Oct22

Space book

Posted on October 22, 2012 by jd785

We are traveling to space this week and it is out of this world! The book goes over different things we see in space like stars, meteors, planets, and the sun. We start by having a student “read” the title, as we do with each group. I talked about how ‘space’ and ‘place’ are rhyming words. After the first line on each page is read, we asked the students, “what do you think of space?” The repetitive line answers “space is an amazing place”. The pictures in this book seem much more vivid than other books because of the black background. Enjoy!

Here is a link to the book: Space is an Amazing Place

Oct22

Space and Letter H

Posted on October 22, 2012 by jd785

Space and Letter H

This week we blasted off into space with our Sensory and Fine Motor groups. Our Language Group looked at the letter H. It was an extra-special week for us with visitors who came from Jackson County to tour our school and see our groups.

Sensory Group—Space

We practiced throwing and catching our planet spheres in the sensory room. These soft balls came from a science kit and were wonderful fun for throwing around as well as comparing sizes.

After coming back to the classroom we read Cara’s book about space and got started on our sensory boxes.

We brought back our black playdough with additional blue and silver glitter to make our galaxy. It was sooo cool looking. The picture just doesn’t do it justice!

We cut crescent and star shapes with our cookie cutters.

This addresses the math access point of recognizing objects with two dimensional shapes.

This box was filled with black beans which looked just like deep dark space. We put in an astronaut, spaceship puzzle piece, a strand of tinsel stars, star cookie cutters and a small globe. For some zodiac symbols we included a toy goat, little plush crab, bull puzzle piece—well ok, a cow, but it had horns 🙂

And how about the big footprint—almost like Neil Armstrong’s!

This box gave us lots of things to discuss, addressing the language arts access point of responding to new vocabulary.

These battery operated lights looked just like twinkling little stars and students were really fascinated.

This addresses the science access point of recognizing and responding to one type of stimuli.

Our galaxy in a bottle was also intriguing to our students. We borrowed it from Ms. Bennett.

She made it with karo syrup, food coloring, glitter and beads. The beads move around as the bottle is tilted back and forth giving opportunities for visual tracking, addressing the science access point of tracking objects in motion.

Planets are sphere shaped and that’s what we explored in this box. The beads are cube shaped so it gave us a chance to contrast them with our sphere shaped pom poms. Also the beads are hard and the pompoms are soft—other properties to compare and identify by one observable property.

Red and yellow food coloring was added to shaving cream to make it look just like the flames from rocket ships.

One nice benefit of the foam is that it will

stick to vertical surfaces while

practicing pre-writing patterns!

Astronaut food! Who can forget that weird dehydrated stuff in the foil packets 🙂 We thought our Bubber looked just like it. Bubber is REALLY cool stuff, crumbly but moldable but sticky.

We’re not sure who liked it better—the students or the staff 🙂

If you look closely you can see a picture of the planet Mars we taped to the bottom of our box.

We used lavender scent in our water and lotion this week. Since the best time to see space is late at night when its time for bed, we thought it was appropriate 🙂

Lavender is a fairly strong distinctive scent and was especially aromatic in the lotion.

Our students really responded to it.

Thanks Ms. Jen for the donation!

Our blue rice and green split peas represented our planet earth—- for lots of scooping and sifting fun.!

There are some number 8 (there are 8 planets in our solar system) puzzles pieces hidden in there also.

Fine Motor Group—Space

On Tuesday, after reading Cara’s book we passed out our pre-made rocket bases (made with poster board feet placed into slits in the bottom of a toilet paper roll). Besides counting them out, as we usually do, we pointed out that their shape was a cylinder addressing the math access point of recognizing a 3 dimensional shape.

Next we counted out our cones and asked our students to “put the cone on top of the cylinder”.

EVERYBODY did such a fantastic job, we were so proud of them!

This activity addresses the math access point of recognizing a movement that reflects a spatial relationship.

We put on our paint shirts while an adult hot glued the rocket pieces together.

