This week our theme complements the monthly Unique Curriculum unit for our students. The sensory group explored boxes filled with light or sound. The fine motor groups made thematic crafts and the language group did some light and sound experiments!
SENSORY GROUP
Our space blanket was both reflective and also made LOTS of noise as it was moved around.
The students had a blast!
Science access point: recognize that pushing or pulling makes an object move.
More photos because this was so much FUN!!!
Colorful pasta was not only eye catching but noisy, as hands pushed through to find letters L and S.
We used regular pasta, tri-colored pasta, and pasta of different different shapes that we dyed ourselves.
Science access point: match objects with similar observable properties, such as size, shape, color, or texture.
Our light box was made by hot gluing cut up plastic notebook dividers to the sides of a shoebox and then adding lights.
It really looked cool—–especially when we turned the overhead lights off.
Science access point: recognize a source of light energy.
We thought it would be fun to put some bubble wrap sheets in one of our boxes.
The students had fun pinching or squeezing the bubbles to make them POP!
Science access point: apply a push to move an object.
There were all sorts of LIGHT producing toys in this box.
Some of them could just be turned on but others needed to be moved to activate the lights—-so fun!
Science access point: distinguish between objects in motion and at rest.
This box contained a variety of SOUND producing toys including an accordion tube, shaker bottle, and a variety of musical instruments.
The students really had fun making noise 🙂
Science access point: recognize and respond to sounds.
We added pop rocks to our oobleck this week!
Noisy, messy play—-always a hit!
Science access point: track objects in motion.
A water wheel toy made our water noisy.
Watching the wheel spin and splash water was really fascinating!
Science access point: recognize the change in the motion of an object.
It was hard finding a scent to work with our theme this week but we dug through our stash of lotion and found one called Hello Sunshine which seemed a perfect fit—-the sun brings us light after all 🙂
It was a nice sweet scent that the students all liked.
Science access point: recognize one or more external body parts.
Since we were doing a unit on sound we HAD to bring out our big strips of bubble wrap to roll or run over!
As always, so many smiles!
Science access point: apply a push to move an object.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
On Tuesday we made sun catchers!
First, the students identified a circle.
Math access point: recognize a common object with two-dimensional shape.
Next, they began tearing yellow or orange tissue paper into small pieces.
Science access point: recognize a change in the external appearance of an object.
The tissue paper pieces were placed on clear contact paper.
Math access point: recognize when an object is added to a situation.
TA DA!!!
Look at our sun catchers!
Let the sunshine in!
On Wednesday, the students made shaker bottles.
First, the students identified a rectangle.
Math access point: recognize object with two-dimensional shapes.
Then, they used crayons to decorate a piece of paper.
When done, the decorated piece of paper was taped around a plastic bottle.
Science access point: recognize a change in the external appearance of an object.
They put a funnel in their bottle and poured some beads into it! The students loved watching the beads drop down.
It was also a great opportunity to practice using BOTH hands!
Science access point: track objects that fall to the ground.
Next, they added 3 jingle bells.
Math access point: associate quantities with number names.
An adult hot glued the cap on to the bottle and……
TA DA!!!
Shake, shake, shake, that bottle—-of course we sang along 🙂
LANGUAGE GROUP
We had some fun with light and sound experiments today!
Our first experiment involved us using sun sensitive paper (purchased from Oriental Trading). To use this, you put something on top of the paper, like a leaf or a cutout of a shape, and place them in the sun. The sun paper should change in color so that you can see the shape of whatever you placed on top of it.
We started out by each student choosing a cutout of an object that they liked out of a field of 2 cutouts.
Once everyone chose their cutout, each person made a prediction about if they thought this experiment would work or not.
All but one student made the prediction that YES, it would work.
We walked outside and found a bright and sunny place to put our papers.
While we were waiting for the paper, we played a sound game. Each student had a chance to take out one thing from a bag of small objects.
Once they picked their object, they had to drop it into a tin container.
They had to indicate whether the object was LOUD when it was dropped in the container or if it was QUIET. If it was loud, students used a sentence strip to indicate “I hear it”. If it was quiet, students used a sentence strip to indicate “I don’t hear it”. We had different objects like cotton balls, feathers, toy cars, and plastic animals.
When our sound game was over, we checked out the sun paper to see if it had changed color. It worked! The directions said to put the paper in some water for a minute and then lay it out to dry.
These turned out really cool!
We are getting ready to go on a bit of an extended spring break but be sure to join us again next time for more fun and learning—–Group by Group!
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