March is Women’s History Month and this year we decided to take a look at some famous women in sports. The sensory groups explored boxes dedicated to some of the women featured in our book. Each box also contained a photo of the athlete. The fine motor groups made sports themed art projects and the language group hosted a sports event!
SENSORY GROUP
This box was filled with gold beads, reminding us of all the gold medals won by sprinter Wilma Rudolph.
Whether worn, shaken, or just explored the beads were a hit with the students.
Science access point: uses senses to recognize objects.
The students made their own basketballs out of orange Floam in this box dedicated to famous WNBA player Lisa Leslie.
Floam has a unique texture which many of our students find intriguing as they squeeze it into shapes.
Science access point: recognize a common three dimensional object.
Sarah Thomas was the first woman to referee an NFL game. There were black, white, and striped pompoms to sort.
Of course, the students loved exploring the soft texture also.
Science access point: match objects with similar observable properties, such as size, shape, color, or texture.
Jackie Joyner Kersee is ranked as one of the greatest athletes of all time! She donned red, white, and blue to compete in four olympic games!
Our colorful rice contained two different size measuring cups for scooping fun.
Math access point: recognize differences in size of objects.
Since Chloe Kim competed in the winter olympics we filled her box with some insta snow. We also put in a rake and shovel, so the students could make their own half pipes!
Science access point: recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move.
The students made tracks in shaving foam. We put in a little car for them to race around their track like famous race car driver Janet Guthrie.
The students had a lot of fun with this, especially when we made engine sounds as the car raced around 🙂
Science access point: recognize that an object can move in different directions, such as left to right, straight line, and zigzag.
Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim the English Channel—how cool is that! We put in some fish themed toys and pool noodles in her box.
The fish toys were especially fun as they had holes for water to drip through.
Science access point: recognize different containers that hold liquids.
Thinking of the flower blankets winning horses wear, we used Crabtree and Evelyn rose scent for our lotion this week.
While most of the adults were not fans of the scent, most of the students seemed to like the aroma!
Science access point: recognize one or more external body parts.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
On Wednesday the students made basketballs. We have done this craft before but since it fit our theme so well, we did it again 🙂
First, the students identified the shape of their ball and the color of the paint we were going to use.
Science access point: identify objects by one observable property, such as color.
Math access point: recognize a common object with a two-dimensional shape.
The students stamped UP and DOWN using a bubble wrapped kitchen scrubber.
Math access point: recognize a movement that reflects a spatial relationship, such as up and down.
The ball was glued on to a piece of paper and…..
TA DA!!!!
Let’s play ball!
On Thursday, the students made referee shirts.
First, they identified the color of their markers.
Science access point: identify objects by one observable property, such as color.
Then, they drew stripes on their shirts.
Some of the students used a switch operated drawing tool.
Science access point: recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move.
Ta DA!!!
These referees are ready for game day!!!!
Who is ready to play 🙂
LANGUAGE GROUP
Since we are talking about women in sports this week, we decided to have our own heptathlon!
We started out by having a parade of athletes.
Other students who were not participating were part of the crowd cheering everyone on.
For the first event, we had wheelchair relay races. These were so fun! Athletes racing had to WAIT until they saw the GO symbol and then they were off! We talked about going FAST.
The winner was the first to cross the pink ribbon.
The next event we held was the javelin. Our students had to THROW the pool noodle and see who could get it the FARTHEST. Some of our students needed a little more help than others with throwing 🙂
We had another throwing event: the discus. Again, our students had to THROW the “discus” and see which one went the farthest. We’ve got some competitive kiddos.
The 4th event was the pool noodle hurdle. Students had to step or jump OVER the pool noodles.
Again, some students required a little more help than others, but they made it through!
Next, we held the snowboard balance event. Students had to use good balance to stay up.
This was a difficult event, but they did wonderfully!
The 6th event, the trampoline high jump, was a fun event! Jumpers had to see how HIGH they could get while jumping on the mini-trampoline.
Lots of fun!
Our 7th and final event was the bean bag archery event. Students had to THROW the bean bags into the holes. Awesome job!
Throughout our events we had students use sentence strips to say, “my turn”.
We also had ones with positive statements on them like “you did awesome”, “great job”, and “way to go” so that our students could cheer each other on.
Finally, we had the medal ceremony. All participants received a medal or trophy for their hard work.
We are all winners!
Join us again next time for more fun and learning—–Group by Group!
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