Pumpkin Time was the theme for this weeks Sensory and Fine Motor Groups. Our Language Group learned about words starting with the letter I.
Sensory Group—Pumpkin Time
Our orange themed box was a huge hit, our students loved it!
We filled it with a variety of textures such as yarn, tulle, and fabric scraps. We also put in some play food oranges, carrots, and a variety of pumpkins including bean bag and kitchen scrubber ones.!
Shiny beads, soft pompoms and chenille stems added some more contrasting textures. Plastic stretchy tubes were fun to pull apart and added a fun auditory component. And finally some beads, puzzle pieces, toys—
——all with that lovely bright ORANGE color.
So much fun to grab and shake!
Did we say our students LOVED this box? 🙂
‘
This box addresses the Language access
point of responding to familiar objects
and the science access point of
comparing and contrasting
properties of materials.
This little fish shoots puffs of air
when squeezed—–fun 🙂
Of course if you have an orange box, you have to contrast it with a black one. Lots of textured items from headbands, toy bats and furry fabric to window screening and Mr. Potato Head pieces (like his black hat and mustache).
There were a lot of opportunities for promoting bilateral coordination with our stretchy tubes and slinky spirals.
When pulling these items, the science access point of recognizing that pushing or pulling an object makes it move is addressed.
These boxes also address the science access point of exploring, observing, and recognizing common objects in the natural world.
And, of course, if there are sunglasses and
beads in a box, they HAVE to be put on!
Our students can totally rock a
pair of glasses, don’t you think 🙂
As students place objects on and off
themselves they are building body
awareness and spatial concepts.
Continuing our orange and black theme we brought back our black playdoh for one more time!
Its just so sparkly and squishable.
Our cat cookie cutter let us make a bunch of cute black cats.
In addition to addressing the fine motor skills playing with playdough also addresses the science access point of of recognizing a change in an object.
Pumpkin pie spice was added to our orange playdough
and made it smell wonderful.
It was perfect for our pumpkin cookie cutter.
We had a few students who tried to sample the
playdough but for the most part, everyone played
with it appropriately.
The shapes cut out can also be counted as
addressing math access points.
Our orange rice with black beans is just so eye catching—you can’t help putting your hands into it! Fun to practice scooping and also to search for the letter P…..
and a little wooden pumpkin.
Scooping and filling using measuring cups and spoons helps address the math access point of recognizing differences in sizes of containers (capacity).
Fine motor skills of grasp and eye hand coordination are also addressed.
We filled our discovery bottles with karo syrup,
orange food coloring, orange beads, black
glitter and some black cat confetti. Hot
glue does a great job of making sure
they can’t be opened—-some of the
students have very busy little hands 🙂
Following the moving objects addresses
the science access point of tracking
objects in motion.
Finger painting in canned pumpkin puree (decorated with black icing)—what could be more gooey, squishy fun in which to practice prewriting patterns 🙂
Still, it was also wet and a little cold so some of our students who are more tactile defensive dove in a little more slowly.
We rinsed our hands and finished with pumpkin
scented lotion from Bath and Bodyworks.
Everybody left smelling just like yummy
pumpkin pies!
A nice strong scent to help everyone
remember all the wonderful things we
learned today.
Fine Motor Group—Pumpkin Time
Body Sox in the sensory room—-OR an alien visitor? Hmmm
The body sox are so much fun and great for getting some nice proprioceptive input from their stretchy resistance.
On Tuesday after returning to the classroom and listening to Cara’s book we let our students choose a mask. Joy found the masks in a $2 grab bag at Michaels—what a deal! Our students chose from a selection of 3 masks—giving them an opportunity to make choices out of a array of 3 which compares to the format of our state alternate assessment.
Taking the markers out of the bags gave us an opportunity to practice working with zippers. A chenille stem (sturdier than a piece of yarn) makes it easier for some of our students to pull.
Putting the markers in and out of the bag addresses the math access point of recognizing a movement that reflects a spatial relationship.
We used markers to color the masks. Scribbling and coloring are important steps in the prewriting continuum. During the activity we made sure to discuss the colors students chose and the different facial features.
Then we tried them on for size….
On Thursday we read Cara’s book again. Our students had just worn costumes and gone trick or treating at our community health department so it was a real opportunity to address the language access point of communicating recognition of familiar objects.
On to our art project!
We counted out 7 pieces of rectangular, black paper and then 7 potatoes carved to look like little jack-o-lanterns. Each time we count out our materials we are helping develop one to one correspondence.
We took time to look at the potatoes and discuss the face carved into them.
This activity helps build hand grasp skills and eye hand coordination. This potatoes have a little weight to them which gives some nice additional proprioceptive feedback.
How many pumpkins did you stamp? We used our number flip chart to help our students address the math access point of one to one correspondence.
Ta-Da!
Language Group—Letter I
We listened for some I words in
Cara’s sound game.
Next we Inserted legs………Into our Insect.
We used the little bugs from the Cootie game for this activity.
This is a great activity for building bilateral coordination!
Our little Insect Isn’t Icky at all…..
Is he 🙂
We picked up Iguanas with our tongs and put them In a bowl.
Manipulating tongs helps build graded motor control which is necessary to manipulate scissors.
In addition, placing the objects into the bowl addresses eye hand coordination and spatial relationships.
Ivan helped out our students who were unable to manipulate
the tongs.
We adapted him using velcro and a shower curtain ring!
We finished by making down lines (just like the
initial stroke of a letter I) on our Iglo0.
We used our adapted toy for our students who
needed switch access
to participate.
It wasn’t so easy finding I words today but we managed to come up with quite a few of them, didn’t we?
Join us again next week its going to be fun…..
Group by Group 🙂