe: lets make a zebra striped parfait

When you’re putting all the ingredients together, you can talk to your child about things like:

the sizes of measurement tools (BIG/LITTLE)
the temperature of the ingredients (COLD/HOT)
the ingredients (WET/DRY)
if you are ALL DONE with the ingredients or if you have MORE
how it tastes (SWEET/SOUR)

LITERACY

We recommend reading this book from May 2018:Let_s Go To The Zoo!

And this book from September 2017:On Old McDonald’s Farm

Join us again next time for more fun and home learning—–Group by Group!

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Apr19

Dance Party

Posted on April 19, 2020 by jd785

Dance Party

Our distance learning themes continue with more fun at home OT, PT, SLP activities—-and a sprinkling of old photos 🙂

This week we thought it would be fun to have a dance party!

SENSORY

A dance party has to have something to LISTEN to so pick out some music. A lot of our students love Kids Bop but there is a world of music out there—-maybe try something you haven’t listened to before! Does your child like it LOUD or SOFT? FAST or SLOW? What instruments do they prefer—DRUMS, GUITARS, HORNS?

Since it is a dance party, play with lighting—-dim the lights or turn them off completely and use flashlights, maybe put up some twinkle lights!

FINE MOTOR

Let’s make some paper chain party decorations! You will need paper of your choice—construction paper, notebook paper, wrapping paper, junk mail flyers etc. and tape, glue, or a stapler.

Start by cutting the paper into 2 inch wide strips. You probably want it to be at least 8-10 inches long.

For students who need assistance to use classroom tools: if you have a scrapbooking paper cutter, have your child help by pushing or pulling the handle. If you don’t happen to have one of those, sharply crease the paper and have your child help hold while you tear along the crease.

For students who are learning to use classroom tools: draw lines on the paper and ask them to “cut on the road”.

For students who are proficient with classroom tools: have them draw their own lines using a ruler.

Once all the strips are cut, begin assembling by joining one strip together to form a ring. Slide the next strip through the ring and fasten it into a circle. Continue adding strips until to have the length you want—-or run out of paper, whichever comes first 🙂

Drape your festive paper chain over the mantle piece, over bookshelves, pictures etc.

GROSS MOTOR

At the dance party, have a dance off with your child. Take turns showing off your moves and then have the other person mimic them. For students whom can independently move, they can move their arms, their legs, or their wheelchair. It doesn’t matter, just move.

For students whom need more assistance with movement, move their arms with hand held assistance or push their wheelchair around in different directions (linearly-forward and back, rotation-clockwise and counter-clockwise, or adjust the tilt of the wheelchair). Dance until you can’t dance any more.

Enjoy the party!

LANGUAGE

Here are some communication symbols that can be used during your dance party: Dance Language

Have your child tell you what they WANT by giving them a choice of different songs or of different types of music.
Turn the music off randomly and have your child tell you that they WANT MORE.
Let your child decide when the music can GO and when it has to STOP. Everyone freeze when the music stops.
After a song is over, have your child let you know if they want to hear it AGAIN or if they want a DIFFERENT song.
When a song is over, ask your child if they LIKE the song or if they DON’T LIKE the song.
Talk about how the song sounds. Is it FAST or SLOW? Was it LOUD or QUIET

You can either keep all of the symbols on the single piece of paper, or you can cut the symbols out to hold them up to your child. Most importantly, HAVE FUN!

LITERACY

We recommend reading this book from November 2013: Let’s Turn on the Jukebox!

Join us again next time for more fun and home learning—-Group by Group!

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Apr12

Color

Posted on April 12, 2020 by jd785

Color

Distance learning continues and we hope everyone out there is doing ok. Our SLP, OT, and PT have some more fun activities for you. This week we are going with a COLORFUL theme!

Once again we pulled some photos from our library 🙂

SENSORY

Let’s make OOBLECK!

This is a pretty messy activity so you might want to go outside for this one. Where ever you choose to do this, definitely have a basin of water, hose, or sink nearby! It you follow our blog regularly you know that oobleck is one of our favorite sensory experiences and SO easy to make at home—-all you need is cornstarch and water!

Mix 2 parts cornstarch and 1 part water and pour onto a cookie sheet. Put a few drops of food coloring on one side and a few drops of another color on the other side. Let your child dive right in with BOTH hands! Talk about the colors they SEE and watch the oobleck change colors as the food coloring swirls and mixes together.

So much fun 🙂

GROSS MOTOR

To address gross motor skills, make up some games to play to work on color identification and incorporate motor movements. For example, you could place different colored pieces of construction paper or objects on the floor and ask your child to go pick up a certain colored piece of paper/object and bring it to you.

Have them change the way they travel to the colored paper/object. For example, use movements like crawl, crab walk, bear crawl, hop like a bunny or frog, log roll, walk backwards, side step, etc.

