Valentine's Day Boxes

Happy Valentine's Day!! I hope everyone lived through the sugar and chaos every class party seems to bring!

This year my team has been sending home monthly "home projects" to have the students work on with their families. We have found this to be important because many of our students do not recieve homework so we wanted to make sure they still sat down at least once each month to work on something with their parents. This gives them a chance to show off how hard they have been working on those fine motor skills!

This month we had the kids make Valentine Boxes. I used this great letter from Jennifer at Empowering Little Learners which cut down on the prep time on my end (what teacher doesn't love that?!).

I was so pleased with a lot of our boxes and the kids were super excited to share what they made.

Here are some pictures of their creations:

Here are several of our boxes.

This student had the cutest dog house box complete with a life-size replica of his best friend (his dog Sky).

Here is a great box for a LaLaLoopsy Lover!

This is an adorable hugging monster box.

Complete with handy trap door (This student was ecstatic about this feature)!

Polar Animals

We had a hard time this week finding a cute, predictable story to use for our polar animals theme. It was my first time doing this theme so I did not have my usual bag of tricks! We ended up using a Scholastic mini-book called, Are You Cold?, with lots of new polar animal names that my kiddos surprisingly didn't know. The walrus was called an ostrich more than once! Like I said it was our first time covering polar animals!

The best part was the last page of the book had a slot that I could slip their pictures in to make them a part of the story. They LOVED this surprise ending!

This week there was definitely no shortage of ADORABLE polar animal crafts! There were so many that all of my teammates chose something different. My two favorites were this too cute walrus craft made from painted paper plates, yarn, and plastic knives.

Then, my students made this great ink blot penguin painting. Didn't they turn out so cute?!

To give a visual for the kids so they knew where to paint we used this example outline and provided an outline with marker matching the color paint they needed to use. Visual guides in art is SO important for my kiddos because most of them rely much more on their visual skills than their auditory (listening) skills. 

Finally, we filled empty glue bottles with tempra paint in order for the students to get a fine line to trace the outline provided. 

This was definitely one of my favorite projects! I love how each student's penguin turned out unique just like them!

We also made yummy polar bear bagel treats with our leftover bagels and cream cheese from last week's cooking activity and GIANT marshmallows! The kids were so excited about the marshmallows but they all enjoyed the bagels more :)

For more wintertime Thematic Group Activities, grab my Snow & Winter Unit on Teacher Pay Teacher!

Teaching About Apples in the Special Education Classroom

Every fall we do a unit on apples. There are so many awesome apple activities and it is such an easy topic to integrate across subject areas. 

Apple Art

This year we tried two new art activities that incorporated art projects to accompany our apples unit. The first project we did was stained glass apple art using contact paper and tissue paper squares. 

I loved this activity because it was easily accessible for my student who struggles with fine motor control. I just had to hand him the tissue paper and point to where he should place it and then he would stick it to the contact paper. Typically if we do cutting or gluing activities, we have to work hand-over-hand so it was great to have an activity that promoted his independence.

Putting the tissue paper on all by himself!

The table easel helps him see his art.

Our finished stained glass apples

I got the idea for another fun art activity through Pinterest. We did apple rolling painting and the kids LOVED it! We used it as a language-building and direction-following activity. The kids each took a turn making their painting but their classmates gave them directions on which color to use and how to tilt the box. It was fun and since we used a box it was fairly mess-free (my hands were the only messy ones from taking the paint-covered apples in and out of the box) plus we used my classroom staple Crayola Washable Paint just in case!

Getting started

Using Proloquo2Go to tell a friend which color apple to paint with next

Telling a friend which way to tip the box

Tipping the box to make the apple roll

More tipping and rolling!

Looking good so far!

A finished creation!

Apple Math

There are lots of fun math activities my class loved during our Apples Thematic Unit. We counted actual apples and apple erasers (I love these 3D apple erasers... for counting but not really erasing tbh) and used tactile 10-frames to help us complete a ten frames worksheet. I also made a fun addition sentence worksheet for students to extend their counting into addition. 

I also created a couple differentiated number sequencing worksheets for my students working on number ID. 

Apple Reading

There is no shortage of apple-themed picture books available but I chose two of my favorites with predictable text to make sentence-building boards. First we read Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace and then we read a classic from my elementary school days: The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall. It brought back great memories and my fantastic paraprofessional brought in personal apple pies for each student to tie in to the book so we created some great new memories too!  

In addition to borrowing the books from our school library, I also show each book on YouTube as a review and during independent technology times to reinforce the story. 

Another way I have tried to incorporate technology is through using our classroom iPad for a particularly tech-driven kiddo and it went pretty well! He liked following along on the pdf but the fact that it was on his beloved iPad made it more motivating. However, we did have to use guided access to keep him in the pdf reader! 

Apple Cooking Activities

I was not feeling ambitious enough to make our own apple pies in class but we did makes some yummy apple-themed treats! Apple Smiles is always a favorite because my students like to "chomp, chomp, chomp!" with their smiles. 

And crockpot applesauce is one of my personal favorites. Once I started making it with my class annually I extended the tradition and make it each Thanksgiving for my family. I have two aunts who I always save some extra for because it is their favorite! 

Apple Science

The apple theme also made it a great opportunity to introduce some science concepts in such an engaging way! Students learned basic apple vocabulary including the parts of the apple and then we examined our own apples, compared their similarities and differences, and completed a corresponded apple observation worksheet that I created. 

Apple Game

Then as a cumulative review support, I created an apple board game template that we could use when practicing vocabulary or IEP goals like sight words, letter ID, or number ID. I love creating generic game boards to align with my different thematic units for these review times! I just use my stash of thematic erasers, various flashcards, and dice for each board. 

Now that you have seen all of the apple fun in action in my classroom you can use the same activities in your classroom without the work of creating each thing! Grab my Apples Thematic Unit and you are all set with 13 different apple-themed activities, tips for implementation, and specific differentiation ideas for every activity! Click on the image below to check it out on my TPT store.