All Things Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!  What an exciting day!  We started the holiday off manipulating and playing with spider webs, skeletons, spiders, halloween erasers, creepy crawly centipedes, and bats...all things Halloween!  Ryan and Bristol were so tickled every time they scared me with one of these creeper crawly critters.  It was a super fun way to start our day.

 I left my camera in the classroom today when we went to the playground but brief highlights included rolling a million different balls down the slide, playing basketball and chase, rolling balls to each other, and as always...lots of bubbles.  They just never seem to tire of bubbles!

As you may have guessed, our language circle was all about Halloween today.  We read the book, Mouse's First Halloween by Lauren Thompson.  In this book, the reader travels with a little mouse as he experiences all the sounds and sights of Halloween for the first time.  Mouse sees and hears (flit, flit, flit) something flying in the sky and before turning the page, Bristol and Ryan had to guess what spooky thing it might be.  Your kiddos learned about bats, leaves, a scarecrow, falling apples, scampering kittens, glowing jack-o-lanterns, and loud trick-or-treaters.  As we read the book, we used picture cards for each new vocabulary word to support their comprehension, and then used the pictures to re-tell the story using temporal concepts first, second, last, etc.

After we read about all the things mouse encountered, Bristol and Ryan headed to the table to decorate their own jack-o-lanterns using construction paper; and they had to make choices about what different shapes they wanted to use for the face...a great way to target vocabulary about shapes and body parts!  We also had some time to review our vocabulary from our apple theme last week.  We categorized apples and leaves, talked about their colors, which category had the most or more and which one had the least or less as we glued on more and more pictures.

 

 It wouldn't be Halloween at the Speech Garden if we didn't carve our own pumpkin.  Bristol and Ryan had some interesting reactions as we scooped out the "slimy seeds and pulp."  Then we decided what shape we wanted for the eyes, nose, and mouth; and we talked about how just mommies and daddies use sharp knives to keep us safe.  When we were all done, we had quite the scary jack-o-lantern and very messy hands!  Bristol and Ryan had tons of fun pretending to feed the jack-o-lantern some of our pretend food from the small kitchen in our classroom.  We even poured him some tea!  To round out our jack-o-lantern language theme we learned a new song (see below).

                                                

                                                

Music was back in action today!  We have definitely missed our friends, Ms. Gretchen and Ms. Kylie this week, and they had a great Halloween music therapy session planned for us.  We sang all Halloween songs today and played instruments that mimicked spooky wind blowing, a scratching black cat, a rattling chain, and shaky skeleton bones.  We sang "Five Little Pumpkins" which was a great review from when we first learned it on Tuesday of this week.  We also sang a halloween song to the tune of "Old Macdonald" using halloween vocabulary with their corresponding sounds (i.e. a black cat says "meow meow here and a meow meow there..." and "a ghost says boo! boo!", etc.   

    

 

 So as you can see, it was a very busy but very fun day.  I hope you all have a safe and fun Halloween tonight with not too much sugar!  See you all on Tuesday!

Five Little Pumpkins

It's Halloween week! I can't believe we are already in the last week of October.  We have lots of fun things planned for this week!  I am so sad to report that Ryan was home sick today, but we hope that he is better and ready to get back in action with us on Thursday!  So, just Bristol began her day as always in the touch and feel pool playing with orange wagon-wheel pasta.  We counted the pasta, took it out of the pool, put it back in the pool, talked about its color and shape, and felt how it is hard before it is cooked.  

Bristol really seemed to enjoy Morning Circle this morning.  We sang one of our favorite songs, "Open and Shut Them."  At the end of the song, we "open up our little mouths, but.....do not let them in!"  During this portion of the song, Bristol imitated opening her mouth and vocalized "aah" with sustained eye contact several trials in a row.  Great progress!   I posted a video of the song, so that you can try this song at home too!

Bristol was busy, as always, on the playground today.  We rolled the ball back and forth through the tunnel to stimulate reciprocal play/turn-taking skills, and I modeled and physically prompted her to sign "my turn" with each turn.  Another little boy on the playground joined us, which made it extra fun and interactive too! Bristol also enjoyed rolling balls down the slide, and we targeted the sign for "go" before letting the ball go and before letting Bristol go down.  

For Language Circle today, we read the book, Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell.  I chose this book, because it was a good review of our apple theme last week, and introduced pumpkins as our new theme this week.  This book follows a little girl and her family as they go to the farm to pick apples and pumpkins.  They pick the apples from a tree and the pumpkins from a vine in the ground and enjoy meeting the animals on the farm.  As we read the book I had several apples and a pumpkin for Bristol to hold and explore.  We talked about how each one felt, the color, and where they come from.  When Bristol saw a duck in the book she said, "quack quack!"

After we finished reading the book, Bristol painted her own pumpkins.  She painted a paper plate orange, and she tolerated having paint on her hands quite nicely. We then used a "soft" pipe cleaner for the pumpkin vine (which she liked to feel on her face), and glued on a brown stem to make a beautiful pumpkin.  

After painting her pumpkin, Bristol used one of the left-over green pipe cleaners from our pumpkin craft and worked on strengthening her fine motor skills by stringing several beads onto the pipe cleaner.  She was very persistent and demonstrated a long attention span for this task.  After her bead work, we decided to get out some shaving cream for some good messy fun!  Bristol was somewhat reluctant to touch the shaving cream, but after a seeing my hands full of it, she quickly became accustomed to having her hands messy too and seemed curious about how it felt.  We traced shapes and letters in the shaving cream as we played with it.  

