Tag Archives: literacy

Oct14

Italian Heritage Month and the Letter G

Posted on October 14, 2012 by jd785

It was all about red, white, and green—the colors of the Italian flag— in our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups! In our Language Group we looked at words that start with the letter G.

Sensory Group—Italian Heritage

Cara’s book helped us learn about Italian heritage. Our students did such a great job activating the voice output device to read the repetitive line. With the switch we are working on timing of the hit and activating it just one time.

This addresses the access point of responding to familiar print media.

Our color boxes were filled with assorted red things Joy collected around the OT room.

We included beads (large ones to avoid choking hazards, of course), chenille stems, pom poms, a big bow from a valentine wreath, package ties, finger puppets etc.

You name it—if it was the right color, it went into the box 🙂

Hmmm—-this looks interesting 🙂

The main idea of these boxes is to encourage exploration to compare and contrast the differing properties of materials and our students were definitely intrigued!

Most students dove into every box exploring the contents with equal enthusiasm. A few students, however, either did not engage or became overly excited with one of the color boxes. It appeared that the particular color was either over or under stimulating to them.

Beads are always a favorite……and, of course, if beads are in a box—you have to put them on!

These boxes address a number of science access points, including identifying objects by one observable property and recognizing objects as the same.

We practiced scooping with our mix of red, white, and green beans. They were so pretty and colorful.

As the cup is filled, the math access point of recognizing the differences in the capacity of containers is addressed.

A large letter I was placed in our rice mix —-more red, white, and green of course!

We also taped an Italian flag to the bottom of the box—a little

surprise to find.

We added red pepper flakes and green oregano to our playdough to continue our colorful theme. It also had the added bonus of adding an interesting aroma.

We used our heart shaped cookie cutter—-because we LOVE Italy 🙂

This addresses the math access point of recognizing two-dimensional shapes.

Red and green glitter made our oobleck sparkle!

We practiced our pre-writing designs making

vertical strokes.

Most excellently done in

this picture, as you can see 🙂

We rinsed our hands in grape scented lotion. They grow lots of yummy grapes in Italy!

Then we finished with some vanilla sugar lotion so we could leave the group smelling like delicious cannolis—yum yum 🙂

This activity addresses the science access point of recognizing and responding to different types of sensory stimuli.

Fine Motor Group—Italian Heritage

We rode on some “gondolas” in the sensory room.

Our bolster swing is a huge favorite with our students and a really fun way to work on sitting balance!

After the sensory room we returned to the classroom to read Cara’s book and begin our art project.

We counted out 8 pieces of paper and wrote our names on the back.

Each time we count out our pieces of paper we are working on the math access point of identifying quantities.

Today we are doing spaghetti (well actually string, ha ha) painting.

We asked our students to choose which color they wanted to paint with first…..

…..sometimes its hard to make that choice 🙂

Then we dipped our strings into the paint

and got to work!

This activity addresses eye hand

coordination.

Ta Da!

…….Red,

……………white,

…………………and green!

Gotta love that smile 🙂

On Thursday we made some pizza pies!

We counted out our paper plates and then used red markers to color some

red pizza sauce. A variety of markers were used including these

pipsqueak markers from Crayola.

Our students are spending more time engaged with scribbling and

we are very excited about their progress!

Time to add the cheese—-some shredded yellow paper which looked pretty realistic so we did have to remind some of them that it was paper :).

Eye hand coordination skills are addressed during this activity. Also, strengthening is addressed while squeezing the glue onto the plate.

The math access point of indicating a desire for more of an object is addressed.

Can’t forget the pepperoni!

Our circle cutters work great for making perfect pepperoni pieces and our students really like using them.

Identifying a 2-dimensional shape is a math access point.

Each student counted how many pieces of pepperoni they put on their pizza.

This addressed the math access point of showing one-to-one correspondence.

Time for some pizza.

YUM! YUM!

Language Group—-Letter G

We used our thumbs to Guide our dog.

Go dog Go!

Then we Gathered some Green Grapes using our tongs to

Grab them.

Got to count them as well, to address math access

points:)

Next we Glued 2 black foam circle eyes and 1 black oval mouth on a paper plate.

The texture of the foam was very helpful for our student with a visual impairment.

Then we tore some paper streamers,

Glued them on to the back of the plate to make a……

Ghost!

Good job!

We played Cara’s sound game and listened for some G sounds.

Great fun!

And we finished by looking at some of the

G words we found today.

What an awesome week! Please come

back again, Group by Group.

