We’re celebrating Hanukkah this week to keep with the holiday theme of December. We used the same question as last week, “what do we say to our friends?” to which “Happy Hanukkah” is replied. The students especially liked to look at the different food that is eaten during Hanukkah.
The themes this week were Hanukkah for our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups and the Letter N for our Language Group.
Sensory Group—Hanukkah
We learned about Hanukkah by reading Cara’s “Happy Hanukkah” book and then started our explorations!
Our first box contained an assortment of Hanukkah goodies. We used smooth gold mardi gras beads for the “gelt”, soft big chenille stems in the colors of blue and white, small rough gold chenille stems, curly white and blue ribbons—all these allowed us to compare properties of materials (science access points).
Other Hanukkah symbols included the Star of David and dreidel cookie cutters, play food donut, and wooden driedels.
Our students loved exploring this box, the curly ribbons being a particular hit!
In this box, our students looked for
the letter H (for Hanukkah) and the number 8 (for the 8 candles on the menorah) in blue and white rice.
Either scooping or sifting—so much
fun!
Our next box contained some potato flakes (to remind us of latkes).
They have a soft, yet crunchy feel which our students really enjoyed.
A plastic “latke” was fun to find and also use as a scoop. Visual tracking was addressed as the light flakes drifted down.
Our students also enjoyed our pompom
yarn in shades of blue. One of the Hanukkah colors.
So soft and nice to grab a hold of, shake or drape over shoulders.
White (another Hanukkah color) shaving cream, nice and fluffy like the filling of yummy doughnut.
Such fun to swirl around and practice pre writing patterns and letters.
So proud of this young lady, her writing is really improving—look at those perfect letters 🙂
We finished by rinsing hands in vanilla sugar
scented water and then rubbing vanilla sugar
scented lotion—leaving the yummy aroma of
doughnuts wafting through the room.
Happy Hanukkah!
Fine Motor Group—Hanukkah
On Tuesday we started by reading Cara’s book, using our voice output devices for the repetitive line then proceeded to make a handprint menorah.
First, our students chose the color of their paper. To help increase literacy, the color choice cards also have the color names written on them.We discussed its rectangular shape and counted them as we passed them out.
Then we applied paint to both hands. 
Some of our students pressed their
hands into the paint tray, for others
we painted their hands using a foam
brush.
Candles have to have flames and glitter glue is perfect for the task!
Squeezing the glue is great for hand strengthening but glitter glue is really hard to squeeze! For some of our students, we used brushes instead.
Asking the students to place the glue “on top” of the fingers addresses directionality concepts.
We glued on a stand and Ta Da—our
finished menorah.
Such cute little hands!
And don’t you just love this Modernistic approach to the classic menorah!
Adorable!
On Thursday, we read Cara’s book and
again used the voice output device for the repetitive line. We love how much more readily our students are reaching out and anticipating their turn.
After reading the book we began our project—dreidels!
Jeannie saved and cleaned juice cartons. Then inserted a small colorful dowel through the middle.
Cara printed the symbols on blue paper.
We found this idea on a number of websites (some people are so creative!) and adapted it to fit our needs.
We used paper cutters to cut our strip into 4
squares (math access points are just
everywhere!).
These paper cutters work well for cutting
straight lines and our students really have
fun using them.
The symbols were glued to each side—working on hand strengthening and eye hand coordination again!
We also discussed the meaning of each symbol and how the game is played.
Here it is–a fabulous, fun dreidel! 
Happy Hanukkah 🙂
Language Group—letter N
We played with Nuts and bolts. This activity addresses so many hand function skills—–bilateral coordination, grasp patterns, wrist rotation!
Then we practiced finger isolation 
turning on and off the switch to the
Neck massager.
The students loved draping this
around their Neck and shoulders.
Next, we used scissors to snip yarn—Nice cutting!
We glued them onto the bottom of
a rectangular (oh yes we slipped that math access point in!) piece of paper.