After a very busy morning with a lot of hard work and one-on-one attention, Bristol was tired, hungry, and very ready for lunch.  Looking forward to seeing everyone back for Halloween fun on Thursday!

An Apple a Day....

All the kids were surprised that the touch and feel pool was not out today.  However, they found our sensory element of the day at every seat of the table...gluten-free pumpkin play-dough!  At first, Bristol and Ryan were not sure how they felt about this slightly more grainy textured play-dough.  But after a quick warm up, they throughly enjoyed making snakes, worms, snowmen, balls, and lots of pancakes!  Super fun!

Bristol and Ryan were especially interactive on the playground today with each other and with the other children.  They tried to see how many balls they could get on the slide at one time.  Ryan enjoyed pretending to serve me and Bristol lemonade and hot dogs at his "restaurant window."  They had a blast going through the tunnel and as always, rolling the balls back and forth.   

After a very busy time on the playground, we headed inside for some fun with apples!

Today we read I Am An Apple by Jean Marzollo.  This book takes the reader through the life cycle of an apple from a bud to flower to fruit to market to table.  After we finished reading the book, we held several different types and colors of apples.  We cut into an apple and talked about its seeds, the skin, the flesh, the core, and how it felt and tasted.  Then we glued red scraps of construction paper to a paper plate, added a brown stem, and a green leaf and ended up with beautiful homemade apples of our own.

This week's theme was a perfect opportunity to make homemade applesauce.  We talked about the ingredients that we would need to make our applesauce.  We counted four apples, which we cored, seeded, sliced, and placed into a blender.  We then added 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.  As Bristol and Ryan held the lemons, we talked about how they felt, labeled the yellow color, and tasted them.  Ryan actually LOVED the sour lemons while Bristol decided to pass on the taste-test!  We blended our ingredients for about 1 minute and out came delicious applesauce!  After serving our applesauce into cups, Bristol and Ryan each tasted the product of their labor...mixed reactions were held by all, but I thought it was delicious!

For the finale of our apple language circle we watched the following short video....

Bristol and Ryan had another great day!  Just a reminder that we do not have school on Thursday due to parent-teacher conferences.  Be on the lookout for your child's Therapeutic Education Plan being sent to you via email this evening so that you have plenty of time to review it prior to your scheduled conference.  Looking forward to seeing you on Thursday to discuss Bristol and Ryan's great progress thus far!  

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four....

The touch and feel pool was full of beautiful fake flowers this morning.  We pretended to smell them and sneeze because of them!  We tried to share them with friends, and we talked about the color of their beautiful petals and leaves.

As always, we went to our own morning circle, which now takes place in a cozy little nook right before you reach the restrooms.  Bristol and Ryan are much more attentive when they don't have the distractions of some of our open centers in our classroom.  We continue to sing the same songs targeting concepts surrounding the days, weeks, months, weather, and our schedule for the day. After morning circle, Bristol and Ryan are required to carry their bean bag chairs from the hall into our classroom where they start their "free" center time.  By "free" I mean that they get to choose activities that I have set-up for them before the start of the day.  I then follow their lead by using their chosen toys  to target various language goals with them.  

  

After a busy center time, we headed to the playground!  Bristol and Ryan were both very excited about the latest addition to the playground this morning...a new grill!  They enjoyed playing together, and put some of the rubber mulch on the grill to serve as either their food or their charcoal.  They were also both interested in what the other children on the playground were doing, and they always readily participate when others are blowing bubbles or playing with balls.  

In keeping with our "Foods that Grow" theme,  we read Potato Joe by Keith Baker.  This is a super fun rhyming book about a group of potatoes that count themselves up from one to ten and then back again.  These energetic potatoes are so excited to be out of the ground, and we read about them in the snow, high and low, doing a doe-si-doe, and playing with Tomato Flo and Watermelon Mo.  But...by the end of the book, they hop back into the ground where potatoes are supposed to grow.

After our book we talked about how potatoes grow in the ground.  We held a potato and described its color, and how it felt.  We then played with Mr. Potato Head, and I also brought my special Potato Head collection from home which has a Mr. Carrot Head and a Mr. Corn Head to decorate (just perfect for our foods that grow theme)!  Ryan and Bristol made lots of silly vegetable faces while targeting our vocabulary for body parts and colors at the same time.  

After tons of fun with Mr. Vegetables, we headed to the art table to paint some beautiful pictures with potato stamps.    

For a science project today, we grew our own sweet potato in a jar.  Bristol and Ryan took turns pouring water into a large mason jar using a pitcher.  Then we "pushed" toothpicks into the sides of our sweet potato so that it would have support to dangle its end into the jar of water.  We are going to track its progress over the next couple of months, and we will get back to all of you on its success.  

Bristol and Ryan were very attentive and engaged in all of our potato activities!  As the grand finale to our language circle full of potatoes we watched the following video:

We did not have music therapy today because Ms. Gretchen and Ms. Kylie are on fall break.  We did miss them, but we were so busy with our potato activities that Bristol and Ryan didn't even notice.  I hope that you all have a relaxing weekend, and I look forward to seeing your sweet children again on Tuesday when we will be talking all about apples!