Then we chose which color to paint the rocket.

We gave our students 3 choices to give them practice making choices in the format of our alternate assessment.

Everyone had a great time painting their rockets, giving them practice controlling writing utensils.

As the students hold onto the rocket, bilateral skills are also addressed.

images Our rocket needs a captain! A little

glue in just the right spot…

their picture added……

10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,………..

……………..Blast off!!!

To infinity and beyond 🙂

On Thursday we looked at this really

cool lighted moon while we

listened to Cara’s book and then

made our own full moon!

First we poured glue into shaving

cream ……

and took turns stirring it…….

………until it was all

mixed together.

Then we counted out a

round paper plate for

each student making sure

to point out the shape of the plate.

We used our hands to paint our mixture onto the paper plates.

Our students loved this stuff, its so wonderfully goopy!

TA DA—-our full moon.

The glue and shaving cream mixture dries just like puffy paint–

—-so COOL!

The science access point of recognizing

a change in an object is

addressed here.

Language Group—Letter H

We switched things up a bit this week and STARTED with Cara’s sound game. Lots of fun sounds to listen for!

Then we Harpooned some sea creatures.

Our Harpoon was a little Heavy, so some of our students needed Help to Hoist their catch.

We found lots of animals—- but no Hammerhead sharks.

This activity is great for building shoulder stability and eye hand coordination.

Next we used our Hands to hold some

Halloween finger puppets.

When placed on fingers, these puppets help address finger individuation.

We finished by cutting some strips

of brown construction paper.

We drew some lines as a guide

to cut along.

Some students used scissors and

others used our paper cutters.

Our strips became spikes for our

Happy Hedgehog.

Placing the strips addresses eye hand coordination in addition to spatial

relations.

A lot of fun H words!

Between our visitors and

our groups—

what a fabulous week!

Hope you come back,

Group by Group 🙂

On a final note, please take a look at our comments section. Peggy Hundley Spitz OTR has offered a discount if you mention Group by Group when you place an order at her site OTtoGo.

Oct14

Italian Heritage Month book

Posted on October 14, 2012 by jd785

Italian Heritage Month book

This month is Italian Heritage Month! This weeks book is a little bit different than the previous books in that the repetitive line is the first line on each page. We asked the students, “what do you do?” to which the repetitive line says, “I celebrate Italian Heritage Month”. Each of the lines following the repetitive line says something people can do to celebrate Italian Heritage Month such as eating pizza and wearing red, white and green (the colors of Italy’s flag). It was really interesting in the fine motor group when one of the students waited to hear the line leading up to the repetitive line like we typically do since he wasn’t used to presenting the repetitive line first!

Here is a link to the book: I Celebrate Italian Heritage month

Oct14

Italian Heritage Month and the Letter G

Posted on October 14, 2012 by jd785

Italian Heritage Month and the Letter G

It was all about red, white, and green—the colors of the Italian flag— in our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups! In our Language Group we looked at words that start with the letter G.

Sensory Group—Italian Heritage

Cara’s book helped us learn about Italian heritage. Our students did such a great job activating the voice output device to read the repetitive line. With the switch we are working on timing of the hit and activating it just one time.

This addresses the access point of responding to familiar print media.

Our color boxes were filled with assorted red things Joy collected around the OT room.

We included beads (large ones to avoid choking hazards, of course), chenille stems, pom poms, a big bow from a valentine wreath, package ties, finger puppets etc.

You name it—if it was the right color, it went into the box 🙂

Hmmm—-this looks interesting 🙂

The main idea of these boxes is to encourage exploration to compare and contrast the differing properties of materials and our students were definitely intrigued!

Most students dove into every box exploring the contents with equal enthusiasm. A few students, however, either did not engage or became overly excited with one of the color boxes. It appeared that the particular color was either over or under stimulating to them.

Beads are always a favorite……and, of course, if beads are in a box—you have to put them on!

