Sensory Sundial

I work with a group of students who are studying Ancient Rome.  The Ancient Romans told time using a sundial or a water clock.  I chose to adapt the sundial.  
Materials:
Air-dry clay
small paper plates
small rocks
gold glitter (of course)
small craft sticks
glue

Directions:
Push the clay to the edges of the plate.  It does not need to be really thick.  Make a lump in the middle for the stick.  Sprinkle gold glitter on the clay.  Push the glitter into the clay.  Push small rocks around the edges of the clay.  Use glue to add glitter to the craft stick.  Push craft stick in at an angle.  Once the clay dries (at least overnight), tear away the paper plate.

After we finished the sundials, I turned off the lights and used a flashlight to demonstrate how the sundial was used to tell time.  Our sundials were not accurate.

Sensory Valentine

Valentine's day is a great day for a messy sensory project.  My students made Valentines.  I started with a white heart and coated it with glue.  The students added fake rose petals, tinsel, textured shapes, and glittery foam hearts.  We glued the hearts to a piece of poster board.





Most of the materials were purchased at the Dollar Tree.  I would suggest cutting the tinsel into shorter pieces.  It was really long.

Cardinal Sensory Activity

Since we didn't get any measurable snow in January, I decided to incorporate snow into my sensory activity.  I gave each student a picture of a cardinal glued onto a piece of construction paper.  The students added snow (shredded white paper that I ran through a crosscut shredder), pipe cleaner legs, and feathers.  I chose this activity because our state bird is the cardinal, and the teacher was doing a unit on winter animals.

I found my feathers after Christmas at Michael's.  The bag came with red, green, and white feathers.  All I had to do was separate them.  

When I was cleaning out my basement, I found an old box of tractor feed paper.  I ripped off a few pages and ran it through my shredder while I got ready for work.  It was a lot faster than shredding one sheet at a time.

Sensory Trees

This year during the weeks before our holiday break, I decided to do a textured tree.  The idea popped into my ADD brain one afternoon.  I shredded green computer paper in my crosscut shredder and used the paper as pine needles on the pre-drawn pine tree shapes.  I drew the tree on poster board cut into four pieces. The first step is to spread glue to cover the entire tree. Don't be stingy.  The next step is to sprinkle the paper pine needles all over the tree, then pat them down.   Shake all of the excess needles back into the container.  If there aren't enough, continue to add more to fill in empty spaces.  
Sprinkling methods 1. Place the paper on your hand and have the student knock it onto the tree. 2.  Have the student pinch the paper and sprinkle. 3.  Use an extra large spice container with a big opening.  

After the tree is green, you can add ornaments.  I used the many left overs that I had from my time in a classroom.  You could add string, or other materials.  

If you have a student who is blind, you may want to mark the lines with hot glue.  This will help if the student uses her finger to spread the glue inside the lines.

October 2012 Activities

This month I focused on attributes.  I read a book called The Littlest Pumpkin which focused on big and little.  I created some pumpkin eggs to demonstrate heavy and light.  I filled half of the plastic eggs with fish gravel.  After I drew on the faces, I used clear packing tape to keep the eggs from coming open.

The eggs could be used for a sorting activity for some students.  My students dropped the eggs into a metal bowl and listened to the different sounds.  

I used the ball with an elastic strap with my students with Cortical Visual Impairment.  I added the face to the bright orange ball.

Butterflies

My students created a book called "Where's My Mom?"  Each book had a textured caterpillar on the cover page.  The next two pages said, "That's not my mom."  The last page said, "That is my mom.  The goal is to match the "mom" butterfly to the caterpillar.  I used an Ellison Press to cut the butterflies and caterpillars from textured paper available from APH.  It was a good lesson for teaching the concepts - same and different.  If you present the caterpillar, matching butterfly, and a non-matching butterfly, the student can find the texture that is different.  I continued this way until the butterfly that was left was the "mom" butterfly.


We also made a butterfly from a coffee filter.  Some of my students painted their butterfly on the Mini-Lite Box from APH.  I used shiny pipe cleaners to make the antennae, and bright colored clothes pins for the body.  We used watercolor paints and brushes.  Try not to let the filter get too wet, or wait until it dries to add the antennae.  Wrap the pipe cleaner around the body, then twist.  I used plastic clothes pins, but you could use the wooden pins and paint them.

If you have a student with low vision or CVI (Cortical Visual Impairment), shiny pipe cleaners can be a quick way to highlight pictures or objects.    

That’s Not My Bear

I read the book That's Not My Bear available from APH.  After we finished reading the book, my student made her own book.  I showed her four bears made of different textures.  She chose the one she liked and that became "her" bear. We placed this bear on the page that said "That's my bear," then she chose which bear she wanted to put on the cover and the other pages of her book.