Tag Archives: country

Mar2

The Colors of my Country Book

Posted on March 2, 2014 by jd785

In lieu of President’s day, we wanted to focus on something patriotic, so we chose to talk about the colors of our country. Each object we talk about has the colors red, white, and blue on it and has something to do with our country. After reading the line on the page, we asked our students, “what are those colors?” and the repetitive line would answer, “colors of my country.” Some of our students labeled the colors they saw on their own. Take a look at the colors of our country, and happy belated President’s day!

Here is a link to the book: Colors of my Country

Mar2

The Colors of my Country

Posted on March 2, 2014 by jd785

The Colors of my Country

We celebrated the colors of our country this week—–between the Winter Olympics and Presidents Day we were in a patriotic frame of mind and thought this theme would be a fun way to finish out the month! Our sensory group boxes were filled with items that were either red, white, or blue. The fine motor group combined the colors to make fun art projects. The language group had fun sorting the colors.

SENSORY GROUP

So many fabulous things to discover in our red box! All sorts of shapes, textures, and things that made NOISE—-especially important for our students with visual impairments. There was paper shred, chenille ribbon, accordion tubes, stuffed animals, and a squeaky toy that was by far the favorite!

As with all our color boxes our students are engaging in the practice of science by exploring, observing, and recognizing common objects in the natural world. They are also exploring properties of matter and addressing the science access point identify common objects by one observable property, such as color.

Our white box had some wonderful textures including feathers, a dusting mitt, and some imitation sheepskin. A lovely soft box to run fingers through. We also put in some pompom yarn that was perfect for shaking and draping!

The practice of science is again addressed as the access point use senses to recognize objects.

This blue box was also filled with more wonderful textures and items to explore. We included some shiny curling ribbon, basket filler, some kitchen scrubbers, and an accordion tube.

As students pulled the accordion tube apart and pushed it back together they worked on bilateral coordination.

Forces and changes in motion were explored while addressing the science access point recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move.

LOOK at the concentration on the students faces—–fabulous!!!!!!

This red moon sand had a great tactile feel and is very moldable. A melon baller helped make it even more fun to explore. Discussing the little spheres that were made addresses the math access point recognize 3 dimensional shapes. Of course, even though it looked like a ball it didn’t quite act the same way——some of the students were quite intrigued when the balls didn’t bounce when dropped!

Exploring, observing, and recognizing common objects in the natural world is an access point related to the practice of science.

White flour filled our next box and it is pretty messy stuff—–we LOVE it! Spoons and scoops of different sizes were included for filling and measuring.

Develop understandings of addition and subtraction strategies are addressed as students solve problems involving small quantities of objects or actions using language, such as enough, too much, or more.

We dyed some navy beans blue for our next box and they turned out really cool! We found the instructions on the Fun and Home with Kids website. Everyone, including the adults, was pretty fascinated by the blue hue! To also go along with this weeks theme, the letters U S A were hidden in the box for our students to find.

Finding the hidden letters addresses visual and tactile discrimination skills.

Forces and changes in motion are explored and the science access point recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move was addressed when playing with the white shaving cream. Since the shaving cream is naturally white, we had to include it as part of this unit!

As usual, our students made a mess and had a blast 🙂

We rinsed our hands in cherry scented water—-cherries are RED after all 🙂 We also put 2 foam puzzle dinosaurs in the water. Since one dinosaur was blue and one was red, colors could be discussed and the science access point identify objects by one observable property is again addressed.

Our students also enjoyed exploring our discovery bottles. One was filled with blue beads and glitter while the other was filled with assorted red, white and blue beads.

As the bottles are turned the motion of objects is explored as the science access point track objects in motion is addressed.

We finished our session with some cherry scented lotion—-yummy! Our students loved the aroma and loved when it was applied to hands, arms, or ears 🙂

Concepts related to the organization and development of living organisms are explored while addressing the science access points recognize and respond to one type of sensory stimuli AND recognize one or more external body parts.

FINE MOTOR GROUP

On Tuesday we started by counting out some grey rectangular paper—–counting the pieces of course! We always ask to the students to sign their names by first identifying theirs from a choice of two. Our students are emergent writers and we encourage them to “write” as we say the letters of their names out loud. Some of them are starting to say their letters along with us and stop writing after we say the last letter!

