After enjoying our national Labor Day holiday, the students had fun learning about different jobs in the community. This unit was also tied into our Unique curriculum unit related to following rules. From shaving cream “firefighter” foam in the sensory group, to making and playing with props in the fine motor and language groups——a blast was had by all.
Read along to see all our different activities AND cute pictures!
SENSORY GROUP
Our first box was filled with green paper shred and topped with grocery and restaurant play food items—-places with lots of jobs in the community. We also included items representing other jobs such as firefighter and police officer miniatures, a variety of vehicles and a toy hammer.
People get paid to do jobs—– so we mixed in some play money and coins. We also put some more coins in a discovery bottle which was lots of fun to shake and roll around!
Recognizing the differences in the appearance of coins and recognizing coins as money are social studies access points.
School resource officers help teach us about safety and following rules. To represent our police officers we used these blue lighted hammer toys (purchased at Target). The flashing lights on the police cars are very eye catching and exciting to our students. To add to the fun we all took turns trying to mimic siren sounds—-some of us were better at it than others 🙂
The science access point recognize sources of light is addressed with this activity.
We put 2 construction vehicles in our mixed bean construction site. When there is construction going on at our school the workers put up signs and tape so that we stay safely out of the area—-another rule that is important to follow!
The students had fun pushing and moving the beans around with the vehicles—-hands were pretty effective also and the only rule was to try to keep the beans inside the box 🙂
This activity addresses the science access point recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move.
L is for Labor Day! We put 2 different letter L cookie cutters into our moon sand. In addition to letter recognition, a great activity for hand strengthening.
The science access point apply a push to move an object is addressed as our students learn about forces and changes in motion.
Our students love when our local fire fighters come to visit and teach us about fire safety. To represent them we used shaving cream “fire fighter” foam which was a hit as usual. Some of the students just dipped fingers in while others went elbow deep! Either way it was super sensory fun as always!!!
The science access point recognizing that pushing and pulling makes it move is again addressed here.
Our Doctor/Nurse box was a total success with our students! Included with the hard tongue depressors were some soft cotton balls and medicine cups. These made for great pincer grasp practice as they put the cotton balls in and out of the cups. Of course, the toy stethoscope was a huge hit—-they loved listening to their “heartbeats”.
The science access points use senses to recognize objects and recognize a model of a real object are both addressed with this fun box.
Bath and Body works sunriped raspberry scented bath gel was used for our water play this week. We picked this scent in honor of our cafeteria workers who make sure we eat our fruits and vegetables. They also help us follow the rules in the cafeteria!
An apple sponge added to the splashy, fruity fun 🙂
Distinguishing between items that are wet and items that are dry is a science access point that can be addressed in this activity.
As usual we presented the lotion to our students and gave them the opportunity to indicate where they wanted the lotion applied. The sweet, yummy scent was rubbed on hands, arms, and necks leaving the students smelling like delicious little raspberries for the rest of the day!
Recognize one or more external body parts is the science access point addressed here.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
For our art project on Tuesday we made a fun police hat from paper plates. The hats were pre-assembled by cutting a small paper plate in half and stapling it to a larger plate for the brim. The template for the cap part is here: cap template
We started by showing our students a blue marker and then asked them to show us the color blue using the communication symbols.
The science access point identify classroom objects by one observable property such as color is addressed here.
Then it was time to COLOR! Our students are emergent writers and they are working on increasing the amount of time they spend scribbling. They are really doing a great job and making progress!
Next we glued on a police badge——using this template: police badge and……….
TA DA!!! Our own Officer Friendly 🙂
Community Based Instruction trips are important in helping our students learn about places in their community. It also gives them a chance to use money to buy things. On Thursday we used some powdered drink containers to make CBI boxes that parents could use to send in money—–rather than an envelope that might get lost at the bottom of a backpack.
First we looked at the paper we were using for our project and discussed its color and shape. Then we used our cutter to trim the paper to size.
The science access point recognize a change in an object is addressed as the paper is cut.
The math access point recognize an object with a 2 dimensional shape is also addressed.
The paper was then taped around the drink container and decorated with stickers—–LOTS and LOTS of pincer grasp practice!
We also counted the stickers——addressing the math access point recognize quantities 1 to 3 using sets of objects, pictures, or number names.
A fabulous finished project—————Ta DA!!!!
LANGUAGE GROUP
Since we were talking about Labor Day and different jobs, we decided to have our students dress for the part! We used an All-Turn-It spinner and added pictures of the 6 different jobs that were talked about in the book. Our students took turns activating the spinner to find out the job that they were going to have.
The language access point respond to basic production elements in media messages ex. motion, sound.
Once they landed on a job, they were given the choice of 2 different props for jobs and were asked to choose which one was the appropriate item for the job they landed on. The props we used included: police hat for police officer, firefighter hat for firefighter, hard hat for construction worker, stethoscope for nurse, pot holder for cafeteria staff, and broom for custodian. We have found that, especially for our students with vision difficulties, real items instead of pictures are much more effective.
Communicate information about objects using non-verbal expression, gestures/signs, pictures,, symbols, or words is a language access point.
Some of our students needed a little bit of help, but overall, they were able to choose the correct item for the job they landed on!
And look how CUTE they are!
We had a blast turning Labor Day into a week long event! Please join us again next week for more fun and learning………Group by Group!
Group by Group 