Picking up the yarn works on pincer grasp skills.
We didn’t have to be Neat.
Next, more cutting! We cut along the lines of a paint sample. We made sure to Not go off the road.
Paint samples are of a heavier weight card stock that make them easier for beginning cutters. Its also nice that they come in varying widths and pre printed lines.
We used our 3 strips to make a letter N
and used our electric stapler to hold it
together—Nice.
We glued the N into its Nest—Now how about that 🙂
We had fun playing Cara’s sound game. 
There are is always a New sound to listen for. Some of them are Noisy!
Finally, we looked at some of the N words we found today.
Fun, fun, fun this week! Please join us next week as we finish up our holiday unit and learn about the letter M—-Group by Group 🙂
We learned some simple facts about Kwanzaa while reading the book. The question for the repetitive line was “What do we say to our friends?” to which the voice output device was preprogrammed to reply “Happy Kwanzaa!”
Kwanzaa was the theme for our Fine Motor and Sensory groups this week. Our Language group is on the letter M.
Sensory Group—Kwanzaa
Cara’s book helped us learn more about this special holiday and we used the voice output device to wish each other “Happy Kwanzaa”!
Our first box was filled with some of the symbols of Kwanzaa. First, we put in some straw for the woven mats that are used and often made from straw. We also added some plastic fruits and vegetables, some ribbon printed with fruit, a metal cup, red and green blocks, and a little happy family.
In addition to looking at the symbols, our students were able to explore the differing properties of the various materials (a science access point).
Such lovely soft textures in our next box!
Red, black, and green pompoms—Kwanzaa colors.
We also added huge fat chenille stems (found at Joann Fabrics) in the same colors.
The differing shapes and colors but similar textures enabled us to discuss the concepts of same and different which are math access points.
In Cara’s book, we learned about the 7 candles of the Kinara. Since we are not allowed to bring candles to school, we used Wikki Stix (available from a variety of catalogs). It was interesting to watch the different reactions of our students.
Their waxy feel is a very interesting texture and they will also stick to themselves. We again used the colors of Kwanzaa which allowed for some sorting opportunities.
Grains are another symbol of Kwanzaa, and 
we couldn’t decide which we preferred so we used
both corn…..
and oatmeal for our scooping boxes. Our students had fun scooping (strengthening shoulder stability, eye hand coordination, wrist rotation) and finding the letter K—-for Kwanzaa!
We practiced prewriting strokes in applesauce
(one of the fruits of the harvest).
We rinsed our hands in pomegranate and apple scented water and then used similarly scented lotion. A delicious fruity scent to remind us of a happy Kwanzaa!
Fine Motor Group—Kwanzaa
We read Cara’s book to learn about Kwanzaa, our students especially enjoyed the pages discussing the different foods! Then we began our activity.
Joy printed the capital letter O at 48 point size on yellow paper. She then cut the paper in half and trimmed all but one side.
On the untrimmed side a green cutting line was drawn.
Our students used the adaptive scissors
to cut along the line.
Then we flipped the paper over and squeezed some glue along each end.
Squeezing the glue (as usual, we colored our own with food coloring to make it easier for our students to see) works on hand strengthening and eye hand coordination.
We put a toilet paper tube on one end
and rolled it to the other end.
Next, we tore pieces of tissue paper (a nice pre-scissor activity). They were crumpled into balls—or an approximation of a ball 🙂 These were then dipped into glue and affixed to our creation. Have you guessed what we are making?
Ta Da—a corn cob! A vegetable from our
Kwanzaa harvest 🙂
On Thursday, after reading “Happy Kwanzaa” again, we proceeded to make a woven mat which is one of the symbols of Kwanzaa.
We bought 2 vinyl placemats at the dollar store and cut each into 4 pieces to make mini mats. 3 slits were made down the length of the middle.