Using pictures, symbols, gestures/signs, or words to communicate meaning is a language access point related to the writing process.

Next we counted out 3 shapes, asking the students to point to the number 3 using our communication symbols. Then we asked them to point to or touch the circle (all our shapes came from a shape sorter toy).

Recognizing a common object with a two dimensional shape is a math access point. Recognize quantities 1 to 3 using sets of objects or number names is also a math access point.

To complete our art project we stamped blue squares, red circles, and white triangles. We asked our students to identify the paint colors we were using, again using our communication symbols.

The students did a great job stamping the shapes, showing really nice eye hand coordination!

As they stamped, we counted to 3 aloud. We were really excited when some of them stopped stamping when we got to the number 3!

TaDa!!!!

On Thursday we made a color collage. We love doing collages——they are so much fun AND a great way to use up all those odds and ends hanging around the art closet!

In addition to eye hand coordination, pincer grasp skills are also addressed in this activity.

As items are added to the collage changes in matter are explored addressing the science access point recognize a change in an object.

Here’s to the RED, WHITE and BLUE!

TA DA!!!!!!

LANGUAGE GROUP

For our language group, we focused on sorting and answering the question, “what color is it?” Each of our students had a turn putting their hand inside the bag of goodies Joy put together.

There was a lot of reinforcement to not peek 🙂

Once an object had been pulled out, the student had to say what color it was——either red, white, or blue. They could do this either verbally or by pointing to a communication symbol with the different colors.

Communicating information that tells about an object is a language access point related writing applications.

After labeling the color, the student then had to put it in the matching colored basket.

For some of our visually impaired students, we talked about how the object felt. We used adjectives such as bumpy, smooth, soft, and hard.

Our students did a pretty great job with the sorting and identification of colors. They sure do know the colors of their country!

Thanks for joining us again this week, it’s been a lot of fun—–hope you smiled along with us! Join us again next week for more fun and learning Group by Group.

Nov10

Jukebox

Posted on November 10, 2013 by jd785

Jukebox

This was such a great week, our students love music so this was the perfect theme for them! We had fun coming up with sensory boxes that matched the different musical genres for our sensory group. The fine motor group had fun making musical instruments and we had a dance party in the language group!

SENSORY GROUP

These wands that light up when tapped made perfect “drum sticks” (found at Target) for our rock and roll box. Way fun, the sticks were perfect for drumming and the flashing lights reminded us of light shows at a rock concert! Needless to say, these were a huge hit with our students.

Recognizing that pushing and pulling an object makes it move is a science access point. In addition, recognizing the change in the motion of an object—-when the lights stop—is another science access point.

Our classical music box was black and white just like the keys of a piano. We added black beans to white rice to get the effect. A piece of sheet music was taped to the bottom of the box and we put a large letter M inside. Most of our students used their hands to explore the box—-they love the way the rice feels and looks as it shifts around. A few, however, used the large M kind of like a scraper to move large amounts of the rice and beans around.

The science access point of recognizing that pushing and pulling an object makes it move is addressed again with this activity.

As the sheet music and letter M are covered and uncovered the math access point of recognizing when an object is added to or taken away from a situation is addressed.

Our lava lamp discovery bottles were a HUGE hit with our students! One was filled with water, corn syrup, gold glitter, and some plastic jewels. The other was filled with water (tinted purple), green tinted corn syrup, cooking oil, glitter and some beads……

Totally groovy 🙂

The science access point tracking the movement of objects that are pushed or pulled is addressed with these bottles.

There are have been so many fabulous musicals and one of the most popular today is Wicked.

We whipped up some pretty wicked oobleck this week using green food coloring and black glitter. It was pretty thick so it slowly dripped down from fingers and took a little more effort to push aside.

In addition to color identification, the science access point tracking the movement of objects that are pushed or pulled is addressed again.

Opera singers always get roses at the end of the performance so rose seemed the perfect scent to put into our rinsing water. We used rose scented bubble bath we found at Target.

We included 2 different sized scoops to address the math access point of recognizing differences in sizes of containers that hold liquids (capacity).

Solving problems involving small quantities of objects or actions using language, such as enough, too much, or more is another math access point addressed as students pour water from one container to another.

Rap singers like gold chains AND gold records! This box contained some hard gold beads and soft fluffy gold garland. Pretty, sparkly—very eye catching.