Oct7

Animal Habitats and the Letter F

Posted on October 7, 2012 by jd785

Animal Habitats and the Letter F

This week our Language Group looked at words that start with the letter F. Our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups learned about animal habitats which tied into this month’s Unique Curriculum theme.

Sensory Group—Animal Habitats

We started out in the rainforest. Joy twist tied some green garland, curling ribbon, and twisted paper strips to a black umbrella to make the rainforest “canopy”. We added jungle sounds to a voice output device, a water mister, and a stuffed monkey.

Simple idea but very effective—our students were enchanted! We prompted them to activate the voice output device then brought the rainforest over their heads. They got soooo excited when it was their turn!

Pressing the voice output device after cessation of the sounds addresses the math access point of indicating a desire for more of an action or object.

Had to put another picture in…. our students are just so cute!

We couldn’t get the shot but she was using the monkey to

activate the voice output device—could that be any

more adorable 🙂

From the rainforest to the arctic tundra!

We used about 5 boxes of instant tapioca granules which look just like snow crystals. They have an interesting, slightly coarse feel. We put in a polar bear and some white felt bunnies which blended into the background—just like they do in the arctic! Our letter A’s being different colors really contrasted well.

This box addresses visual discrimination skills. It also addresses the math access point of one to one correspondence—counting 2 bunnies and 1 polar bear.

Our desert box had the letter D, sand, rocks, snakes,

scorpions, and lizards.

Again lots of opportunities to count things and to

compare the different properties of the

soft sand and hard rocks.

The forest/woodland box was filled with pine cones,leaves and moss. Since it was a larger box we put in a large letters F and W, along with a variety of little animals to find hidden in it.

Using the finger puppets addresses bilateral coordination as the student places them on their fingers and also finger individuation as they animate the animals.

Comparing the differing colors of the leaves and differing textures the other materials addresses the science access point of comparing objects by observable properties.

We looked at a soil habitat next (using our coffee grounds for the dirt).

Its strong aroma immediately engages the students! It contained

some spiders, bugs, worms, and centipedes.

Our students loved running their fingers through the soil

and glimpsing the word “soil” taped to the bottom of the box.

Of course, it was also so much fun to pick up and examine all the different bugs to be found hidden in the soil.

Pincer grasps are promoted when picking up the small animals and math access points are addressed when counting them.

Green jello made an excellent swamp habitat for our frogs

and gators!

The cold jello added another sensory dimension and

allowed us to discuss the science access point of

recognizing materials as warm or cold and also the

science access point of recognizing objects that are

identical to each other when counting the frogs.

Some students were a little hesitant to touch this cold and wet material….

…..but others dived right in 🙂

Hands were rinsed in our pond habitat. We used

“Into the Wild” body wash from Bath and

Bodyworks—it seemed perfect for our habitat

theme!

Grasping skills were promoted while

reaching for the floating fish or ducks.

In addition, one to one correspondence and the

concepts of large and small which are math

access points.

We finished with some banana scented lotion (yes banana scented lotion, can you believe it!) we found at World Market.

Our students loved the aroma and feeling it rubbed on their arms—or back of the neck, for students who do a lot of hand exploration.

A lovely scent to help us remember all the wonderful animal habitats we visited today.

Fine Motor Group—Animal Habitats

We started as usual by reading Cara’s book and using the voice output device to help read the repetitive line.

On Tuesday we jumped like rainforest monkeys in the sensory room.

What a fun way to get some proprioceptive and vestibular input which is so important for our students to help build body awareness and gross motor skills.

Then we came back to the classroom and began our

art project—-paper plate fish!

We counted out our plates as they were handed out

and we discussed the plates color (white) and

circular shape.

Then we cut out a triangle shape using our adaptive

scissors. Discussing the different shapes addresses

the math access point of recognizing

two-dimensional shapes.

Joy twist tied some bubble wrap to handled pot scrubbers (these things make the best adaptive art tools) and we stamped our fish—lots of fun!

Then we added one great big googlie eye!

Pincer grasp, finger isolation skills are

addressed here in addition to visual

spatial relations and math concepts.

TA DA! Ok, we realize you don’t really see the fish but this was such a great picture we had to put it in. Their TA DA moment if very important to our students as you can see 🙂

On Thursday we made some turtles.

We started by counting out our poster board turtles and then our

egg carton shells—working on the math access point of rote

counting yet again 🙂

We asked our students to put the shells ON TOP of the turtles,

addressing spatial concepts and eye hand

coordination.

While the adults hot glued the shells to the bodies, our students put on their paint shirts—working on dressing skills.

Then we painted the little turtles. Using the brushes

gives our students practice with writing tools and

addresses eye hand coordination.

They really got into this!