We found some fabric ribbon at a thrift store. There were a variety of fruits printed on it which went along with our Kwanzaa harvest theme. We pre-wove most of the ribbon and let our students finish pulling the strands through which they really enjoyed.
Grasping the ribbon helps work on pincer grasp skills and following the ribbon as it is pulled through addresses visual tracking. We also discussed the rectangle shape of the placemat and number of ribbons addressing math access points.
After we had finished weaving the ribbon
we trimmed the edges using our adaptive
scissors.
We then used double stick tape to secure
the edges.
And here is our completed Kwanzaa mat, pretty cool!
Language Group—letter M
We started by Making a Magnet Motor Car. Inserting wheels into openings addresses eye hand coordination. Counting the wheels addresses math access points.
Start your Motor—-Make it go! 
Pushing the car to friends encourages
social skills and is so much fun 🙂
Then we used tongs to pick up bananas to feed the Monkey.
Tongs are useful for working on graded motor control and eye hand coordination.
We had our students choose how many
bananas to pick up. This addresses math
skills in addition to practicing making
choices out of group of 3.
For our students with motor issues, we adapted a softie by hot gluing a shower curtain ring to its back and velcro to its mouth. We added velcro to some of the bananas. It works really well!
Next we used Markers to color
Money.
We our so proud of this student,
who used to avoid handling all
writing utensils. Now look at
him 🙂
After coloring, our students cut out their Money and counted it to see how Much they had Made!
One of our students got quite creative and cut his in half to Make More—if only it could be that easy 🙂
We finished our session by playing Cara’s
sound game and looking at some of the
M words we found.
Please join us again next week with more fun Group by Group!
The book this week focused on things that happen on Thanksgiving day, ending with a nap! The repetitive line is the same as the title of the book so the students were asked to “read” the title using the voice output device. The question we asked was “when do we do this?” to which the students answered “on Thanksgiving day”. Happy Thanksgiving!
This week our Sensory and Fine Motor groups had a Thanksgiving theme while the theme for our Language Group was the letter L.
Sensory Group—Thanksgiving
We started our session by reading Cara’s book “On Thanksgiving Day” using the voice output device to say the repetitive line.
Our first discovery box was filled with all sorts of Thanksgiving themed objects such as leaves, felt pilgrim faces, a scarecrow, big and little turkeys, soft orange and yellow yarn, hard gourds AND a plastic turkey leg 🙂
Math access points were addressed when discussing big and little turkeys as well as counting them.
Science access points were addressed comparing the hard gourds with the soft yarn.
Its amazing how much you can fit into one little box!
Our students really enjoyed searching through the box
to find their favorite things. Others got more creative and started dropping leaves on their teachers head as she was bending down to pick something up 🙂
Our harvest mix of beans (reminding us of soup that might be made with Thanksgiving leftovers) contained turkeys and T’s. We were able to work on matching colors in addition to counting.
Finding the letters and turkeys among the beans also addresses visual and tactile discrimination.
The beans were a huge hit in one of our middle school classrooms and as 3 students gathered around the box, one young man made sure to note “look we are sharing”. How sweet!
Our feather boas became soft turkey feathers………..so much fun 
to touch and drape around necks. For some of our students the soft feel of the feathers was especially enchanting.
We were also able to work on some visual tracking by picking up the boas and moving them around.
We picked up this soft pompom yarn in fall colors from Michaels. It reminded us of a soft warm blanket you might use while watching football games on Thanksgiving day.
It was fun to squish while talking about the properties of materials, a science access point.
Our students also enjoyed being draped with the yarn or working on their fine motor skills by pulling the strands up.
The pumpkin pie scented play dough had a wonderfully yummy aroma, 
absolutely delicious but our students resisted the temptation
to sample it 🙂
Hand strengthening was addressed when squeezing the play dough and using our turkey and leaf cookie cutters.
We practiced writing the letter T in sweet potato pie puree, messy but fun!
