We traveled again this week but a little closer to home—-the great state of Louisiana! Our sensory groups explored boxes related to facts and symbols of the state. The fine motor groups used markers and crayons to complete their projects and the language group led a Mardi Gras parade.
This box was filled with symbols of Louisiana including the state bird (pelican), beverage (milk), amphibian (frog), honey bees (insect), and mammal (black bear). We also recorded a version of “You are my Sunshine” one of the state songs, on a voice output device. All of this was put on a base of paper shred in state colors: blue, white, and gold!
We made 3 discovery bottles made using the state colors. One was all gold and one was all blue. The third was a mixture of white, blue, and gold beads floating around in gold glitter. VERY eye catching!
New Orleans, Louisiana is known for its Mardi Gras celebrations and the colorful beads thrown from the floats during parades! This box was filled with beads in Mardi Gras colors. Fun to look at, wear, touch, or watch move when pushed or shaken.
This Mardi Gras rice was made for a unit we did a while ago and it was fun bringing it out again. It really is one of our prettiest mixtures and is just so eye catching! We put in letter L’s and a map of Louisiana for the students to find.
We made some sunshine yellow play dough for the state song “You are my sunshine”. The students had fun squeezing together, pulling apart, or rolling the play dough into balls. We also included a little textured rolling pin to make some “sun rays” and a cookie cutter letter L to add to the fun.
For our messy play we went back to the Louisiana state colors—-we sprinkled BLUE and YELLOW glitter into WHITE shaving cream! The students had fun making swirls, lines, letter L’s, or just squishing it between fingers 🙂
We put some plastic crawfish and a rubber alligator to swim around in our water this week. Bath and BodyWorks vanilla sugar bath gel was also added because we thought it smelled like beignets—-those yummy New Orleans donuts!
On Wednesday we made some trumpets in honor of Louis Armstrong who was born in Louisiana. We used the state colors again for this project!
Recognize objects with two-dimensional shapes is a math access point.
FINE MOTOR GROUP
On Tuesday the students decorated a pelican, the state bird, using this: pelican-template
Identify objects by one observable property, such as color, is a science access point.
Then the students scribbled on their penguins with blue and yellow markers. One of our students scribbled using a pressure switch activated vibrating massager with a marker glued to it. He activates switches using his elbow and is getting really good at it!
Since Mardi Gras is coming up, we decided to have our own Mardi Gras celebration!
Once we rounded everyone up, we gathered together in the multi-purpose room for our party!
What is a party without cake and ice cream! We had King cake of course and topped with vanilla ice cream (thanks Jeannie) with apple juice to drink. The students requested what they wanted using communication symbol sentence strips.