Isn’t this awesome, our own little pond habitat—

we LOVE it!

Language Group—Letter F

First we used our Fingers to operate the Fan—-

which blew air into our Faces.

Can you see that dimple, just too cute 🙂

Then we Found Five Fish with different Features.

YIKES, we didn’t get a picture of all the fish but to give you an idea: a Fantail one from a Fishing game, a Fat ball shaped one, a Felt one, a water squirter that blew Fresh air.

We dropped them into a Fishbowl, addressing eye hand coordination and the math access point of rote counting.

Our Favorite was the Fidgity Fish —it vibrated!

Lots of sounds were Found while playing

Cara’s latest sound game.

We had a Fiesta to say Farewell to

Ms. Robin’s Fabulous intern Julie.

And Finished by using a Funnel to help

get the salsa back in the jar.

Some of the F words we Found today!

Join us again for more fun and learning next week, Group by Group.

Sep30

Hispanic Heritage and Letter E

Posted on September 30, 2012 by jd785

Hispanic Heritage and Letter E

Hola, everyone! This week our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups celebrated hispanic heritage month. Our Language Group looked at words that start with letter E.

Sensory Group—Hispanic Heritage

Cara’s book focused on many aspects of hispanic culture including famous people with hispanic heritage. Our students loved it!

Hispanic culture is so colorful and so was our

first box! We filled it with flowers and paper

streamers just like a fiesta. We also put some

plastic fruit to remind us of Cesar Chavez

who fought for farm workers rights. We

put in Dora the Explorer stickers, magnets

from places with hispanic names, a gavel for

Sonia Sotomayer a supreme court judge, and a voice output device with a snippet of one of Selena Gomez songs. So many cool things to talk about. In addition to the wonderful opportunities to increase language this box addresses the social studies access point of recognizing people from diverse backgrounds make contributions.

Severo Ochoa won the Nobel prize for synthesizing RNA (riboneucleic acid). These springs (found at the junk store) looked similar to its shape.

As these springs move around they are very eye catching and look at this smile—beautiful 🙂

This box addresses the science access point of tracking objects up and down.

Our next box contained cornmeal which reminded

us of yummy foods like tacos and tortilla chips.

This stuff is so much fun to sift and run fingers

through and discover the letter H for hispanic

heritage.

Another nod to hispanic cuisine with our box of dried pinto beans. This box gives our students a wonderful opportunity to practice their scooping skills…..

….and develop tactile discrimination as the

individual beans touch their fingers.

Oscar de la Renta uses fabric to make beautiful clothes. This box had lots of different textures to compare and contrast. Some of our students used them to make their own fashion statements 🙂

We placed pairs of fabrics in the box to address the access point of recognizing objects that are identical to each other.

Some dried lentils in a water bottle made a wonderful

noisy maraca.

Bilateral functions are addressed as

the students move the bottle from hand to hand.

We have found that hot glueing the lid prevents

accidents 🙂

We made some finger paint to honor painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

We used a free coloring page and let our students explore the interesting texture. So much fun to squish around! The difference between the dry paper and the wet finger paint helps our students with the access point related to distinguishing between objects that are wet and objects that are dry.

Then we rinsed our hands in grape scented water—

remembering Delores Huerta who co-founded

the National Farm Workers Association. We

used some inexpensive bubble bath from the

dollar store and it had a really strong scent to

which our students really responded.

We finished with some orange scented lotion and discussed Spain where many hispanic ancestors came from. As we rubbed the lotion on their hands, our students were given the opportunity to indicate a desire for more or no more addressing math access points.

Fine Motor Group—Hispanic Heritage

On Tuesday we practiced hitting the pinata (hanging bolster) in the sensory room—what a great activity for bilateral coordination and crossing midline.

We had so much fun with the maraca in our

sensory group and we had to make more!

We started by picking out ONE egg—

addressing one to one correspondence.

Then we scooped ONE scoop of dried beans into our egg. Holding the egg with one hand and scooping with the other addresses bilateral functions.

What a nice job shown in this picture, although most of our students needed some help….. And in case you are wondering, not all our students stopped at one—a couple dove in with both hands and beans went flying everywhere 🙂

The adults placed masking tape around the egg then

taped on two plastic spoons—which we counted

out, of course!

Next we colored the eggs with markers to make them bright and colorful.

TaDa—these were a HUGE hit. The students loved

shaking them and laughing as we tried singing

La Cucaracha.

We had the best time 🙂

On Thursday we made some ponchos out of grocery bags (we saw this on the Family Fun website). We precut the opening for the head and the slits up the sides and then had our students practice writing their names on the back.