The texture was a little challenging for our students with tactile issues but most of them at least got a finger in.
And rinsed our hands in Cinnamon Pumpkin (from Bath and Body works) scented water and finished with the lotion to 
bring Thanksgiving memories for the rest of the day.
Between the pumpkin pie playdough, scented water and lotion, it was quite the aromatic delight for lovers of all things pumpkin!
Fine Motor Group—Thanksgiving
On Tuesday we read Cara’s Thanksgiving book. Our students especially loved the pages with food and loved pointing to their favorites. After our story we made a little turkey that Jeannie designed.
First, we colored a an index card brown. As we passed out the index cards we counted them and discussed their shape, addressing math access points.
The index card was then set aside for a moment (after 2 holes were punched in the middle).
Next, we took a pipe cleaner (pre assembled by Jeannie”s
staff using a small pompom, tiny googlie eyes, a small piece
of pipe cleaner, and a small piece of craft foam) and began
stringing folded (with a pre punched hole in the middle
near the fold) cupcake liners.
Our students had so much fun picking out and counting
the colorful liners.
A quick twist of the pipe cleaner secures everything in place. Then the pipe cleaner is threaded through the holes in the index card to give it a base to sit on. A very cute turkey–sorry, no picture of it finished 🙁
On Thursday after reading “On Thanksgiving Day” again, we made pumpkin pies!
First we counted out 4 strips of orange paper for each student. We also counted the brown paper plates as we passed them out.
Our students tore the paper strips into small pieces, dropping
them into their bowl. Tearing the paper addresses bilateral
coordination and is a good pre-scissor skill building activity.
Our students worked on hand strengthening by squeezing glue onto the plate.
Then they practiced their pincer grasps by picking up pieces of torn paper and placing them on the glue.
We presented 3 spices (nutmeg, cloves, and pumpkin pie)
and let our students smell them. After smelling each one they chose their favorite by either pointing or smiling and then got to shake it all over their plates.
Thanks to Laurie B. for this idea. Also the choice of 3 items correlates to our alternate assessment.
With the addition of a dollop of cotton ball “whipped cream” a delicious smelling, low calorie pumpkin pie——YUM!!!!
Language Group—-letter L
We shone a Light to show which puzzle pieces to Lift up. We especially Liked the Lunar moth, Ladybug and Lightning bug!
Holding the wand over the puzzle helps build shoulder stability. Picking up the puzzle pieces addresses following directions and eye hand coordination.
We also counted the puzzle pieces, working on math access points.
Next we Laughed while a squeezing a Little Lion and
shaking a Large Lion.
Squeezing this finger fidget works on strengthening pincer grasp.
We hot glued a shower curtain ring to the Large Lion to make it easier for our students with physically challenges to grasp.
Next each student was given a precut Lion face (drawn by Joy)
and a paper plate.
We counted them as they were passed out and discussed the circular shape of the plate.
Then our students were asked to make a choice of 3 markers to use when coloring both the lion’s face and paper plate.
Our students have different ways of communicating their choices, these include pointing, vocalizing, facial expression, or eye gazing.
For students with physical challenges, Joy attached markers
to a switch toy with velcro. This allows our students to independently color along with their classmates.
Putting the toy in a box lid helps keep the toy contained.
As usual, everyone wanted to use the switch to color also their pictures—and of course we Let them 🙂
After we finished coloring, we glued the pieces together to make a very Lovely Lion!
We finished as usual, by playing Cara’s listening game.
Lots of Laugh’s as usual!
Look at just some of the Lots and Lots of L words found today.
Its sometimes hard to collect all of them for our pictures, as our students really Like to examine them 🙂
What an awesome week! We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and we will see you afterwards for more fun and learning Group by Group!