The skill could also be worked on while sitting, by presenting two choices and having your child reach for a requested color. This could be done in supported sitting or independent sitting. You can make it even trickier by moving the choices around (up, down, out to the side, forward, etc.) or having them reach with a certain hand. Hopefully that gives you a few simple ideas to try.

Enjoy!

FINE MOTOR

We saw this idea on Pinterest and we were totally inspired! You will need a black permanent marker, regular kids’ markers, and a paper towel folded in HALF. We found that the cheaper paper towels work best! You will also need a cookie sheet with a layer of water. This activity gets a little messy so you may want to go outside for this one too 🙂

For students who need help using or are learning to use classroom tools: draw an outline their initials or name in block letters with the BLACK permanent marker. Go over the outline a few times!

For students that are more proficient writers: have them draw a word of choice.

OPEN the towel up—you will see a faint outline of the design that was drawn on top.

Use DIFFERENT colored markers to FILL IN color each letter on the bottom half of the towel.

If your child can’t do fill in coloring, just have them add color to the bottom half of the towel—the end product will be great either way!

Once you have finished coloring, fold the top back over and place the paper towel on the water—–and watch the magic happen!

The colors will bleed from the bottom sheet onto the top sheet—-HOW COOL IS THAT 🙂

LANGUAGE

You can download this simple color board to point to the different colors that you are targeting. Here’s the link: color board

Some fun activities to incorporate color:

Pick out one color and go around the house to find different things that are the same color. You can take the color board with you around the house and point to the targeted color as a reminder. You can also use the board to show your child if what they found matches the targeted color or not.
If you have an ice cube tray, you can make colorful ice cubes by freezing water mixed with food coloring. You can put them in a glass of water and watch the water change color. You can also put 2 different colors of ice cubes in the water and see what new color it will make. Try yellow+blue, blue+red, and red+yellow 🙂

LITERACY

We recommend reaching this book from April 2018: Look At The Colors Of The Rainbow

Here is another book from February 2016: The World is Full of Color

Join us next time for more fun and home learning—–Group by Group!

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Apr4

Take a Walk Outside

Posted on April 4, 2020 by jd785

Take a Walk Outside

As schools are closed for the next few weeks, we are going to do a series of posts with ideas for our parents at home. Since our students aren’t here we are just pulling archived photos—which is kind of fun actually 🙂

This week our activities are centered on taking a walk outside in your backyard!

SENSORY:

What can you HEAR, SEE, SMELL? Does it FEEL different to walk/ride over bumps in the grass/sidewalk, go fast/slow? Are there things to TOUCH?

GROSS MOTOR:

For students whom walk, take advantage of what your surroundings provide you with. Practice walking on and transitioning different surfaces, such as grass, mulch, gravel, sand, etc. Also, practice walking up/down hills, curbs, stairs, ramps, etc. Walk in areas where the student has to step over or around objects in their path of travel, such as water hoses, tree roots, etc.

For students whom self propel their wheelchairs, have them push on different surfaces or inclines/declines/ramps. Have them turn their wheelchair in a requested direction or weave around objects in their path of travel.

Hopefully this will provide you with some good ideas. Make sure you provide as much assistance and/or supervision as needed to ensure student safety. Most of all have fun and enjoy your walk together. The weather has been great.

FINE MOTOR:

For students who need assistance with classroom tools, draw a simple picture of something you saw outside (ex. tree or house) and have them color it. If you have to help them hold the utensil that is okay, but encourage them to move their arms themselves. Markers may be easier for them to use (less friction/brighter colors)and remember the writing surface can be placed vertically.

For students learning to use classroom tools, ask them to draw a picture of something they saw outside. For example, you can model a square house step by step to encourage visual copy skills. Using verbal prompts such as DOWN and ACROSS lines can be helpful. You could also add start/endpoint dots for the lines.

For students learning to write, ask them to write a sentence about what they saw. Give them a model to copy if they need it. Sometimes, using a highlighter to emphasize the top and bottom lines of the paper can be helpful.

LANGUAGE: Practice core vocabulary words HELP/STOP/GO. Do you need HELP to get ready? Do you want to GO? Do you want to STOP here? Talk about what you SEE (“I see a BIG house” or “I see a LITTLE bug”).

Ask them to find different things like a leaf, a stick, a car. Talk about the weather and if it’s SUNNY or CLOUDY.

LITERACY: we suggest reading our book from 4/1/2018— Let_s Go To The Park

So this is our new normal! Join us again next time for more fun and learning—-Group by Group!

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Mar15

Light and Sound book

Posted on March 15, 2020 by jd785

Light and Sound book

HERE IS A LINK TO THE BOOK: Let’s Learn About Sound And Light

We’re following the Unique theme this week and talking about light and sound. We learned that light does different things with different types of matter. We also learned that sound is a vibration that travels through matter. We have one of our students on the front enjoying some music and another student on the back enjoying the light room in our sensory room.