Then we flipped them over and began decorating the ponchos. We used Crayola’s pipsqueak markers which are easy for our little hands to hold.

We used our adaptive scissors to make fringe

Making multiple cuts addresses the math access

point of recognizing the next step in a sequence.

Completely awesome poncho,

don’t you think!

Can our students possibly get any cuter 🙂

Language Group—letter E

We brought back our Edible cornmeal and had fun tracing the letter E.

Then we strung some Enormous beads—-two beads

for Each student!

Next we Explored the contents of this bag…..

…..and Extracted an

Elephant!

Time to decorate an Egg. We used Eggplant colored Elbow macaroni—giving us an Excellent opportunity to work on our pincer grasp.

And here it is …….

an Elegant Egg!

Everybody got an opportunity to play Cara’s sound game….so Exciting!

We finished as usual by looking at some of the wonderful

E words we found today.

Adios for now, join us next week Group by Group!

Sep18

Paralympics and Letter C

Posted on September 18, 2012 by jd785

Paralympics and Letter C

This week the theme for our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups was the London Paralympics and our Language Group looked at words starting with the letter C.

Sensory Group—London Paralympics

We started as usual by reading Cara’s lastest book and using our voice output device to read the repetitive line.

You have to get on an airplane to travel to London!

When we got to the page in Cara’s book about riding in an airplane, we all took turns with the massager to simulate the vibration you would feel on the plane. Some of our students really like the feel of vibration, others not so much.

Recognizing and responding to one type of sensory stimuli is a science access point.

Our first box contained so many cool things. We included a double decker bus and british mailbox, wheelchair, a bag with the british flag, an athletic medal, strips of black fake fur (the soldiers guarding Buckingham Palace wear bearskin hats), some miniature sport balls, and a keychain with the 2012 logo among the rose petals (the british national flower).

We are addressing the access point of responding to new vocabulary that is introduced and taught directly. We are also addressing the social studies access point of recognizing the cultural characteristics of a population.

The British flag banner was so much fun to drape around our students or to grasp and wave around. It also gave a chance to talk about the different colors. This box also included some British coins we placed in an old spice container—-fun to shake and listen to them rattle.

Reach and grasp skills in addition to visual tracking as the objects move are addressed here. We are also targeting the science access points of pushing and pulling an object to make it move and tracking objects in motion as well as the social studies access point of recognizing coins as money.

More red, white and blue with our rice but with a hidden surprise of the Olympic 2012 logo at the bottom. We also put the number 4—the Paralympics happens every 4 years!

Look at this colorful collection— our next box filled with pompoms, yarn and ribbons in the colors of the Olympic flag. A great opportunity to work on color identification as comparing and contrasting shape, color and texture.

The pompoms have such a nice soft texture and are easy to grasp. Picking up the ribbon and yarn strands encourages pincer grasp skills.

This targets the access point of identifying objects by one observable property.

The British love their tea and our students loved exploring the aromatic tea leaves.Wonderful tactile input as hands slide around and sift through it. We put in some circular puzzle pieces, again in the Olympic colors. We are working on the access point of recognizing objects with 2 dimensional shapes.

We added red and yellow food coloring to our shaving cream—to make the olympic flame! So much fun practicing pre-writing strokes.

Gold medals—-thats what all the athletes want to win. We made some terrific sparkly gold playdough and used circle cookie cutters to make our own medals.

We finished with some rose scented lotion to help us remember all the wonderful things we learned about the London Paralympics.

Fine Motor Group—London Paralympics

After reading Cara’s book and taking turns reading the repetitive line on our voice output device we began our art project—we’re going to make an olympic flag!

We counted out 6 pieces of white rectangular paper addressing one to one correspondence and the math access point of recognizing common objects with 2 dimensional shapes.

Then we took a toilet paper roll and stamped a ring. We emphasized stamping just 1 time before passing to the next student.

After we stamped a ring with all 5 of the olympic flag colors we glued a strip with the 2012 logo at the bottom. We helped our students place glue in an “across” fashion addressing pre-writing patterns.

This also addresses the math access point of recognizing a movement that reflects a spatial relationship, such as up and down.

Placing the strip onto the glue encourages bilateral skills, eye hand coordination, and graded motor control.

Perfectly done as you can see here 🙂

Ta Da—our olympic flag

Awesome!!!

OnThursday we had our own mini paralympics in the sensory room then came back to the classroom to read Cara’s book before making an Olympic torch.

We passed around 7 pieces of rectangle paper—bright neon!

We always practice writing our names.

Then we glued on a grey rectangle.

Again working on the math access point of recognizing a common object with a 2 dimensional shape.

