Our students are learning about transportation in their Unique Curriculum units this month and we thought a virtual trip would go perfectly with this unit. Soooo many choices, but for this trip we decided London would be a perfect destination!
Our sensory groups had fun exploring boxes with lots of British flair. The fine motor groups made colorful art projects and the language group “traveled” on a scavenger hunt.
SENSORY GROUP
Time to get on the plane! We recorded the phrase “fasten your seat belts” and the sound of a jet taking off on our voice output device. Our vibrating tube added to the feeling of being on a plane and was a huge hit with our students.
Recognize and respond to different types of sensory stimuli is a science access point.
——–did we mention how much fun the vibrating tube was 🙂
This British flag banner made for lots of fun draping and waving! We also included a little souvenir teddy bear, wearing his own little British flag vest—-super cute and huggable!
Associate an object, picture, or symbol with a location is a social studies access point.
Filled with red, white, and blue paper shred this box included things tourists might see while visiting London. There were play figure people, some “crown jewels”, and London souvenirs such as a GIANT pencil!
We included some transportation vehicles like a plane, cars, and of course the ultimate symbol of London transportation—-the double decker bus!
The science access point recognize a model of a real object is addressed here.
Trains are another great way to travel around London. There were 3 letter “L”s to find and a little train to chug through this box of tea. There was also a map of the London Underground to find at the bottom of the box.
Recognize a method of transportation is a social studies access point.
The Tower of London is a must for any tourist. Our students made their own replica’s using our grey Floam. They really had fun with this. Since we didn’t have a British flag, we laminated a picture of one and used an unsharpened pencil as the flag pole—-it worked pretty well!
The social studies access point associate an object, picture, or symbol with a location is again addressed with this activity.
Red and blue glitter made for some pretty colorful oobleck—-and represented the colors of the British Flag.
Recognize that pushing or pulling an object makes it move is a science access point.
Hands were rinsed in our Calgon “english garden” scented river Thames. Roses are a symbol of Britain and lots of rose bushes can be found all over London! There was a little river boat for cruising down the river. We also included a little teapot and cup—–for tea time, of course!
Recognize differences in sizes of containers that hold liquids (capacity) is a math access point.
We used Crabtree and Evelyn rose scented lotion to finish our group and leave our students with a great olfactory memory of our trip! This lotion had a strong aroma that really got the students attention and as usual, we asked them to show us where they wanted the lotion.
Recognize external body parts is a science access point.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
On Tuesday our students made their own Crown Jewels! We used these pre-made crown shapes purchased at the thrift store.
We started by asking the students to pick a crown and then identify it’s color using communication symbols.
Identify objects by one observable property, such as shape, or color is a science access point.
Then they used a large brush to spread some glitter glue over their crown. The glitter glue didn’t add as much sparkle as we had hoped but still worked as glue 🙂
The science access point apply a push to move an object is addressed here.
Those crowns needed some jewels and a few old spice jars worked pretty well as confetti and sequin shakers.
Recognize a change in an object is a science access point.
Ta DA—-
their royal majesties!
On Wednesday our students made a fabulous travel poster! It was a pretty quick and easy project but it turned out really cute.
They started by using the adaptive tabletop scissors to cut squares from black paper.
Recognize an object with a 2-dimensional shape is a math access point.
After they glued their photo to a square we told them it was time to “get on the bus” and glue themselves onto the double-decker bus!
Placing their photos on the squares addresses the math access point match one object to a designated space to show one-to-one correspondence.
TA DA—-Lets visit London!!!!
LANGUAGE GROUP
Since Unique was all about traveling, we decided to do a “travel” scavenger hunt with our language group using all of the different locations that were in our book.
Before our group, we went around and put pictures of the different London sights from the book all around school, making sure that they were located in places that were familiar to our students. We took a picture of each of the locations as well.
In order to travel to each London sight, our students had to look at the picture of the location in the school and help us find WHERE it was. Our students could use gestures to point to where we should go or they could use verbalizations to tell us where it was (library, clinic, etc.).
When our students found each London sight, they had to verbalize the word LOOK in order to get the attention of the class…..
……or indicate LOOK using a picture symbol provided.
It was so much fun and we found that some of our students have a great ability to navigate around our school!
We had such a great time traveling to London this week! We will be out next week for Thanksgiving but come back in December for more fun and learning——Group by Group!