In our Sensory and Fine motor groups we celebrated Black History month in a personal way by learning more about some special people at our school. Our students LOVED finding the familiar faces in Cara’s famous African Americans book! In our Language Group we looked at words that start with Letter V.
Sensory Group—Black History Month
Our first celebrity is Ms. Joi, one of our elementary classroom teachers, and her favorite color is PINK!
We made this totally pinkalicious box in her honor. It was filled with easter grass, curled ribbon, silk flowers, beads, kitchen scrubbers, plushy animals (flamingo, pig, and fish), paper strips, and other assorted toys. If it was pink—we put it in the box 🙂
The science access points of identifying objects by one observable property and exploring, observing, and recognizing objects in the natural world.
This box also gives our students the opportunity to address the language access point of selecting a familiar object to explore.
Ms. Mary is one of our paraprofessionals and HER favorite color is red. We filled her box with some fabulous red things including a feather boa, blocks, garland, silk rose petals, bead, kitchen scrubbers, garland, ribbon, and assorted red toys. This was a great box totally red and fun filled!
As with our other color box, lots of different textures and items to compare and contrast. The fabulous feather boa (found at the dollar store at halloween!) was quite the popular item—our students loved it 🙂
Some pictures of musical instruments were hidden beneath the blue and yellow (our school colors) rice…in honor of our next celebrity, our music teacher Ms. Brenda.
We put in spoons of different sizes to address the math access point of recognizing differences in sizes of containers.
Visual discrimination is addressed as the rice is moved aside and its fun to see how excited they get when a hidden picture is revealed!
Ms. Carolyn is our new dean and we are so excited to welcome her to our school. Our school mascot, the owl, seemed a fitting theme for her box!
We used our “owl” feather boas. So very soft and touchable—-fun to wear OR wave around also! Our students really love these boas, they are irresistible.
As hands glide along the feathers, the science access point of recognizing and responding to one type of stimuli is addressed.
Grandma Rosie is from the British West Indies—a beautiful tropical place full of sandy beaches. We made our own little beach for her 🙂
We added a seashell and a small spoon and our students had a great time scooping up the sand and filling the shell. What a fun way to address eye hand coordination!
The shell was really big which get us the opportunity to discuss the science access point of recognizing objects that are big. Also discussing the amount of sand (ex. “a lot” or “a little”) as it is emptied into the shell helps our students associate quantities with language—a math access point!
Our Occupational Therapy intern, Ms. Joia is a student at FAMU. FAMU’s colors are orange and green, so we made some fabulous green playdough to roll into snakes—her school mascot! We added a variety of orange tools to decorate the snakes.
Rolling out and decorating the snakes is a super fun way to work on fine motor skills and eye hand coordination.
As the playdough is either rolled or squished between fingers—the science access point of recognizing a change in an object is addressed.
Ms. Anita is another one of our celebrities. She is a para-professional and comes from England. We made some oobleck and sprinkled it with some blue and red glitter to show the colors of England’s flag.
Oobleck is one of the BEST substances to use to explore the science access point of recognizing a change in an object! It changes from liquid to solid and back again with just a touch—how cool is that!
Ms. Louise, our head custodian, keeps our school sparkling clean. We rinsed our hands in “Clean Waters” scented body wash and then used the companion lotion.
Presenting the aroma to our students gives them the opportunity to recognize and respond to one type of sensory stimuli.
Letting us know (by vocalizing, body movements or gestures) that they want to continue the activity addresses the math access points of indicating a desire for more or less of an action or object.
We generally take smiles as a “yes” 🙂
Fine Motor Group-Black History Month
Ms. Anita, just had surgery so we decided that we would make her a “get-well-soon” picture for our Tuesday art project.
We started with a large rectangular shaped piece of paper—addressing the math access point of recognizing two deminsional shapes.
Then the students took turns making straight lines for the stems of the flowers we made. Imitating directional lines is a prewriting skill and some of our students are getting really good at it!
Each student was asked to make 3 strokes—which we counted, of course 🙂
Then we took our adapted stampers to make flowers. Joy made them by cutting up foam and kitchen sponges. These were attached either with double stick tape or hot glue to the handles made from kitchen scrubbers or an empty spool.
We did find that we had to “stamp” on the pad a lot to get enough color to show up on paper, so adults helped “prime” the stamp.
The students were asked to either point to or hand us the picture card to indicate which color flower they wished to stamp. Effectively communicating wants and needs, with prompting, to a familiar person is a language access point.
To make the flower garden come to life, students were asked to stamp at the “top” of a line—addressing spatial relations and eye hand coordination.
As the flowers were stamped we discussed which ones were the same color. Recognizing two objects that are the same color is a math access point.
This was a lot of fun, our students REALLY enjoyed stamping their flowers!
Ta Da!
Feel better soon Ms. Anita!
On Thursday, we decided to thank all our celebrities by making a copy of their picture from Cara’s book to give to them. It had to be decorated first, however 🙂
We started by glueing the SMALL rectangular photo onto the LARGE rectangular piece of paper—addressing the math access points of recognizing similarities and differences in size of common objects and recognizing two-dimensional shapes.
Then we used our paper cutters to cut 4 strips of paper.
Using quantities to 4, represented by objects is a math access point.
We glued the strips to each of the sides of the photo helping to address the math access point of identifying the sides of a rectangle is a rectangle.
This activity also addresses spatial relations and eye hand coordination.
And here is one of our finished portraits!
Ta Da!
Language Group—Letter V
We started by playing Cara’s sound game.
There were some Very interesting sounds to be heard as we work on the science access point of recognizing and responding to common sounds.
Then we tried on a Vest—-are they still in Vogue?
A fun way to work on dressing skills and the science access point of recognizing body parts!
Next we cut some Vintage wallpaper into strips and……
Voila, we made a V 🙂
Working on prewriting patterns and spatial relations in this activity.
We also listened to Violin—not Viola :)— music on our Voice output device. We think we were listening to Vivaldi!
Recognizing and responding to one type of sensory stimuli and responding to common sounds are science access points.
Responding to a technology resource is a language access point.
One more thing to do—make a Volcano!
Using baking soda and Vinegar to make a Volcano is so much fun—a total MUST DO!!!
We made our mountain by putting a small nesting cup into the spout of a wide mouth funnel. We used a small spoon to scoop baking soda into the cup—addressing the math access point of recognizing differences in sizes of containers.
Then we poured some vinegar (tinted with food coloring) onto the baking soda, making a not so Violent eruption 🙂
The science access points of recognizing a change in an object and assisted with investigations with a partner is totally addressed with this activity!
We finished by looking at some of the V words we found today.
We had a Very good time this week, join us next time…
Group by Group!