Next we tore pieces of red, yellow, and orange tissue paper. Tearing paper is a great pre-scissor skill activity.

We dipped the pieces into glue and placed them onto the top of the triangle.

Look at that concentration—-love it 🙂

Wow look at those flames—

let the games begin!

Language Group—letter C

First we Cleared the Clutter—a Comb, Card, Cup, Chip Clip, Car, Coin, Clock, Cord. The students got to Choose which item they wanted to put in the Container.

then we Closed the top—using both hands and squeezing

tightly!

Next we Clapped to make the Crab Crawl around the table. Our students just really loved this wiggly little guy and they all had to take turns holding it 🙂

We Colored aCardboard C using Crayons. Then Continued decorating it with Cotton balls working on our pincer grasp skills.

So darn Cute

—-and Creative!

Sssh—its time to listen to Cara’s sound

game.

We found some really Cool C words today.

“C” you next time—Group by Group!

Sep9

Labor Day book

Posted on September 9, 2012 by jd785

Labor Day book

We are celebrating all of the people who work this week in celebration of Labor Day. The book goes over some of the jobs which kids may have more recognition with, such as doctors, teachers, and police. As always, we start by showing the front of the book and having one of the students “read” the title which is also the repetitive line throughout the book. The question asked before the student is given the voice output device is “What do we do?” to which they answer, “we celebrate workers on Labor Day”. On the teacher page, we asked the students to identify their teacher and on the dentist page we asked the students to show us their teeth. Happy Labor Day to all the laborers out there!

Here is the link to the book: We Celebrate Workers on Labor Day

Sep9

Labor Day and the Letter B

Posted on September 9, 2012 by jd785

Labor Day and the Letter B

This week our theme for our Sensory and Fine Motor groups was Labor Day which tied in nicely to the Unique Curriculum unit on community workers. Our Language group looked at words starting with the letter B.

Sensory Group—Labor Day

After reading Cara’s book “We Celebrate Workers on Labor Day” we began exploring our boxes. Our first box was filled with green paper shred and play money—thats why people work after all 🙂

We put in a variety of items representing different jobs, such as doctors, firefighters, a computer cord. We also put in other labor day related items such as a plastic hamburger (lots of people cook out on labor day). The burger made a squeaking sound when squeezed—-and it got squeezed ALOT!

Digging around for different items in the paper shred encourages figure ground perception skills and eye hand coordination.

Our next box was filled with white cotton balls and wooden tongue depressors—well, actually popsicle sticks since we didn’t have tongue depressors but we were going for the same texture and they look pretty similar 🙂 This, of course, reminded us of doctors and nurses.

The popsicle sticks were quite the hit with some of our students. This box allows addresses the science access points comparing the different properties (hard/soft) of the materials.

Our mixed beans looked just like a construction site, complete with a bulldozer. So much fun to bury hands into getting some nice proprioceptive feedback.

Shaving foam made a great stand in for the foam the firefighters use to put out fires. Its fun to practice prewriting patterns such as drawing up/down/across. It also allows our students to explore and respond to a “wet” texture which is different from the previous “dry” texture.

This addresses the science access point of recognizing

and responding to different types of sensory stimuli.

We used our lighted toys while talking about police officers and ambulance drivers. The lights are fun to look at and pressing the button addresses fine motor skills.

Since Labor Day is a holiday, some people go to the beach.

We used our soft sand and looked for the large letter L.

The shell made a great scoop, allowing our students to practice scooping skills or hold out their hands as the soft sand sprinkled down.

We ended the group with vanilla sugar scented water and lotion reminding us of ice-cream cones that we might have eaten on the beach.

Fine Motor Group—Labor Day

Our students loved Cara’s book this week, community helpers are always a big hit—especially the firefighters! As our students look at and touch the different pages they are learning concepts of print which is one of their access points.

On Tuesday we made a firefighter hat out of a paper plate with a precut slit and added brim (we got the idea on Crayola website).

We started by talking about the color we were going to paint the hat and asked our students to show us the color “red”.

…….let the painting begin!

Our firefighter emblem was added. Squeezing the glue

addresses hand strengthening and putting the

emblem onto the hat, eye hand coordination.

Aren’t they super cute!

On Thursday after reading our book, we continued with the firefighter theme and made a fire engine.

We counted out 7 big red rectangles, learning to recognize 2 dimensional shapes—-one of our math access points.

Then we used our paper cutter to cut 2 strips of yellow paper.

We glued them down on the paper horizontally, telling the students to put the pieces in an across direction addressing spatial concepts. Recognizing a movement that reflects a spatial relationship is a math access point.

