This was such a great week, our students love music so this was the perfect theme for them! We had fun coming up with sensory boxes that matched the different musical genres for our sensory group. The fine motor group had fun making musical instruments and we had a dance party in the language group!
SENSORY GROUP
These wands that light up when tapped made perfect “drum sticks” (found at Target) for our rock and roll box. Way fun, the sticks were perfect for drumming and the flashing lights reminded us of light shows at a rock concert! Needless to say, these were a huge hit with our students.
Recognizing that pushing and pulling an object makes it move is a science access point. In addition, recognizing the change in the motion of an object—-when the lights stop—is another science access point.
Our classical music box was black and white just like the keys of a piano. We added black beans to white rice to get the effect. A piece of sheet music was taped to the bottom of the box and we put a large letter M inside. Most of our students used their hands to explore the box—-they love the way the rice feels and looks as it shifts around. A few, however, used the large M kind of like a scraper to move large amounts of the rice and beans around.
The science access point of recognizing that pushing and pulling an object makes it move is addressed again with this activity.
As the sheet music and letter M are covered and uncovered the math access point of recognizing when an object is added to or taken away from a situation is addressed.
Our lava lamp discovery bottles were a HUGE hit with our students! One was filled with water, corn syrup, gold glitter, and some plastic jewels. The other was filled with water (tinted purple), green tinted corn syrup, cooking oil, glitter and some beads……
Totally groovy 🙂
The science access point tracking the movement of objects that are pushed or pulled is addressed with these bottles.
There are have been so many fabulous musicals and one of the most popular today is Wicked.
We whipped up some pretty wicked oobleck this week using green food coloring and black glitter. It was pretty thick so it slowly dripped down from fingers and took a little more effort to push aside.
In addition to color identification, the science access point tracking the movement of objects that are pushed or pulled is addressed again.
Opera singers always get roses at the end of the performance so rose seemed the perfect scent to put into our rinsing water. We used rose scented bubble bath we found at Target.
We included 2 different sized scoops to address the math access point of recognizing differences in sizes of containers that hold liquids (capacity).
Solving problems involving small quantities of objects or actions using language, such as enough, too much, or more is another math access point addressed as students pour water from one container to another.
Rap singers like gold chains AND gold records! This box contained some hard gold beads and soft fluffy gold garland. Pretty, sparkly—very eye catching.
Fun to explore, fun to wear 🙂
Sorting objects by an observable property such as texture is a science access point addressed here.
A cookie cutter shaped like a boot, along with cherry scented playdough (we made it with kool-aid) —–perfect for a country music box!
Using just one shape gave the students an opportunity to work on counting, associating quantities with number names addressing math access points.
Of course, playdough is always a great activity for promoting hand intrinsic functions—we OT’s like stuff like that 🙂
We finished the group with some rose scented lotion from Crabtree and Evelyn. This is some pretty strong smelling stuff—you can smell it across the room so it’s VERY memorable!
Recognizing and responding to different types of sensory stimuli is a science access point addressed here.
Communicating a preference for a familiar action such as holding out a hand for lotion is a language access point addressed.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
On Tuesday, after reading the book, Jeannie brought out a real guitar for the students to play. Everybody got a chance to strum the strings and our students loved the sounds they made!
Can you tell that the students totally had a blast 🙂
Sharing objects with a partner and recognizing common sounds are science access points explored here.
For our art project the students made their own guitars! We started by cutting out the words ROCK STAR from a piece of paper—-turning one piece of paper into 2 pieces of paper. These were taped onto our “guitars”
T0 prep the guitars, we flattened paper towel rolls and taped them to the back of these really colorful tissue boxes.
Recognizing a change in an object and applying a push or pull to move an object are the science access points addressed here.
The math access point is associating quantities 1 and 2 with number names.
The words were glued onto the box and then the students were given a choice of stickers to decorate their guitars.
These stickers were little so there were lots of opportunities to practice pincer grasp skills.
Using body movement or nonverbal expression to communicate desires or preferences is a language access point.
Then we asked the students to let us know how many strings (rubber bands) they wanted on their guitars. Putting the strings on the guitar required bilateral coordination and pincer grasp skills. Our students needed varying degrees of assistance for this step.
Again, the language access point using body movement or nonverbal expression to communicate desires or preferences is addressed.
Associating quantities with number names is the math access point addressed.
TA DA!!!
Our rock stars loved their guitars and had a great time making their own music 🙂
On Thursday we continued with our musical instrument theme by making drums! First we tried out a real drum—–so much fun!
The science access points recognizing common objects in the environment and recognizing and responding to common sounds is addressed with this activity.
We started our art project by passing out rectangular pieces of paper and helping our students to identify the colors red and purple using our communication symbols.
Identifying common objects by one observable property, such as color is a science access point.
Recognizing common objects with a two dimensional shape is a math access point.
Then we stamped stars and swirls with the paint. We made handles for the stamps by using double stick tape to affix plastic thread spools—-this worked out really well!
Recognizing that the appearance of an object or material has changed is a science access point.
Then we taped the paper around plastic coffee containers and added some glitter——we never pass up the opportunity to add glitter to a project 🙂
As we are shaking the glitter we are working on the math access point recognizing a movement that reflects a spatial relationship, such as up and down!
We discovered that we needed to let the paint dry BEFORE letting our students play with their drums lol. When they were finally dry, it was time to boogie….
Dum diddy dum diddy dum….
LANGUAGE GROUP
We started the group reading Cara’s book. We have a few students in here who were able to name their friends who were in the book. It was very exciting for them 🙂
After reading the book, we went around with the Go Talk and let the students decide the genre of music they wanted to listen to. We put the pictures that were in the book on the Go Talk to keep it consistent for our students.
Communicating recognition of familiar persons in daily activities and communicating a preference for familiar persons, objects, or actions are language access points addressed.
We then had the students press a switch to activate the All Turn It spinner to see what kind of dance moves they would have to do. The different dance moves were: clap your hands, stomp your feet, spin around, tap your knees, nod your head, wave your hands in the air. We used iTunes for the clips of music, making sure that they were appropriate before we turned them on 🙂
The language access point responding to a technology resource is addressed with this activity.
This was definitely a fun group! Although only one student would pick a genre at a time, everyone had to participate in the dance moves. Some of our students really got their groove on!
Communicating information about familiar actions using non-verbal expression, gestures/signs, pictures, symbols, or words is a language access point addressed.
Hope you enjoyed seeing all the fun we had this week. Join us again next week for more smiles, Group by Group!