Fun to explore, fun to wear 🙂

Sorting objects by an observable property such as texture is a science access point addressed here.

A cookie cutter shaped like a boot, along with cherry scented playdough (we made it with kool-aid) —–perfect for a country music box!

Using just one shape gave the students an opportunity to work on counting, associating quantities with number names addressing math access points.

Of course, playdough is always a great activity for promoting hand intrinsic functions—we OT’s like stuff like that 🙂

We finished the group with some rose scented lotion from Crabtree and Evelyn. This is some pretty strong smelling stuff—you can smell it across the room so it’s VERY memorable!

Recognizing and responding to different types of sensory stimuli is a science access point addressed here.

Communicating a preference for a familiar action such as holding out a hand for lotion is a language access point addressed.

FINE MOTOR GROUP

On Tuesday, after reading the book, Jeannie brought out a real guitar for the students to play. Everybody got a chance to strum the strings and our students loved the sounds they made!

Can you tell that the students totally had a blast 🙂

Sharing objects with a partner and recognizing common sounds are science access points explored here.

For our art project the students made their own guitars! We started by cutting out the words ROCK STAR from a piece of paper—-turning one piece of paper into 2 pieces of paper. These were taped onto our “guitars”

T0 prep the guitars, we flattened paper towel rolls and taped them to the back of these really colorful tissue boxes.

Recognizing a change in an object and applying a push or pull to move an object are the science access points addressed here.

The math access point is associating quantities 1 and 2 with number names.

The words were glued onto the box and then the students were given a choice of stickers to decorate their guitars.

These stickers were little so there were lots of opportunities to practice pincer grasp skills.

Using body movement or nonverbal expression to communicate desires or preferences is a language access point.

Then we asked the students to let us know how many strings (rubber bands) they wanted on their guitars. Putting the strings on the guitar required bilateral coordination and pincer grasp skills. Our students needed varying degrees of assistance for this step.

Again, the language access point using body movement or nonverbal expression to communicate desires or preferences is addressed.

Associating quantities with number names is the math access point addressed.

TA DA!!!

Our rock stars loved their guitars and had a great time making their own music 🙂

On Thursday we continued with our musical instrument theme by making drums! First we tried out a real drum—–so much fun!

The science access points recognizing common objects in the environment and recognizing and responding to common sounds is addressed with this activity.

We started our art project by passing out rectangular pieces of paper and helping our students to identify the colors red and purple using our communication symbols.

Identifying common objects by one observable property, such as color is a science access point.

Recognizing common objects with a two dimensional shape is a math access point.

Then we stamped stars and swirls with the paint. We made handles for the stamps by using double stick tape to affix plastic thread spools—-this worked out really well!

Recognizing that the appearance of an object or material has changed is a science access point.

Then we taped the paper around plastic coffee containers and added some glitter——we never pass up the opportunity to add glitter to a project 🙂

As we are shaking the glitter we are working on the math access point recognizing a movement that reflects a spatial relationship, such as up and down!

We discovered that we needed to let the paint dry BEFORE letting our students play with their drums lol. When they were finally dry, it was time to boogie….

Dum diddy dum diddy dum….

LANGUAGE GROUP

We started the group reading Cara’s book. We have a few students in here who were able to name their friends who were in the book. It was very exciting for them 🙂

After reading the book, we went around with the Go Talk and let the students decide the genre of music they wanted to listen to. We put the pictures that were in the book on the Go Talk to keep it consistent for our students.

Communicating recognition of familiar persons in daily activities and communicating a preference for familiar persons, objects, or actions are language access points addressed.

We then had the students press a switch to activate the All Turn It spinner to see what kind of dance moves they would have to do. The different dance moves were: clap your hands, stomp your feet, spin around, tap your knees, nod your head, wave your hands in the air. We used iTunes for the clips of music, making sure that they were appropriate before we turned them on 🙂

The language access point responding to a technology resource is addressed with this activity.

This was definitely a fun group! Although only one student would pick a genre at a time, everyone had to participate in the dance moves. Some of our students really got their groove on!

Communicating information about familiar actions using non-verbal expression, gestures/signs, pictures, symbols, or words is a language access point addressed.

Hope you enjoyed seeing all the fun we had this week. Join us again next week for more smiles, Group by Group!