After cutting a bunch of smaller yellow strips we glued them

in an “up and down” direction to make the rungs of the

ladder. We made sure to have some additional precut

strips for those students who were ready to move onto the

next step.

The fire engine was finished with 2 black circle wheels and 1 small yellow rectangle—with we counted, of course 🙂

Doesn’t it look fantastic! Our students loved gluing their own photos in the drivers seat. We used a cartoon picture for this photo, but you get the idea.

Language Group—Letter B

We started By Blowing Bubbles. For our students who couldn’t blow, they practiced Bilateral coordination Bursting the Bubbles Between their hands. Our student with a visual impairment enjoyed the feel of them on his Bare arms:)

Then we put some felt Balloons on a Button (Joy made this with

a large button, some ribbon and felt—found from the

crafty stash). What a fun way to practice fasteners!

Next we made some Binoculars. We cut along a line to make 1 piece of paper into 2 pieces (fitting in those math access points). We got the paper from a wallpaper sample book. Our students used a variety of adaptive scissors and paper cutters to complete this step.

We taped the paper around toilet paper rolls and

stapled them together.

The students LOVED their Binoculars and were so cute holding them up to their eyes

……..as they looked for Blue Birds, Bison, Butterflies, Bees, Billy goats, Boxers, Black Bears, Bunnies, Bats, Bulls, Bullfrogs, and Boars.

We knew all those Beanie Babies we had saved would come in handy one day 🙂

We finished with Cara’s sound game

And, of course, looking again at all the B words we found today. Oh Boy, did we have a great time. Be sure and join us next week Group by Group.

Sep3

Back to School and Letter A

Posted on September 3, 2012 by jd785

Back to School and Letter A

We are so excited to be back at school and starting our groups! We have some changes—new students, different classes—-the usual for a new school year but the fun and learning factor remains the same 🙂 To start the new year our theme for our Sensory and Fine Motor Groups was Back to School. The theme for our Language Group is letter A.

Sensory Group—Back to School

We read Cara’s new book using our voice output device for the repetitive line. Responding to a familiar person reading a book aloud is an access point related to print concepts.

Our first box included school related items such as paper shred (we use a lot of paper at school), straws, a little hat (we get new clothes), a school bus, a plastic combination lock, a mini backpack, a play food milk carton, a spoon, a ball and the word “Friends” as well as some little people.

Lots of things to talk about to help vocabulary development!

Pincer grasp skills and visual figure ground skills are addressed while picking up small pieces of paper and straws.

The big yellow school bus is the ultimate symbol for back to school. This box contains a variety of yellow items to compare and contrast for science access points related to properties of matter.

Items in the box included pom poms, curling ribbon, school bus puzzle pieces, plastic shapes, and easter grass.

We can also count the items addressing math access points.

Our school mascot is the owl and this feather boa looks just like owl feathers. So soft to touch and great for calling awareness to various body parts.

Interacting with with the feathers targets the science access point of recognizing and responding to one type of sensory stimuli.

Back to school also means time for art class with Ms. Judy!

Every year she does some fabulous clay projects with the students. So we made some playdough with sparkly sequins. We used our ABC cookie cutters to go along with our back to school theme. We wanted a darker brown more clay like color for our playdough but as you can see, it didn’t turn out that way—-still lots of fun anyway 🙂

Music class with Ms Jen and Ms Brenda is always a favorite place and our shakers helped us make some music during group.

Comparing and contrasting the differing sounds of the jingle bells and dried peas addresses science access points related to properties of matter.

In addition, as the bottles are moved they can be visually tracked which is a science access point related to motion of objects. As our student push or bat at the bottles they are exploring access points related to forces and changes in motion.

Our rice is in our school colors of yellow and blue. We tucked in an owl puzzle piece to uncover, as well as the letter S.

Scooping the rice also lets us practicing scooping skills. Our students love the rice box, its always one of their favorite things to explore.

And OOBLECK—because back to school means time for Sensory Group again!!! We could write sonnets about this stuff, we just love it 🙂

Finally, we rinsed our hands in apple scented water and rubbed with apple scented lotion—apples for the teacher!

So much fun to be back at school 🙂

Fine Motor Group—Back to School

We read Cara’s book and enjoyed seeing students faces light up as they recognized various classrooms.

After we put on paint shirts (working on dressing skills), we passed out rectangular pieces of paper (recognizing 2 dimensional shapes is a math access point) with painters tape initials . As we passed the papers to the students, we discussed these were the first letters of their name—learning the first letter of your name is an important literacy skill related to the access point of responding to names of familiar persons!

The students chose which color paint they wanted to use.

