Our groups went on Safari this week! Cara’s sister, who lives in Africa, sent us her actual safari pictures for our book—-how cool is that!
Sensory Group
If you are going on safari you are probably going to have to ride on an airplane to get there and when you ride on an airplane you can hear engine sounds and feel the engine vibrate.
Our vibrating tube gave us those same sensations. The tube is bendable and soft—-nice to cuddle with or wrap around your neck!
Our students loved it!
This addresses the science access point of recognizing and responding to one type of sensory stimuli.
When you are on safari you want to SEE the animals, not have them see you—-that’s why you might want to wear camo clothing!
We mixed brown, green, red and white dried beans and peas to make our camo box. It turned out pretty cool! Â Beans are always popular with our students, they particularly like burying and uncovering things in them. This week we put in a large letter S for “safari” for them to find.
2 different sized scoops were also included to add to the fun.
This activity helps build tactile discrimination and visual figure ground skills. Â It also addresses the math access point of recognizing differences in the sizes of containers.
I
t is especially fun if you are also wearing a camo hat 🙂
Our jungle box was filled with green shredded paper, raffia, chenille yarn vines, and green silk leaves. We put in a globe, wooden sun cut out, a little jeep, a variety of toy zoo animals you might see on safari and an old camera—-perfect for taking pictures of all those cool animals.
So much to talk about and vocabulary to learn!
Speaking of animals, some of them had buttons that when pushed made the animals growl. We have used these before and they are always very popular—-great for promoting finger individuation!
For our students who have significant physical disabilities—its always great to have a friend help you out 🙂
This activity addresses the language access point of responding to new vocabulary that is introduced and taught directly.
It also addresses the science access point of recognizing and responding to common sounds AND the science access point of sharing objects with a partner—-so sweet!
Our tiger pom poms are so bright and so very eye catching. Different colors and sizes—perfect for comparing and contrasting!
Lots of access points can be addressed with these colorful spheres including the science access point of recognizing 2 objects that are identical to each other …..and the math access points recognizing a common 3 dimensional objects and recognizing similarities and differences in the size of objects.
Is this a great box or what!!!!!
Colorful feathered birds are always a part of any safari! This box contained a variety of feather boas—-perfect for wrapping around you or shaking—-so soft and fluffy! We got these at the dollar store around halloween and totally got our money’s worth of fun out of them 🙂
The science access point of identifying common objects by one observable property—in this case color.
Uh oh—-beware of quick sand!!!!!
We added water to some cornmeal mix to make our quick sand and were pretty happy with the results.
As you can tell by our students expressions, this was some weird feeling concoction but they couldn’t resist sticking their hands right back in again and again—trying to figure it out—what inquisitive little scientists we have!
This activity addresses the science access point of exploring, observing and recognizing objects in the natural world.
The language access point of using body movement or nonverbal expressions to communicate preferences—-NAILED 🙂
We finished by rinsing our hands using Into the Wild by Bath and Body Works scented water—it had a really nice aroma but we suspect nothing like what the “wild” actually smells like ha ha.
Banana scented lotion that we found at World Market was the perfect finishing touch to help us remember our safari fun!
This activity addresses the science access points of recognizing one way people use water and recognizing and responding to one type of sensory stimuli.
Fine Motor Group
On Tuesday for our art activity we made tiger masks!
We started by cutting, using our adaptive scissors, 3 strips of paper in half—to make 6 tiger stripes.
Cutting the paper addresses the science access point of recognizing a change in an object.
The stripes were glued onto our tiger mask. Prior to the activity, staff cut out eye holes in an orange paper plate (found on clearance after halloween—-score!) and glued a paint stick to the back. As we passed the masks out, we discussed their circular shape, of course 🙂
We asked the students to touch their noses and then gave them 1 black triangle nose to glue onto their masks. Then 2 orange ears were glued onto the head.
Eye hand coordination and spatial relations are addressed with this activity. Lots of math access points are addressed including recognizing common objects with 2 dimensional shapes and associating quantities with number names.
The science access point of recognizing one or more external body parts was also addressed.
Better watch out for tigers—-
GRRRRRR!!!!
On Thursday we read Cara’s book again, practicing passing the voice output to our neighbor for their turn. This addresses the science access point of sharing objects with a partner. For our art project, we continued our safari theme by making some monkey puppets.
First we passed 1 large brown circle to each student. They used our paper cutters to cut them in half—making semi circles!
These were then glued onto a paper lunch bag.
This activity addresses the science access point of recognizing a change in an object. It also addresses the math access points of recognizing a 2 dimensional shape and recognizing parts of whole objects.
Of course, it also promotes eye hand coordination and spatial relations.
We used our large hole punch to cut 2 brown circles for our monkey ears, which were glued to the top of the bag.
Then the finishing touch—2 big googlie eyes!
This activity addresses the science access point of recognizing a change in an object (as the circles are punched) and recognizing external body parts.
It also addresses math access points including matching one object to a designated space to show one to one correspondence and associating quantities 1 and 2 with number names.
Putting on those little googlie eyes also gives our students an opportunity to practice their pincer grasp skills.
Ta Da—-what cute little monkey puppets!
Language Group
We started out this week with Cara’s book. Although reading the book is new to this group, our students have been doing an EXCELLENT job of pressing the voice output device and sharing it with their friends.
As we read the book and use the voice output device (in all our groups) we address the language access point of listening for informative purposes (ex. following prompts, cues).
The book led us into our own safari. Â We put 7 different animals (a combination of plush and plastic ones) on the table. Â We asked the students to use their binoculars to find the different animals—-while wearing a super cool safari hat!
This activity addresses the science access point of recognizing a familiar objects enlarged by magnification.
It also addresses the language access point of responding to new vocabulary that is introduced and taught directly.
After finding an animal, they had to match the animal up with a picture symbol of the animal. We used the carrier phrase “I see a ___” so the students could fill in the blank with the animal that they had seen. We used the PIXON communication board symbols for “I” and “see” to work on identifying different PIXON picture symbols.
This addresses the language access point of communicating about a selected object using pictures/symbols/words.
    Pretty cool!
With our safari over, it was feeding time to feed the monkeys 🙂
We gave each student 3 bananas and counted as they were put into the monkey’s mouth one at a time—physically assisting our students as needed.
The activity promotes grasp skills and eye hand coordination.
In addition the math access points of recognizing when an object is added to a situation and recognizing quantities 1 to 3 using sets of objects.
What a great week, we had so much fun going on safari! Join us again next week—-we promise to bring lots to discover plus smiles, fun and learning—-Group by Group!
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 🙂
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!
So, this week, you can try moving like animals would move.
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.
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.
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