These boxes address a number of science access points, including identifying objects by one observable property and recognizing objects as the same.

We practiced scooping with our mix of red, white, and green beans. They were so pretty and colorful.

As the cup is filled, the math access point of recognizing the differences in the capacity of containers is addressed.

A large letter I was placed in our rice mix —-more red, white, and green of course!

We also taped an Italian flag to the bottom of the box—a little

surprise to find.

We added red pepper flakes and green oregano to our playdough to continue our colorful theme. It also had the added bonus of adding an interesting aroma.

We used our heart shaped cookie cutter—-because we LOVE Italy 🙂

This addresses the math access point of recognizing two-dimensional shapes.

Red and green glitter made our oobleck sparkle!

We practiced our pre-writing designs making

vertical strokes.

Most excellently done in

this picture, as you can see 🙂

We rinsed our hands in grape scented lotion. They grow lots of yummy grapes in Italy!

Then we finished with some vanilla sugar lotion so we could leave the group smelling like delicious cannolis—yum yum 🙂

This activity addresses the science access point of recognizing and responding to different types of sensory stimuli.

Fine Motor Group—Italian Heritage

We rode on some “gondolas” in the sensory room.

Our bolster swing is a huge favorite with our students and a really fun way to work on sitting balance!

After the sensory room we returned to the classroom to read Cara’s book and begin our art project.

We counted out 8 pieces of paper and wrote our names on the back.

Each time we count out our pieces of paper we are working on the math access point of identifying quantities.

Today we are doing spaghetti (well actually string, ha ha) painting.

We asked our students to choose which color they wanted to paint with first…..

…..sometimes its hard to make that choice 🙂

Then we dipped our strings into the paint

and got to work!

This activity addresses eye hand

coordination.

Ta Da!

…….Red,

……………white,

…………………and green!

Gotta love that smile 🙂

On Thursday we made some pizza pies!

We counted out our paper plates and then used red markers to color some

red pizza sauce. A variety of markers were used including these

pipsqueak markers from Crayola.

Our students are spending more time engaged with scribbling and

we are very excited about their progress!

Time to add the cheese—-some shredded yellow paper which looked pretty realistic so we did have to remind some of them that it was paper :).

Eye hand coordination skills are addressed during this activity. Also, strengthening is addressed while squeezing the glue onto the plate.

The math access point of indicating a desire for more of an object is addressed.

Can’t forget the pepperoni!

Our circle cutters work great for making perfect pepperoni pieces and our students really like using them.

Identifying a 2-dimensional shape is a math access point.

Each student counted how many pieces of pepperoni they put on their pizza.

This addressed the math access point of showing one-to-one correspondence.

Time for some pizza.

YUM! YUM!

Language Group—-Letter G

We used our thumbs to Guide our dog.

Go dog Go!

Then we Gathered some Green Grapes using our tongs to

Grab them.

Got to count them as well, to address math access

points:)

Next we Glued 2 black foam circle eyes and 1 black oval mouth on a paper plate.

The texture of the foam was very helpful for our student with a visual impairment.

Then we tore some paper streamers,

Glued them on to the back of the plate to make a……

Ghost!

Good job!

We played Cara’s sound game and listened for some G sounds.

Great fun!

And we finished by looking at some of the

G words we found today.

What an awesome week! Please come

back again, Group by Group.

Oct7

Habitat book

Posted on October 7, 2012 by jd785

Habitat book

The Unique theme this month is habitats, so we decided to base our sensory and fine motor groups on different kinds of animal habitats. After “reading” the title of the book with a voice output device, we went through some of the different animals in varying habitats. We asked the question “where are habitats?” before the students answered “habitats are everywhere” using the voice output. It was so neat to look at the pictures and then have the habitats to explore in our sensory group and the students really enjoyed themselves.

