We finally had some beautiful weather this week! Caught a joyful moment of AC & W hugging during morning carpool – These two warm our hearts!
In occupational therapy this week we continued to review coins. We talked about and observed coins that are look similar, such as the nickel and the dime. We traced the coins and discriminated the differences in the circles. Visual discrimination (i.e., the ability to recognize details and differences in objects/images) is an important perceptual skill that is used frequently in everyday life. Fine motor skills and bilateral coordination were also embedded with this activity to stabilize the coin with one finger while the other hand traced around the coin.
We built airplanes this week! Constructional praxis (i.e., the ability to build or assemble objects) was used to make the airplane look the same as the model. Small stickers were used on the airplane in specified areas which address motor control and accuracy. We enjoyed the breeze and gliding our airplanes through the air!
During our popcorn party we made observations using our senses as we looked, touched, smelled, listened and tasted. We observed that the popcorn sounded “loud” and “popped”, looked “white”, smelled “good”, felt “crunchy”and tasted “salty.” The popcorn party was fun and a great way to end our school week!
The -ad word family was introduced this week in Spelling. We made a beehive sounding out words such as “lad” and “glad.” We also colored and cut out a bumble bee and added him to our hive! In keeping with our popcorn theme party on Friday, we made a bucket of spelling popcorn! The kids cut out a bucket to hold the “popcorn” and then wrote their -ad spelling words on popcorn and glued it to the bucket.
This week we learned the digraph ‘TH’ – we read the story of ‘TH’ and learned the sound that they make when they are together. AC and W thought the story was super cute and funny! After coming up with words that have the digraph ‘TH’, they had to sort ‘TH’ and ‘SH’ words into correct columns. I highlighted the digraphs in each word so they could recognize and read the word.
We focused on learning about maps this week in social studies. More specifically, concepts such as the map title, map key, and the compass rose. W and AC identified land and water features as well as other objects shown on the map key. Students were introduced to vocabulary including navigation. We colored a compass rose and created our own map of the classroom. At Wills Park we used the map to locate the playground. We also colored a map and cut out icons for the map key.
