Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Happy Wednesday Students, Parents, and Carers!

We began our day with integration, sensory diets, and Floortime (child-led play). Play is great for creativity, language arts and complex communication skills, abstract thinking, problem solving skills,  inquiry and mathematics skills, role-play and drama, fine motor skills, teamwork, and social skills. Sensory diets are so important for regulation, auditory processing skills, teamwork, social skills, sportsmanship, motor planning, body mapping, sequencing, gross motor skills, proprioception skills, vestibular and bilateral movements, and balance and coordination. 

For our morning session we created a fun Phonics OT sensory session. The boys had to use their social and two-way communication skills, complex and abstract thinking skills, math skills (arithmetic and measurement), fine and gross motor skills, problem solving skills, team work skills, bilateral movements, praxis and motor planning, core strength and balance and coordination.

Afterwards we continued researching and began constructing for our Water Projects. During this time students worked on literacy skills, spelling skills, writing skills, inferencing and abstract thinking, fine motor skills, creativity and abstract thinking, and scientific vocabulary.

Mr. Ojani was our teacher today and went over months, weeks, dates, days, year, weather, time (past, present/now, future), and feelings. This is a great opportunity to work on ideation and symbolism, abstract and complex communication, mathematics and the passage of time, social and life skills, and communication skills. 

In gym today we played Dr. Octopus and then played Shipwrecked. Students had to work together and used their auditory processing skills, visual spatial skills, hand-eye coordination, teamwork, sportsmanship, motor planning, praxis, fine and gross motor skills, proprioception skills, vestibular and bilateral movements, and balance and coordination.

In Mindfulness today we practiced being calm, still, and focused on our breathing and controlling our bodies using Cosmic Kids Yoga. All of our friends were so attentive, focused, determined, and calm while working on their breathing, body awareness and body mapping, regulation, and flexibility. 

Immediately after lunch we practiced our printing and fine motor skills, decoding skills, phonics, spelling, and proper sentence structure.

Our afternoon session was a fun Ghostbuster themed Scavenger Hunt created by Ms. Camila! The boys had to work together and read clues (language processing and comprehension), solve the clues (abstract and complex communication and thinking/ problem solving skills/two-way communication), find the next clue (visual spatial skills, praxis and motor planning, problem solving, bilateral movements), and measurement skills, arithmetic, and team work.

Measurement skills.

Solving the final message!

Next, we went over our Zootopia skit for the Spring Concert as an entire school in the Auditorium. The boys used their characters- Chief Bogo (Carter), Nick (Avery), Judy (Ojani), Flash (Sander), and Otterton (Eric)- to practice our story. They all used two-way communication skills, listening skills, auditory and language processing and comprehension skills, social skills, team work, abstract thinking, problem solving, turn taking, oral communication, and drama. Everyone did so well!!!! : )

Here is a little sneak peak of the boys belting out their Shakira song for the Spring Concert!

Lastly, we went over our Zones of Regulation and discussed how we were feeling today. We also got to share our own ideas and thoughts on how our day went, and took turns saying one nice thing about our friends from today's work. Today I also added a writing component to our reflection where students had to write down their top three activities from the day, and then label them as being 'green', 'yellow', 'blue', or 'red' from the Zones of Regulation.

                                                                  Have a great evening! 

                                                                          Mr. Jacob : )

HOMEWORK: Keep practicing your lines for the Zootopia skit, and practice the lyrics for "Try Everything" by Shakira (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6rP-YP4c5I), and "Circle of Life" from the Lion King (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLFvthzy294).