Here is a link to the book: Habitats Are Everywhere

(Here is an extra book that I had written last year but does not have a repetitive line. It’s a rhyming book that also goes over animals and their habitats: Habitat Sweet Habitat )

Oct7

Animal Habitats and the Letter F

Posted on October 7, 2012 by jd785

Animal Habitats and the Letter F

This week our Language Group looked at words that start with the letter F. Our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups learned about animal habitats which tied into this month’s Unique Curriculum theme.

Sensory Group—Animal Habitats

We started out in the rainforest. Joy twist tied some green garland, curling ribbon, and twisted paper strips to a black umbrella to make the rainforest “canopy”. We added jungle sounds to a voice output device, a water mister, and a stuffed monkey.

Simple idea but very effective—our students were enchanted! We prompted them to activate the voice output device then brought the rainforest over their heads. They got soooo excited when it was their turn!

Pressing the voice output device after cessation of the sounds addresses the math access point of indicating a desire for more of an action or object.

Had to put another picture in…. our students are just so cute!

We couldn’t get the shot but she was using the monkey to

activate the voice output device—could that be any

more adorable 🙂

From the rainforest to the arctic tundra!

We used about 5 boxes of instant tapioca granules which look just like snow crystals. They have an interesting, slightly coarse feel. We put in a polar bear and some white felt bunnies which blended into the background—just like they do in the arctic! Our letter A’s being different colors really contrasted well.

This box addresses visual discrimination skills. It also addresses the math access point of one to one correspondence—counting 2 bunnies and 1 polar bear.

Our desert box had the letter D, sand, rocks, snakes,

scorpions, and lizards.

Again lots of opportunities to count things and to

compare the different properties of the

soft sand and hard rocks.

The forest/woodland box was filled with pine cones,leaves and moss. Since it was a larger box we put in a large letters F and W, along with a variety of little animals to find hidden in it.

Using the finger puppets addresses bilateral coordination as the student places them on their fingers and also finger individuation as they animate the animals.

Comparing the differing colors of the leaves and differing textures the other materials addresses the science access point of comparing objects by observable properties.

We looked at a soil habitat next (using our coffee grounds for the dirt).

Its strong aroma immediately engages the students! It contained

some spiders, bugs, worms, and centipedes.

Our students loved running their fingers through the soil

and glimpsing the word “soil” taped to the bottom of the box.

Of course, it was also so much fun to pick up and examine all the different bugs to be found hidden in the soil.

Pincer grasps are promoted when picking up the small animals and math access points are addressed when counting them.

Green jello made an excellent swamp habitat for our frogs

and gators!

The cold jello added another sensory dimension and

allowed us to discuss the science access point of

recognizing materials as warm or cold and also the

science access point of recognizing objects that are

identical to each other when counting the frogs.

Some students were a little hesitant to touch this cold and wet material….

…..but others dived right in 🙂

Hands were rinsed in our pond habitat. We used

“Into the Wild” body wash from Bath and

Bodyworks—it seemed perfect for our habitat

theme!

Grasping skills were promoted while

reaching for the floating fish or ducks.

In addition, one to one correspondence and the

concepts of large and small which are math

access points.

We finished with some banana scented lotion (yes banana scented lotion, can you believe it!) we found at World Market.

Our students loved the aroma and feeling it rubbed on their arms—or back of the neck, for students who do a lot of hand exploration.

A lovely scent to help us remember all the wonderful animal habitats we visited today.

Fine Motor Group—Animal Habitats

We started as usual by reading Cara’s book and using the voice output device to help read the repetitive line.

On Tuesday we jumped like rainforest monkeys in the sensory room.

What a fun way to get some proprioceptive and vestibular input which is so important for our students to help build body awareness and gross motor skills.

Then we came back to the classroom and began our

art project—-paper plate fish!

We counted out our plates as they were handed out

and we discussed the plates color (white) and

circular shape.

Then we cut out a triangle shape using our adaptive

scissors. Discussing the different shapes addresses

the math access point of recognizing

two-dimensional shapes.

Joy twist tied some bubble wrap to handled pot scrubbers (these things make the best adaptive art tools) and we stamped our fish—lots of fun!

