This week we went to see Pete the Cat at the Fox Theater. After Pete the Cat gets caught rocking out after bedtime, the cat-catcher sends him to live with the Biddle family to learn his manners and boy are they square but soon Pete the Cat has the whole family rockin’ except Jimmy. As the end of second grade approaches, Jimmy has a lot of tests, and the last thing he needs is some groovy cat in his life, changing his family and turning everything upside down. But when Jimmy draws a blank in art class during the last week of school, it turns out Pete is the perfect friend to help him out. Together, they set out on a mission to help Jimmy conquer second grade art, and along the way, they both learn a little something new about inspiration. We enjoyed our big trip into the city to see this fun and entertaining musical!
We worked on Thanksgiving crafts and handwriting activities this week in OT. We’ve focused on people and things we are thankful for in our lives. The kids made these adorable pies and under each flap they wrote what they are thankful for; Cornerstone Prep School (love!), their families, teachers, pets, etc. They read their pies to everyone at the Thanksgiving Feast.
Skills targeted this week included fine motor development (motor control and accuracy, finger isolation and strength, pincer grasp), cutting skills, sequencing and motor planning, and handwriting (sizing and mixed casing of upper and lower case letters). Individual strategies are used for handwriting components of sizing and line adherence for more organized written output. We also continue to focus on areas of self-care including teeth brushing and handwashing.
During this activity, students picked a branch with a number on it, and the completed the number of jumps on the trampoline to address self- regulation and control. They then placed small clothes pins on the branch to promote finger strength, isolation, and grasp.
Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner, our academic lessons this week involved turkeys and Pilgrim / Indian hats!
W and AC used turkey letters to spell their spelling words. The turkey letters were so cute – they got a kick out of them! The goal was to read the word, find the correct letters to spell the word and then build it. We practiced all of our spelling words with our turkey letters.
We played a ‘find the turkey’ sight word game using small dixie cups, sight words and a picture of a turkey. The objective was to find the turkey hiding under a sight word cup. Each cup had a different sight word on it. We hid the turkey under a cup and told them what word to find then they had to pick up the correct cup to find the turkey.
One of our favorite spelling activities this week was making a spelling word Indian hat! W and AC wrote all of their spelling words on brown, orange and yellow feathers and we stapled them on the hat for them to wear. They both LOVED this activity! They insisted on wearing the hats to our school Thanksgiving feast!
We read the book “There was an Old Lady who Swallowed some Leaves” – this is such a silly book! W and AC had to sequence (put in order) the different items the Old Lady ate while we read the story. When the story was finished, they were asked to recall the items by memory and we made a list on the board of all the silly things she ate.
On Friday we celebrated Thanksgiving with the families and teachers at CPS (at the big table upstairs). We had vegetable pot pies, salad, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, butternut squash, fruit salad, pumpkin cheese cake and apple streusel bars. Everything was delicious! The kids sang the prayer (God our father to the tune of Frère Jacques) and read their thankful pies. It was a lovely afternoon.
We have so much to be thankful for this year especially with the start of Cornerstone Prep. In just a few months we have seen W & AC making enormous strides in all aspects of life; academically, socially, physically, with daily living skills and occupational therapy. The best part is seeing them so excited for school when they walk in the door every morning! We are also so incredibly grateful to our teachers who work hard each and every day for our kiddos and to W’s grandparents for without their support CPS would not be possible.