Using the communication board gives a chance to practice color identification in addition to making choices.

We used foam brushes to paint all over the paper.

Then we pulled the tape off—a great opportunity to practice pincer grasp

skills.

Ta Da—-look how cool all the letters look!

On Thursday, after reading our book it was time to get on the bus!.

We started with a strip of yellow paper and asked each student to cut 3 pieces, counting out loud as each piece was cut. This addresses color identification and math access points. We used our number strip to point to number 3.

Ms.Melissa signs for our student who is hearing impaired.

Then the pieces were dipped in glue and placed on the bus.

This activity promotes pincer grasp skills and eye hand

coordination.

We added 2 black wheels….

circles of course!

With the school bus colored we needed to add some riders of course!

We held up staff pictures and asked “who is this?”, then glued them onto the bus. Repeating this with the student’s pictures.

We finished with a chorus of “The Wheels on the Bus”

Language Group—Letter A

We started by using our Animal tongs to pick up some red Apples (pompoms) to put in Assorted bowls

We also used a number chart to count the Apples, addressing one to one correspondence (math access point).

Then we Added An Animal to the String.

We made Aliens by using shapes with Angles. The black lines seen in the picture are the cutting lines.

We Added googlie eyes

And Antennae.

Note, the fabulous pincer grasp 🙂

They looked

Awesome!!!

Cara’s sound game was lots of fun.

We wrote a lot of sticky notes today—–what a lot of A words we found!!!

Please join us again next week, Group by Group 🙂

Jul9

Fun Friday

Posted on July 9, 2012 by jd785

Fun Friday

We finish the week with our Language Group in Robin’s classroom. We cram a LOT of activities into a 30 minute group but its lots of fun! Joy started the group as a fine motor group based on Robin’s “letter of the week” theme. When Cara came on board we added more of a language/literacy emphasis. We are still tweaking the group but feel its combination of action and games is particularly successful. We have found, for this class, changing the activities frequently and writing the words on the post-its helps keep the students interested and engaged.

It gets pretty wild at times but a great way to end a week of learning —-a Fun Friday 🙂

Robin and her assistants Arlene and Candy—we couldn’t do it without them!

Jun10

Timing is Everything

Posted on June 10, 2012 by jd785

Timing is Everything

As we have probably said before, every class we do a group in is different and we have learned something from each one!

We learned a lot about timing in Tonja’s class. Her students are still learning to attend to activities and are easily over stimulated. Staying at a table for any length of time is difficult for them. Tonja’s sensory group was structured to allow her students to move in and out freely. We also found that quickly rotating the sensory boxes encouraged refocusing of attention—and when we say quickly, we mean 20 seconds or less!

Gradually as the year progressed, we noticed some of the students were staying at the table for longer periods. We also saw more purposeful interaction with the materials and voice output devices. By ACCOMMODATING to the students and TIMING our presentation of materials rather than making Tonja’s class fit our “vision”—- the group was the success we had hoped for.

Thanks to Tonja, Mary and Sonya for a great year.

May28

Week 32—Birthdays

Posted on May 28, 2012 by jd785

Week 32—Birthdays

We managed to squeeze in one last week of groups before summer and decided the theme Birthdays would be lots of fun for all our groups!

Sensory Group—Birthdays

As usual we started by reading Cara’s latest book and marveled, once again, at how good our students have gotten at pressing the voice output device to repeat the repetitive line.

Our first box contained an assortment of birthday related items. We had confetti (made from a shredded magazine), party horns and paper streamers—very interesting visually.

We put in the words Family and Friends (along with some play people) because that’s who come to our birthday parties! Toy cookies and a squeaky (a nice auditory component and also good for hand strengthening) cupcake reminded us of all the yummy food.

We also tucked in a voice output device with the “happy birthday” tune for our students to find. Again, lots of language opportunities along with interesting things to touch and look at in this box!

Our box of ribbon was a big hit! We filled the box with pieces of curled paper ribbon but also added some fabric ribbon for an interesting textural comparison.

Some of the students especially liked pulling the curled ribbon to watch in straighten out—-a nice way to practice bilateral skills!

Access points are addressed comparing the straight and curly properties of the different ribbons. In addition, relative lengths can be compared, addressing more math access points.

As always, colors are noted and discussed.

Birthday cakes always have candles—or at least at home they do 🙂

We aren’t allowed to have candles at school so we used our Wikki Stix to represent them. The Wikki Stix have that waxy feel, just like candles. They can be twisted into shapes, numbers and letters—or just crumpled into a ball all the while addressing hand intrinsic functions!

We are all huge fans of funfetti cake and thought our rainbow rice looked just like those colorful sprinkles.