Then we added one great big googlie eye!

Pincer grasp, finger isolation skills are

addressed here in addition to visual

spatial relations and math concepts.

TA DA! Ok, we realize you don’t really see the fish but this was such a great picture we had to put it in. Their TA DA moment if very important to our students as you can see 🙂

On Thursday we made some turtles.

We started by counting out our poster board turtles and then our

egg carton shells—working on the math access point of rote

counting yet again 🙂

We asked our students to put the shells ON TOP of the turtles,

addressing spatial concepts and eye hand

coordination.

While the adults hot glued the shells to the bodies, our students put on their paint shirts—working on dressing skills.

Then we painted the little turtles. Using the brushes

gives our students practice with writing tools and

addresses eye hand coordination.

They really got into this!

Isn’t this awesome, our own little pond habitat—

we LOVE it!

Language Group—Letter F

First we used our Fingers to operate the Fan—-

which blew air into our Faces.

Can you see that dimple, just too cute 🙂

Then we Found Five Fish with different Features.

YIKES, we didn’t get a picture of all the fish but to give you an idea: a Fantail one from a Fishing game, a Fat ball shaped one, a Felt one, a water squirter that blew Fresh air.

We dropped them into a Fishbowl, addressing eye hand coordination and the math access point of rote counting.

Our Favorite was the Fidgity Fish —it vibrated!

Lots of sounds were Found while playing

Cara’s latest sound game.

We had a Fiesta to say Farewell to

Ms. Robin’s Fabulous intern Julie.

And Finished by using a Funnel to help

get the salsa back in the jar.

Some of the F words we Found today!

Join us again for more fun and learning next week, Group by Group.

Sep30

Hispanic Heritage Month Book

Posted on September 30, 2012 by jd785

Hispanic Heritage Month Book

This week we are celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by looking at different people and things which have been created by people in the Hispanic culture. While reading the book, the question “what should we do?” was asked to the students to which they responded with the voice output device, “celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month”. We had a fun time looking at all of the different colorful pictures, especially the food picture. Ironically, on one of the days of our group, the cafetoria had quesadillas! Muy bien!

Here is a link to the book: Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month

Sep30

Hispanic Heritage and Letter E

Posted on September 30, 2012 by jd785

Hispanic Heritage and Letter E

Hola, everyone! This week our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups celebrated hispanic heritage month. Our Language Group looked at words that start with letter E.

Sensory Group—Hispanic Heritage

Cara’s book focused on many aspects of hispanic culture including famous people with hispanic heritage. Our students loved it!

Hispanic culture is so colorful and so was our

first box! We filled it with flowers and paper

streamers just like a fiesta. We also put some

plastic fruit to remind us of Cesar Chavez

who fought for farm workers rights. We

put in Dora the Explorer stickers, magnets

from places with hispanic names, a gavel for

Sonia Sotomayer a supreme court judge, and a voice output device with a snippet of one of Selena Gomez songs. So many cool things to talk about. In addition to the wonderful opportunities to increase language this box addresses the social studies access point of recognizing people from diverse backgrounds make contributions.

Severo Ochoa won the Nobel prize for synthesizing RNA (riboneucleic acid). These springs (found at the junk store) looked similar to its shape.

As these springs move around they are very eye catching and look at this smile—beautiful 🙂

This box addresses the science access point of tracking objects up and down.

Our next box contained cornmeal which reminded

us of yummy foods like tacos and tortilla chips.

This stuff is so much fun to sift and run fingers

through and discover the letter H for hispanic

heritage.

Another nod to hispanic cuisine with our box of dried pinto beans. This box gives our students a wonderful opportunity to practice their scooping skills…..

….and develop tactile discrimination as the

individual beans touch their fingers.

Oscar de la Renta uses fabric to make beautiful clothes. This box had lots of different textures to compare and contrast. Some of our students used them to make their own fashion statements 🙂

We placed pairs of fabrics in the box to address the access point of recognizing objects that are identical to each other.

