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!