Since the repetitive line was not something which could be answered, we asked the students to “read” the line using the pre-recorded voice output device. We used a hair dryer when we read about windy weather, we used a rain stick, the thunder drum and turned the lights on and off for a lightning effect when we read about stormy weather, and we used a spray bottle for mist when we read about rainy weather. The kids LOVED all the sounds.
Our theme for the Sensory and Fine Motor groups was Weather. Our Language Groups theme was the letter K.
Sensory Group—Weather
We started by reading Cara’s latest book “What is the Weather?” In addition to our voice output device with the repetitive line, we recorded the sounds of rain and thunder on some of the other devices which our students enjoyed.
Our music department let us borrow a rain stick and a drum that rumbles just like thunder when you shake it! Between using those instruments and turning the room lights on and off quickly, we had quite the thunder storm going on in the room 🙂
Not pictured but also used, were a hair dryer for wind and water spritzed into the air to softly rain down.
After the storm—-out came the rainbow!
Our students loved holding their hands out to “catch” the rainbow. As we moved the light around they were also able to work on visual tracking.
Back came the lights and on to our sensory boxes— we looked for the letter R in rainbow rice. It was so colorful and fun to scoop up with hands or spoon.
We explored the concepts of hard hail (white mardi gras beads) and soft snow (cotton balls). Properties of materials is a science access point.
And finally, we took dry sand and then used our spray bottle to make it wet—science access points again! Our students loved finger painting in the sand, practicing directional pre writing strokes.
Fine Motor Group—Weather
We read Cara’s book about the weather and had an awesome thunder storm! Then it was time to make some clouds.
We started by mixing glue and shaving cream.
Some of our students were very enthusiastic about the mixing part 🙂
Then we used sponge brushes to paint with the mixture.
Ta Da—-clouds! They dry like puffy paint with the coolest spongy texture—wonderful for our visually impaired students.
On Thursday, we read Cara’s book and had yet another thunderstorm. So fun! Then, we proceeded make windsocks.
We started with a rectangle (math access point) of wallpaper—we just love those wallpaper sample books!
The paper was inserted into a 3 hole punch and our students really enjoyed operating the lever. Actually, only 2 holes are needed but this hole punch is easier for our students to use.
Next, our students chose how many crepe paper streamers to add. Some of them chose 1 and then realized they wanted more which gave us the opportunity to work on addition!
The streamers were then glued to back of the paper.
While the adults taped the rectangle into a tube, our students chose the color of yarn they wanted to use as a hanger.
Once again, we are giving our students an opportunity to practice choosing from an array of 3 which is the format used on the alternate assessment.
Our students got the opportunity to practice lacing skills by pulling the yarn through 2 of the holes. To make it easier, we wrapped tape around the ends of the yarn.
Lacing addresses bilateral coordination and eye hand coordination.
For even more fun, we brought out the hairdryer and watched them flutter around.
Language Group—letter K
We pulled apart two love bugs and let go so they could Kiss. This toy helps work on shoulder stability, grasp and release skills.
These bugs were the bees Knees!
Next we worked with a shape sorter. We had to match the right Key to unlock the shape. This activity addressed visual spatial skills, wrist rotation and lateral pinch grasp.
It was really Kind of fun!
Then we cut out a Kangaroos that Joy drew onto index cards.
For our more advanced cutters, the outline was highlighted in yellow. Our students with more emergent skills simply snipped straight lines along the sides.
Joy drew two tiny Kites as visual cues for the hole punch (great for strengthening hand intrinsics).
Insert two fingers into the holes…
and your Kooky Kangaroo can Kick a ball with Knobs!
This activity works on separation of the sides of the hand and finger individuation. And, of course, the fun factor is pretty high 🙂
We finished by playing Cara’s latest listening game…
and looking at all the K words we found today!
We all had so much fun this week, please join us again for more excitement Group by Group!
For this book, we asked the students “What do you think about the fair?” as the question for the repetitive line. When we read about the petting zoo, the students who were holding the finger puppets would hold them up. This helped with identifying animals.