October's Sensory Box

This month I threw in some beans as a base, little pumpkins, puff balls, cups, unifix cubes, flowers and some leaves. For the first time in 2 years, Jake showed no interest in the Sensory Box. He didn't want to play in there even when I sat and explored. I think he has out grown the box or at the very least needs a break from it.

But the good news is Joey has stepped right in! He really enjoyed the box for the first time. He has just turned 1 year old so he is just the age when I started Structured Play for Jake. Jake and Joey are completely different kids and it is fun to see! Jake never made a total mess out of the box but let me tell you Joey had a great time throwing those beans as far as he could. Ugh, it was a total mess. BUT, it is part of the learning process. I cannot take away the box and say, "nope you aren't ready!" Instead I need to teach him how to use the box.

He did take some time to explore in a more delicate way. He picked up some items and looked them over. He thought the pumpkins were balls and enjoyed throwing them. Funny thing was, Jake (when he was 1) thought they were for eating and his little teeth marks are still in them. It is a picture of their differences right there!

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Play to Write- Week 3

We participating in a Wednesday Play Group called Play to Write over at Cherrios and Lattes . This is week 3- Write/Spell Your Name. We started this week's practice with some name tracing. Cherrios and Lattes provides the printable for some dotted letters. She suggested doing rainbow writing with this sheet. I showed Jacob but he was more interested in writing all the Jacobs. I started by modeling on the first name. Then I held his hand and we did it together. Finally I let him do the last three on his own with only my verbal prompts. He took this very seriously and was very proud of himself! I was surprised at how much he liked doing this activity. He has a long way to go but he did pretty well! One thing I had to repeat was not to go around the o and a more than once. He wanted to go around and around. This is an activity that I think he will want to do again! The next activity was Missing Letter Name Practice. We started by singing a little song I sing fo...

Name Writing Practice

Jacob did a little name writing practice today. He was asked to trace the dotted lines to write letters for his name. This is good practice with spelling as well. I had him say each letter as he wrote the letter. As you can see he is very choppy and not exactly on the dotted lines. His motor skills are not quite sharp enough yet to be able to hold the crayon and he especially loses control as he works on towards the end. We also did a Missing Letter Name Practice. Both of these ideas came from Cherrios and Lattes ' Play to Write, Write to Read. These are good ways to practice names and writing. He gets very angry if he thinks he made a mistake. See the scribbling. I have to reinforce that it is ok to make a mistake and that everyone makes mistakes but we just keep trying. Practice is the only way to get better. When this happens I cannot help but think of my former students that did the very same thing and proceeded to throw fits and give up. I hope to help Jacob ge...

Name Practice

I pulled out our name practice tray today. I put our Sensory Box beans into the tray then hid disks with the letters of his name. He got busy scooping the beans looking for the letters. We started by using a paper with his name written on it so all he had to was place the matching letter on top. He can recite the letters in his name and he can recognize letters so the next step is having him put the disks in order without the help of the paper. He dug for all the letters again and placed them on a blank paper. Then we practiced reciting his name before I asked him to put the disks in order. And this is what he did... He was not at all interested! He does not like to be challenged! I like to keep Structured Play time light and fun but I will not let him give up! I do not want him to learn that if something is hard he should just not do it! So I had to be stern while still trying to keep it light and fun. He eventually sat up and tried. He did it himself with me remind...

Structured Play

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