The Fair is coming to town so it was the perfect theme for our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups. We made a little change this week and have renamed our Alphabet Group. It is now called the Language Group, to more accurately reflect its emphasis. In our Language Group, we are on letter H.
Sensory Group—Fun at the Fair
While the sounds and aroma of popcorn (thanks Ms. B) wafted through the air, we read Cara’s book “We’re Going to the Fair”. Our students enjoyed munching the popcorn while listening to the story. In addition to our voice output device, we added some finger puppet props that Nancy made.
After we finished the story, we started to explore our sensory boxes. Our students sifted through yellow cornmeal to look for cow and sheep puzzle pieces as well as the letters S and C.
The cornmeal has the most lovely soft, silky feel and our students really enjoyed it.
We looked for animals from the petting zoo in some hay. It had a really different texture from the cornmeal!
We turned off the lights while our students played with some of our lighted toys. There are lots of moving lights on the rides and booths at a fair.
The toy pictured here is activated by a little button that is helpful for working on isolated thumb movements.
This next one was a lot of fun. It is a spinning top that not only lights up but has siren like noises that are similar to those heard on the rides. As the top moved around the table, it allowed the students to work on visual tracking.
The lights came back on and we talked about all the different booths you might see at the fair. In some of them, you might pick up rubber ducks or knock down bowling pins to win a prize. You might win a sparkly necklace or a cuddly teddy bear. You might go into a fun house and look at yourself in a mirror.
Our students really enjoyed sifting through the various objects to find their favorites. It also gave us the opportunity to discuss properties of the materials (a science access point).
Soft easter basket stuffing made for perfect cotton candy. It came in a variety of delicious colors and was so much fun to pull apart while working on bilateral skills.
Some of our students “made” cotton candy by squishing cotton balls, water and blue food coloring. This is a great activity for strengthening hand intrinsics. When finished, it really does resemble cotton candy!
We also double bagged samples of our sensory boxes for our students with problematic oral exploration issues to allow them to safely explore the materials.
Finally, we rinsed our hands in water with a delicious vanilla sugar scent and finished with vanilla sugar scented lotion so we could all leave smelling like yummy funnel cakes and remember our visit to the fair!
Fine Motor Group—Fun at the Fair
On Tuesday, we started by reading Cara’s book and using the adorable finger puppets Nancy made. Finger puppets are wonderful for working on finger individuation and placing them on/off addresses bilateral skills.
After we finished the story, it was time to make cotton candy!
We started with a poster board rectangle glued to a popsicle stick and some cotton balls. We discussed the shape of the poster board and cotton balls (math access points).
Our students chose an ink color from a choice of 3 ( giving them practice for choosing from an array of 3 in our states alternate assessment)….
then we dabbed our cotton balls onto the stamp pad. This step works on pincer grasp and eye hand coordination skills.
Then we glued the cotton balls onto the poster board. Counting the cotton balls as they are placed addresses math access points.
Next we sprayed water and food coloring onto the cotton balls to make a stick of yummy cotton candy! It looks good enough to eat!
Squeezing the trigger works on hand strengthening and is a great pre-scissor activity.
On Thursday, after reading Cara’s book again and having more fun with the finger puppets, we made a ferris wheel.
First we used a paper cutter to cut rectangles. Our students really like using the paper cutters and it is exciting to see some of our students start to use them independently!
Next we counted out 2 precut construction paper circles and glued them to the rectangle to make a ferris wheel gondola.
Then we turned it over and the students turned it over and glued a precut silhouette of themselves to the back, to “sit” in the gondola.
We handed out a big paper plate with small one attached (working on those math access points again!) to the back with a brad.
Our students were each given a set of pre-assembled gondolas of each of their classmates which they then glued, along with their gondola, to the large paper plate. Due to privacy concerns, the sample we have photographed was made with magazine cutouts but as you can see, it looks very cute and when the small plate is held it spins quite nicely—-and addresses bilateral skills!
The yellow wheels are vinyl that the vision teacher prepared for our student with a visual impairment to make his gondola.
Language Group—letter J
We squeezed the bulb to make these spiders Jump across the table. These furry Jiggly, Jittery spiders sure elicited lots of laughs and squeals 🙂
Squeezing the bulb helps strengthen hand intrinsics.
Next, we used our tongs to pick up Jungle animals and put them in a Jar.
This activity addresses bilateral functions and eye hand coordination.
Then our students chose a piece of paper from an array of 3 (again, due to the alternate assessment, we like our students to have 3 choices when possible).
……Just wait and see what we are going to make!
We proceeded to fold the paper in half and then folded the corners down. We added dots to give our students visual cues.
Almost done…..
two more folds to make wings……
…………….and here is our Jet!
Our students had so much fun launching their Jets and seeing whose flew the farthest (slipping a math access point into our language activity!)
We finished by playing Cara’s listening game. Cara records the sounds on the computer and the students try to guess the sound and point to the correct picture.
Just a few of the words we put on our post its today. As usual, our students enjoyed picking up or pointing to the post its as we wrote down “J” words during our session.
We had so much fun this week! Please join us next week for more fun and learning Group by Group 🙂