We turned to the classics this week and what better source than Shakespeare for a tale about love—–Valentine’s Day coming up and all! Our students had an absolute blast dressing up as characters from the story so be sure to check out our powerpoint book.
The sensory group boxes were particularly bright, colorful, and fairy like. The fine motor groups did fairy art projects and the language group made a fairy garden.
It was a truly magical week 🙂
SENSORY GROUP
Since the story takes place at night, we turned off the lights and spritzed LoveSpell cologne (from Victoria’s Secret) around the room. Then the students took turns checking out the “twinkling” stars of our woodland umbrella.
It was almost like being in the woods on a midsummer night!
Recognize a source of light energy is a science access point.
With the lights back on, the students started exploring our boxes. This box was filled with leaves, plastic pine branches, and flowers—-things you might see in the woods. We also included some toys to represent some of the characters from the book.
The science access point match plants that are the same can be addressed here.
Since a Midsummer Night’s Dream is all about LOVE, we had to include a box filled with hearts! There were beads, shiny paper shred, garland, and hearts of all different textures and sizes—–we even included a discovery bottle filled with them. There were also some fabulous pink and glittery letters to form the word L-O-V-E.
The science access point match objects by an observable property, such as size, shape, and color can be addressed with this activity.
The students loved these swirling discovery bottles—–filled with fairy dust, of course! Since the bottles were filled with different liquids, some of the glitter moved really fast while in other bottles it moved more slowly.
Recognize an action as fast or slow is a science access point.
We called this box our “fairy vision” box 🙂 because we also filled it with squares of fabric of different colors and textures—– but all transparent. The students had a lot of fun draping the different pieces over their faces and using their “fairy vision” to look around the room.
Recognize and respond to one type of sensory stimuli is a science access point.
There were lots of letter “F”s (for Fairy) to find buried in our colorful purple beans. We used neon food coloring to get this fabulous color!
The students really loved the watching the beans shift around as they ran their fingers them.
Recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move is a science access point.
Neon pink food coloring and pink glitter certainly made our oobleck totally pop this week! It was really eye catching and absolutely irresistible. Our students—–and most of the adults 🙂 loved it!
Apply a push to move an object is a science access point.
3 different sized heart shaped scoops were included in our water play. Lots of opportunities for measurement exploration——and splashy fun—- with this box.
The science access point recognize differences in sizes of containers that hold liquids is addressed here.
Twilight Woods (Bath and BodyWorks) was the perfect scent for this week. Whether rubbed on hands, arms, or behind ears its sweet, floral aroma was a perfect reminder of a midsummer’s night in the woods.
Recognize one or more external body parts is a science access point.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
On Tuesday our students painted a fairy woodland. To complete their picture we used this:fairy template
We started by discussing our paint color and asked the students to use communication symbols to identify the color green.
Identify objects by one observable property, such as color is a science access point.
After discussing the shape of our paper and counting its sides, the students began painting leaves and shrubs.
Recognize a change in an object is a science access point.
When they had finished painting they added some fairy dust—–also known as green glitter 🙂
Track a falling object is a science access point.
For a final touch, we had added each student’s face to a fairy made with our template, complete with wings made with some craft foam butterfly shapes picked up at the dollar store.
The math access point recognize a movement that reflects a spatial relationship, such as up and down is addressed
TA DA
Just dreamy!
On Wednesday the students made some fairy crowns!
We started by discussing the shape of the crown—-it was a circle!
The math access point recognize an object with a two-dimensional shape is addressed here.
To prepare their paper the students crumpled and twisted it into a “vine”—-with a little help of course 🙂
Then they glued on leaves and flowers cut from the Ellison machine. We used some wallpaper samples for the flowers and the patterns added an extra colorful touch.
Recognize that the appearance of an object or material has changed is a science access point.
TA DA!!!
We do believe Shakespeare would approve.
LANGUAGE GROUP
We took a break from making food this week and decided to put together a little fairy garden since this week’s theme incorporates a lot of fairies! Now that the weather is getting a LITTLE bit warmer, we thought flowers would be even more appropriate.
Our students first got to vote on which flower pot they wanted to use for the fairy garden. Once the voting was finished, we started putting our garden together.
The first thing we did was get out the dirt. We passed it around so our students could smell it.
We think the consensus is that they enjoy smelling things that are food related more than dirt 🙂
Recognize and respond to one type of sensory stimuli is a science access point.
Our students then got to help POUR the dirt into the pot.
After each student had a turn we would ask “is this enough?”
This addresses the math access point solve problems involving quantities of objects or actions, using language, such as enough, too much, or more.
Once the dirt was ready, we talked about the colors of flowers that we had. Our students then got to dig a hole so we could put the flowers in.
We found that some of our students have a little bit of an aversion to touching dirt but all in all they did a great job!
When the flowers were all in, we decorated the rest of the pot with some fish tank pebbles, a wheelbarrow, AND……..
a cute little fairy!
TA DA! Our sweet little fairy garden is complete!
What fun we had this week, join us again next time for more fun and learning—–Group by Group!