Some dried lentils in a water bottle made a wonderful

noisy maraca.

Bilateral functions are addressed as

the students move the bottle from hand to hand.

We have found that hot glueing the lid prevents

accidents 🙂

We made some finger paint to honor painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

We used a free coloring page and let our students explore the interesting texture. So much fun to squish around! The difference between the dry paper and the wet finger paint helps our students with the access point related to distinguishing between objects that are wet and objects that are dry.

Then we rinsed our hands in grape scented water—

remembering Delores Huerta who co-founded

the National Farm Workers Association. We

used some inexpensive bubble bath from the

dollar store and it had a really strong scent to

which our students really responded.

We finished with some orange scented lotion and discussed Spain where many hispanic ancestors came from. As we rubbed the lotion on their hands, our students were given the opportunity to indicate a desire for more or no more addressing math access points.

Fine Motor Group—Hispanic Heritage

On Tuesday we practiced hitting the pinata (hanging bolster) in the sensory room—what a great activity for bilateral coordination and crossing midline.

We had so much fun with the maraca in our

sensory group and we had to make more!

We started by picking out ONE egg—

addressing one to one correspondence.

Then we scooped ONE scoop of dried beans into our egg. Holding the egg with one hand and scooping with the other addresses bilateral functions.

What a nice job shown in this picture, although most of our students needed some help….. And in case you are wondering, not all our students stopped at one—a couple dove in with both hands and beans went flying everywhere 🙂

The adults placed masking tape around the egg then

taped on two plastic spoons—which we counted

out, of course!

Next we colored the eggs with markers to make them bright and colorful.

TaDa—these were a HUGE hit. The students loved

shaking them and laughing as we tried singing

La Cucaracha.

We had the best time 🙂

On Thursday we made some ponchos out of grocery bags (we saw this on the Family Fun website). We precut the opening for the head and the slits up the sides and then had our students practice writing their names on the back.

Then we flipped them over and began decorating the ponchos. We used Crayola’s pipsqueak markers which are easy for our little hands to hold.

We used our adaptive scissors to make fringe

Making multiple cuts addresses the math access

point of recognizing the next step in a sequence.

Completely awesome poncho,

don’t you think!

Can our students possibly get any cuter 🙂

Language Group—letter E

We brought back our Edible cornmeal and had fun tracing the letter E.

Then we strung some Enormous beads—-two beads

for Each student!

Next we Explored the contents of this bag…..

…..and Extracted an

Elephant!

Time to decorate an Egg. We used Eggplant colored Elbow macaroni—giving us an Excellent opportunity to work on our pincer grasp.

And here it is …….

an Elegant Egg!

Everybody got an opportunity to play Cara’s sound game….so Exciting!

We finished as usual by looking at some of the wonderful

E words we found today.

Adios for now, join us next week Group by Group!

Sep24

Pirates and the Letter D

Posted on September 24, 2012 by jd785

Pirates and the Letter D

Our theme was Pirates for our Sensory and Fine Motor groups and our Language Group looked at the letter D. We had so much fun with the pirate theme and everyone got into the action—even Jeannie

Our own pirate queen 🙂

Sensory Group—Pirates

Ahoy matey’s there be pirates, arrgg 🙂 After reading Cara’s book we looked at our first box. It was filled with so much fun pirate stuff. We put in a bunch of “parrot” feathers,

an eye patch, hook, black pompoms, a shipwreck……

(left from a long gone aquarium), spanish moss,

and a variety of pirate figures including

Winnie the Pooh!

And one more super cute picture

—-how could we possibly resist 🙂

X marks the spot in our moon sand!

The moon sand is quite dense and you have to press fairly hard to get an impression, work on hand intrinsic strengthening.

A weighted ball made a great stand in for a cannon

ball (and was fairly close to life size). Lots of rope

on pirate ships so we had to add some of course!

