Life skills as play

We have been adding "life skill bins" to our home school curriculum.  Many of my children have limited abilities and it takes them a long time to learn various skills so it is important to teach them practical life skills early.  Most recently we added a "laundry life skill bin" - we purchased 2 small laundry baskets from the dollar store and labeled one "lights" and the other "darks".

 We then included 12 pairs of socks, 6 white pairs and 6 black pairs and also a clothes line and clothes pegs.  To aid with the imaginative play we also made a washing machine out of a cardboard box.

During life skill class we practice sorting the socks, darks and lights.  We also hang them on the clothes line with the clothes pegs which is working on our pincher grasp and coordination.

 Matching the socks into pairs and rolling them together is another skill we are working on.

While "playing laundry" we also practice our counting, expand our language skills and have a lot of fun.  Our laundry bin also has a folding option with multiple coloured face clothes for sorting, hanging and folding.  Once these 2 options are mastered, outgrown clothing will be added for practice and eventually the kids will take over doing the laundry....hopefully, years down the road.  We also reinforce their sorting skills every time they change clothing by having laundry hampers marked "lights" and "darks" for their dirty clothing and the adult changing them oversees the laundry being put in the correct hamper.

Stay tune for more life skill bins.

Crafting away our stresses

Life has been extremely hectic around here with the never ending renovations, Christmas preparations, power outages, flooding basement and the arrival of our adorable but very sick grand daughter.  So the kids and I decided to step away from the stress and spend the day baking, crafting and watching Christmas movies.

Christmas trees and stars made out of popsicle sticks and then decorated with glitter glue and sequins.

Sugar cookies galore, mixing colors of icing seemed like a good idea to some resulting in some unique colors.

Beading on pipe cleaners to make snowflakes and candy canes.  This was excellent for practicing our fine motor skills.

We also used coffee filters to make angels.  The heads were made from cotton balls cover with the coffee filter.

These reindeer were a huge success with hours of imaginative play after they were created.  I don't know if they will survive long enough to make it on the Christmas tree.

Tactile Defensive Children & Fall Crafts

School for our younger, less able children and preschoolers has been focused around the fall theme.  Having children with differing abilities we work with them at the level they are functioning at, encouraging and challenging them with the hope of advancement.

 I found these fall themed play dough mats, alphabet  mats and more, that we have been working on.  I laminated the play dough mats and we use play dough, dry erase markers or wiki sticks with them.  As fine motor skills are a challenge we have found this is another way to learn skills and build up hand strength while developing our pre-printing skills.




Being pumpkin season, we have been including them in our play.  Hammering golf tee's into anything is always a hit - this week we have been hammering them into our pumpkins, building our hand eye coordination and strength.  To extend the life our our pumpkin play, we later bring out the Mr. Potato Head parts and decorate our pumpkin over and over.



 



I found these sewing cards which have been a welcome challenge, building our skills.

 While outside exploring and looking for signs of fall, we found apples that had fallen from the tree, not suitable for eating, so we brought them in for craft time.  Dipping the apples in paint and stamping them was fun for some, the tactile defensive children liked this project as they were able to stay relatively clean.  We have also been stamping with bingo dabbers making a variety of pictures which helps our less willing participants expand their limits.








The weather has been extremely wet the last few days so we set up an obstacle course for burning off the excess energy.  After our energy has been expelled we have been curling up with a stack of fall themed books from from the library.

Penguins

It's spring break here so we are mixing things up for 2 weeks.  Yesterday we went to the IMAX to watch this penguins documentary.  As we have a few that are obsessed with penguins this movie was a huge hit with all.

Today we decided to continue the penguin theme with the younger crew while the older ones had their own things to do.  We filled that sensory table with "Epsons" salt to signify snow and blue glass marbles to signify water.  We added penguins that we have from one of our games and then their predators a couple whales and seals.  This resulted in many hours of imaginative play that we broke up with some arts and crafts.

We also did some artwork first we painted the paper aiming for horizontal lines to practice our pre printing skills - which weren't successful for all.  Then we did some gluing, cutting (most needed help) and getting creative to create beautiful penguins.

We ended the day with the movie "Happy Feet" just before bed.

shared at :http://www.sugaraunts.com/
http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/
http://www.learnplayimagine.com/2014/04/gross-motor-activities-for-spring.html#