November 10 was National Sesame Street Day and the show’s 50th anniversary—–how cool is that!!!! Our sensory groups explored boxes dedicated to some of the shows characters. The fine motor groups made projects with circles and the language group made a tasty treat!
SENSORY GROUP
Abby Cadabby is cute pink character, so we used pink sand for her box. Between its eye catching color and soft texture, this box was a huge hit with the students!
A scoop and sifter made for fun explorations.
Science access point: track a falling object.
Oatmeal with some black bean “chocolate chips” made a perfect Cookie Monster box.
There were 3 play food cookies to find!
Science access point: match objects by an observable property, such as shape, and color.
There were numbers to find in our box dedicated to The Count.
We put them in a box of lentils which were really fun to run fingers through!
Math access point: associate quantities with number names.
The students had fun making Grover’s face in a box of blue moon sand. Of course, there were some Picasso versions 🙂
We also included some scooping tools.
Science access point: recognize one or more external body parts.
Our chenille stems are just like the colorful stripes in Bert and Ernie’s shirts.
The students had fun wrapping the chenille stems around the toys or themselves 🙂
Science access point: recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move.
Shaving cream was tinted Big Bird Yellow!
The students pushed the yellow shaving cream and a yellow Big Bird figure around a yellow tray—when we go with an idea, we go all the way 🙂
Science access point: apply a push to move an object.
Oscar the Grouch and Elmo bobbed along in water this week.
We found a cute little garbage can that made a perfect scoop!
Math access point: recognize differences in sizes of containers that hold liquids.
Bath and Body Works hot cocoa lotion left our students smelling like yummy chocolate chip cookies.
Thankfully Cookie Monster wasn’t around 🙂
Science access point: recognize and respond to one type of sensory stimuli.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
On Tuesday the students made Elmo!
First, they identified a circle and the color red.
Science access point: identify objects by one observable property, such as color.
Math access point: recognize objects with two-dimensional shapes.
Then, they painted their plates!
Science access point: recognize a change in an object.
Next, eyes, a mouth, and a nose were added.
Math access point: match one object to a designated space to show one-to-one correspondence.
Ta DA!
It’s Elmo!
On Wednesday we made some paper plate cookies!
First, we identified the shape of the paper plate.
Math access point: identify objects by one observable property, such as color.
Then, the students chose how many chocolate chip circles they wanted to cut out using a circle punch. They could choose to cut 3, 4, or 5.
We discussed that these circles were SMALL and the paper plate was LARGE.
Math access point: associate quantities with number names.
The small circles were set aside while the students painted their plates.
Science access point: recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move.
Next, they glued their chocolate chips on to their plates.
Math access point: recognize when an object is added to a situation.
TA—-chocolate chip—– DA!!
Hey Cookie Monster……….we’ve got the cookies!
LANGUAGE GROUP
We made a treat that we think Cookie Monster would really love to have. Here’s the recipe that we used: Let’s Make A Chocolate Chip Cookie Shake
We started out by talking about how the ice cream felt COLD. Then we PUT 6 cups of ice cream in the BLENDER. Our students had to indicate that they wanted to HELP.
Science access point: recognize objects or materials as warm or cold.
Next, we had to count out 8 chocolate chip cookies and we PUT those in the BLENDER.
We then added some milk. Our students observed that one milk carton equals one cup of milk!
We PUT in a little bit of vanilla extract and then PUT in one cup of frozen cool whip.
Each student got to HELP TURN on the blender by pressing the wireless switch. Our blender was super full, so this took a minute 🙂
Once the milk shake was SMOOTH, each student had to request that they WANTED some. If they were not given enough, they had to request MORE.
These were pretty delicious!
Join us again next time for more fun and learning——–Group by Group!
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