Concepts of heavy and light were explored in this

box. This addresses math access points including

recognizing common 3 dimensional objects

(spheres) and comparing the weight of objects.

We taped a treasure map and some gold coins to the bottom of this box then filled it with some black beans. This addresses cause/effect—as the beans are moved, the coins appear.

In addition, numeric concepts are addressed as the coins are counted.

We continued to talk about the color black with our

pirate playdough. We used lots of black food

coloring to get the color right, then added some

sparkly pirate gold glitter. It was just so COOL

looking! Pressing the bone shaped cookie cutter

addresses hand strengthening.

Treasure found (gold mardi gras beads)! We found this old “treasure chest” that was perfect. The gold beads were so eye catching and so much fun to grab one— or a handful, arggg 🙂

We put some tonic water and a little green food

coloring into our oobleck to make some

swamp water.

Then we turned the lights out, brought out

the black light—-GLOWING swamp water!

This addresses the science access point of

recognizing that the appearance of an object

or material has changed.

Then we rinsed our hands in some Bath and Body Works Ocean scented water and rubbed our hands with the lotion.

Fine Motor Group—Pirates

On Tuesday we read Cara’s book and then made some pirate hats! We used our paper cutters to cut out white squares. We discussed that we had to cut 4 sides.

This activity addresses the math access point of recognizing a common object with a two dimensional shape.

We stamped a pirate symbol onto the square. Joy

made the stamp by cutting a skull and cross

bones out of thick craft foam. She used double

stick tape to attach it to a pot scrubber from the

dollar store. It makes a great adaptive art tool!

We counted out our pre-made hats (simply drawn and cut out of craft paper then stapled together). Adults drew glue squares onto the hats and asked the students to put their pirate emblem on top of it.

This addresses eye hand coordination and the math access point of matching one object to a designated space to show one-to-one correspondence.

Ta Da—3 really cute pirates!

Aren’t they just ADORABLE:)

On Thursday we practiced walking the plank in the sensory room. Our plank has a lot of different textures to increase tactile discrimination in addition to addressing gait and balance, of course.

Then we took out a big poster board. We discussed its

rectangular shape and that we were going to paint

it blue.

Then we got to work! Since the poster board was so big, more than one student could paint at the same time—so much fun.

We addressed the math access point of solving problems involving quantities of action using the language “have we used ENOUGH paint?”

While the paint was drying, we took some cotton batting

and tore it apart. The addresses

bilateral coordination and grasp skills.

Next, we took each student and teachers picture and put it on a paper pirate which was then put on a pirate ship (all drawn by Joy).

We counted 10 pirates!

Now the paint has dried its time for The Owl to

set sail. Ahoy matey’s 🙂

Language Group—Letter D

First we played some finger Drums—great for practicing finger isolation!

Next our Dog Devoured some Donuts—-Delicious!!!

We hot glued a plastic shower curtain ring to a

plush dog to make him easy to grasp. Velcro on

the dog and donut (actually a wooden stacking

toy ring) allows the donut to be picked up.

Then we Decorated a Dinosaur! We used markers because they glide easily across the paper and have such vibrant eye catching colors. Our picture was placed on a light box for our student with a visual impairment.

We used a printable from the book Learn to Move, Move to Learn by Jenny Clark Brack (its a great book with so many great ideas for group activities).

TaDa—just Delightful!

Is this a great

picture or what 🙂

Our students did an awesome job with Cara’s sound game—way to go!!

Just a few of the great D words we found today.

Whew what a fun week!

Join us again….

Group by Group

Sep24

Pirate book

Posted on September 24, 2012 by jd785

Pirate book

Arrrrggg mateys! It’s “Talk Like a Pirate” week! The book for this week goes over different things associated with pirates such as a pirate ship, an eye patch, and a parrot. And as we know, pirates say “ahoy” so for the repetitive line we had the students say “I can talk like a pirate–ahoy!” We seem to have a lot of pirates in the making here at school 🙂

Here is a link to the book: I Can Talk Like a Pirate