Motor Group

This week we started our real motor group with PT, and it was so fun! 

We have been having our own motor group in class every other week, 

working on what gross motor skills we can 

with the limited equipment that we have.

Chris is one of the district's physical therapists, 

and he did a fantastic job holding the attention of 10 kids that day!

 waiting so nicely for their turns!

 They had to stand on this wobbly pad and throw the ball into the barrel. 

Not as easy as it looks!

 I don't know what they call this contraption, but they are foam rollers held tightly together by rubber bands, and the kids have to push through them.

 They had to climb the ladder to grab the ball on the velcro paddle.

 They also worked on a forward roll.

Phoebe celebrated her birthday last week, and someone had painted the rock for her!

 We had a zoo animal sensory box.

Lucas was working on his lion, painting the mane with a fork! 

 Evan and Christian played a math game, covering monkeys with each roll of the dice.

 Ni'Chari and Lincoln worked in the ABC center

 Zechariah and Cadence using the iPads.

 The kids practiced printing X's on the Smartboard.

 Ni'Chari, Lincoln and Lucas played a new board game.

They work on taking turns, following the rules of a game, and in this case, playing with a more elaborate game board. We've been using home made game boards, because some of the commercially made ones are too visually busy.

 We cooked pancakes on Thursday…everyone had a turn to stir.

Yummy, golden brown pancakes!

Hope you enjoyed the photos. See you soon!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

After a long hiatus, the blogger (Mrs. Windell!) is finally back!

We have a few new faces since the last post.

See if you spot some new friends and the old...

 Cadence and Lincoln using the play doh and letter stamps with Mrs. Headden.

 Wyatt and Evan were working on taking turns and learning rules for a game.

 Cadence was building at the blocks center using the cardboard bricks.

 Lucas and Colin using letter stamps and play doh…a great way to practice letter/sound recognition.

 Phoebe and Zechariah were building with foam blocks. In this center, kids are working on sharing materials, as well as sometimes working on a specific assigned task with a partner. For example, I might ask the kids to build a tower together.

 Tyler and Christian were trying the memory game, too.

 Evan and Wyatt play with a toy together.

 Cadence and Lincoln building with the cardboard bricks.

 The boys at snack time.

 The other half of the class at snack time!

 Don't you love these cute Cat in the Hat hats?

 For cooking this week, we made Cat in the Hat fruit kabobs.

Zechariah placed strawberry and banana slices on a straw. 

 Nice pattern, Cadence! 

Tyler says, "First you put them on a straw."

Lucas says, "Then you eat them!"

Wyatt putting his fruit on the straw.

 

 Everyone at least tasted the fruit.

 Christian certainly enjoyed it!

Thanks for checking in with us, we hope to have a new update soon!!!

Fall

We have had some new friends join our class in recent weeks,
and I wanted to add a few pictures to include them.
It's so fun to see yourself, I think!
Christian's favorite book to read is Brown Bear, Brown Bear,
and he did a fantastic job reading it to the class last week.

Purple cat, purple cat, what do you see?

Cadence is a new friend, and she and Lucas played a counting game together.
They rolled the dice, counted the dots, and fed their bears that many strawberries.

Here are Evan and Wyatt retelling Brown Bear, Brown Bear
with the flannel board pieces. Everyone had to work on negotiating who got to put the pieces on and who held the book. Taking turns is an important skill!

 In this center, Josiah and Christian used the wood blocks and forest animals.

Wyatt and Tyler had quite the dinner party!

 Lucas and Cadence worked with the animals and blocks, too.
I wonder what they were making?

 At motor group, we did a quick obstacle course: a 2 footed jump from hoop to hoop,
then walking on tiptoes across the "stones".
Lucas had great balance!

Ggreat jumping with both feet, Zachary!

Wow! It has been too long since my last post! 

We have had many exciting things going on, and I am anxious to share them with you.
This is by no means everything that we've done in that time, but some pics are better than none, right?

We celebrated fall by making a leaf-shaped sun catcher.

We graphed, sorted, and counted leaves.

We also read the book There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves.

In a teacher-led center, we worked on building the letter L.

In another center, we worked with whole circles and parts of circles.

On our cooking day that week, we made yummy cheese quesadillas!

That's a hungry group of kids!

Later this fall we spent a week reading books with 3 characters.

We read The Three Little Pigs.

We also read Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

At the book center that week, the kids had fun retelling the story using the flannel board pieces.

Later that week, the kids played a letter bingo game to work on letter/sound identification.
We adapt the activity based on the level of each student. Some don't yet know the letters, and we will use a visual for support, some work to find the letter named, and others who already know the letters can work on finding a letter that makes a certain sound.
Everyone has fun and is challenged at just the right level!

We'll be back soon with more pictures :)