Since birthdays are all about numbers, we put a few in for the students to find.

Speaking of cake, it starts with flour which we put in our next box. We also put in some laminated candles to count (addressing math access points) and a hidden surprise—-a birthday cake picture taped to the bottom.

Visual discrimination skills and fine motor skills are also addressed in this box.

…..and of course if you like messy play, this is totally the box for you—this stuff gets EVERYWHERE 🙂

We had to had some balloons! Since some of our students and staff have latex allergies we stuck with mylar balloons. Our students really enjoyed playing with them!

Visual tracking is, of course, addressed as they move about. Eye hand coordination skills are addressed when reaching for or hitting the balloons. There is also an auditory component as the slightly deflated ones are grasped and crumpled.

Literacy skills are addressed when reading the words on the balloons.

We let our students vote which color to make our shaving cream “icing” and then let them have a blast mixing it all in.

Great to practice prewriting patterns or just to engage arm movements.

Afterwards we got to rinse our hands in cake scented body wash (from philosophy) and rubbed on our vanilla sugar lotion to help us remember what a “sweet” time we had today!

Fine Motor Group—-Birthdays

On Thursday we read Cara’s book and proceeded to make party hats! We started by passing out and counting 8 red party hats. The hats were give aways—which we love 🙂

We discussed the hat’s shape (cone)—-addressing math access points.

We glued on pieces of tissue paper. Some of the students applied their glue by using brushes to reinforce tool use skills. Others dipped the paper into glue bowls (made from caps), addressing eye hand coordination and pincer grasp.

We discussed the colors of the various tissue paper squares and counted how many were put onto the cone.

Some fabulous foam glitter stickers gave us another opportunity to work on pincer grasp and bilateral coordination skills. Some of our students could peel them apart independently but most needed some help.

Alright, these are some pretty festive looking hats!

Time to get the party started 🙂

On Thursday we read Cara’s book again and had fun picking out different details in the pictures. Our art activity was making cupcake pictures.

First we gave the students an opportunity to make a choice regarding what color paper they wanted. When everyone was finished we counted the 8 rectangular pieces of paper, addressing math access points.

Everyone practiced “writing” their name on the bag of the paper.

Next we asked out students to decide if they were going to make 1, 2, or 3 cupcakes and handed them the corresponding amount of small brown rectangles.

In addition to addressing number identification, this also practices answering in the testing format our district uses.

We asked the students to draw vertical “down” lines using a marker.

Some really nice skills emerging with this student, we are so proud 🙂

After the rectangles were glued to the paper we added some colorful cotton ball frosting.

Lots of opportunities to work on pincer grasp and eye hand coordination here!

However, for some of our students just allowing their hand to be placed to help tap down the cotton balls is a huge leap in their participation.

Needless to say, we celebrate every students efforts 🙂

We added some glitter sprinkles and——Ta-Da—–some yummy cupcakes that look good enough to eat.

Language Group—Birthdays

We started by looking at the directions for making cupcakes that Cara had printed out. Lots of steps to keep track of and remembering what comes “next” and who’s turn it is!

Next we picked out a big mixing bowl.

And then we put in the cake mix. We discussed the concepts of in and out addressing language and access points.

Then we added water and oil. Comparing the different measures and cups addressed math access points.

In addition, graded motor control, bilateral skills, and eye hand coordination are practiced.

The recipe called for 3 eggs so this gave us an opportunity to practice number identification.

Due to concerns regarding possible salmonella issues, the adults handled the eggs.

Time to stir—-some students used a switch to operate the mixer. We used an Ablenet Power Link device to accomplish this—-a very useful assistive technology device!

Everybody got a turn to put the cupcake liners in the pan—counting them to address more math access points.

Then students filled the liners with the cake batter (working on more fine motor skills) and put them in the oven for 15 minutes while the class went to music class. If they had been staying in the room we would have used a visual timer to help reinforce time concepts.

After the cupcakes cooled, it was time to decorate!

We counted out spoons and each student scooped a spoonful of icing to spread on their cupcake. A few needed to be reminded to spread the icing—not to eat it straight from the spoon—kids will be kids 🙂

Then they got an opportunity to choose which color sprinkles they wanted. Again, practicing choice making from an array of 3 which is related to our alternate testing format.

Time to enjoy—-effort should always be rewarded!

YUM YUM YUM

And finally, a quick look at our cupcake words. Wow, there are a lot of words associated with making cupcakes!

Well, that really was our last group for the year! We will continue to do some posts about our school and classrooms this summer so be check them out. Hope everyone has a great summer and hope to see you again in the fall for more fun Group by Group!