Mar15

Light and Sound

Posted on March 15, 2020 by jd785

Light and Sound

This week our theme complements the monthly Unique Curriculum unit for our students. The sensory group explored boxes filled with light or sound. The fine motor groups made thematic crafts and the language group did some light and sound experiments!

SENSORY GROUP

Our space blanket was both reflective and also made LOTS of noise as it was moved around.

The students had a blast!

Science access point: recognize that pushing or pulling makes an object move.

More photos because this was so much FUN!!!

Colorful pasta was not only eye catching but noisy, as hands pushed through to find letters L and S.

We used regular pasta, tri-colored pasta, and pasta of different different shapes that we dyed ourselves.

Science access point: match objects with similar observable properties, such as size, shape, color, or texture.

Our light box was made by hot gluing cut up plastic notebook dividers to the sides of a shoebox and then adding lights.

It really looked cool—–especially when we turned the overhead lights off.

Science access point: recognize a source of light energy.

We thought it would be fun to put some bubble wrap sheets in one of our boxes.

The students had fun pinching or squeezing the bubbles to make them POP!

Science access point: apply a push to move an object.

There were all sorts of LIGHT producing toys in this box.

Some of them could just be turned on but others needed to be moved to activate the lights—-so fun!

Science access point: distinguish between objects in motion and at rest.

This box contained a variety of SOUND producing toys including an accordion tube, shaker bottle, and a variety of musical instruments.

The students really had fun making noise 🙂

Science access point: recognize and respond to sounds.

We added pop rocks to our oobleck this week!

Noisy, messy play—-always a hit!

Science access point: track objects in motion.

A water wheel toy made our water noisy.

Watching the wheel spin and splash water was really fascinating!

Science access point: recognize the change in the motion of an object.

It was hard finding a scent to work with our theme this week but we dug through our stash of lotion and found one called Hello Sunshine which seemed a perfect fit—-the sun brings us light after all 🙂

It was a nice sweet scent that the students all liked.

Science access point: recognize one or more external body parts.

Since we were doing a unit on sound we HAD to bring out our big strips of bubble wrap to roll or run over!

As always, so many smiles!

Science access point: apply a push to move an object.

FINE MOTOR GROUP

On Tuesday we made sun catchers!

First, the students identified a circle.

Math access point: recognize a common object with two-dimensional shape.

Next, they began tearing yellow or orange tissue paper into small pieces.

Science access point: recognize a change in the external appearance of an object.

The tissue paper pieces were placed on clear contact paper.

Math access point: recognize when an object is added to a situation.

TA DA!!!

Look at our sun catchers!

Let the sunshine in!

On Wednesday, the students made shaker bottles.

First, the students identified a rectangle.

Math access point: recognize object with two-dimensional shapes.

Then, they used crayons to decorate a piece of paper.

When done, the decorated piece of paper was taped around a plastic bottle.

Science access point: recognize a change in the external appearance of an object.

They put a funnel in their bottle and poured some beads into it! The students loved watching the beads drop down.

It was also a great opportunity to practice using BOTH hands!

Science access point: track objects that fall to the ground.

Next, they added 3 jingle bells.

Math access point: associate quantities with number names.

An adult hot glued the cap on to the bottle and……

TA DA!!!

Shake, shake, shake, that bottle—-of course we sang along 🙂

LANGUAGE GROUP

We had some fun with light and sound experiments today!

Our first experiment involved us using sun sensitive paper (purchased from Oriental Trading). To use this, you put something on top of the paper, like a leaf or a cutout of a shape, and place them in the sun. The sun paper should change in color so that you can see the shape of whatever you placed on top of it.

We started out by each student choosing a cutout of an object that they liked out of a field of 2 cutouts.

Once everyone chose their cutout, each person made a prediction about if they thought this experiment would work or not.

All but one student made the prediction that YES, it would work.

We walked outside and found a bright and sunny place to put our papers.

While we were waiting for the paper, we played a sound game. Each student had a chance to take out one thing from a bag of small objects.

Once they picked their object, they had to drop it into a tin container.

They had to indicate whether the object was LOUD when it was dropped in the container or if it was QUIET. If it was loud, students used a sentence strip to indicate “I hear it”. If it was quiet, students used a sentence strip to indicate “I don’t hear it”. We had different objects like cotton balls, feathers, toy cars, and plastic animals.

When our sound game was over, we checked out the sun paper to see if it had changed color. It worked! The directions said to put the paper in some water for a minute and then lay it out to dry.

These turned out really cool!

We are getting ready to go on a bit of an extended spring break but be sure to join us again next time for more fun and learning—–Group by Group!

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Mar8

Our Favorite Books book

Posted on March 8, 2020 by jd785

Our Favorite Books book

HERE IS A LINK TO THE BOOK: Take A Look At Our Favorite Books

In honor of Read Across America, we decided to put together a book showcasing our some of our favorite books. We have students as models for each of the books featured, some of which are Charlotte’s Web, Little Women, and The Hungry Little Caterpillar.