A NEW Sensory Experience: Tapioca Shreds

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It's no secret, I love sensory play - both in my preschool classroom & at home with my own child! I'm constantly experimenting with sensory play ideas & always keeping my eyes open for the next great (insert ooey, gooey, squishy, wet and/or fun word here) sensory experience for my kids... From time to time, I've even been known to fall down a virtual black-hole & Pin hundreds of sensory play ideas in a single evening... (see my sensory play board here).

Getting on the the main event, yesterday, after an amazing lunch at a nearby Korean cafeteria, we went shopping at the Asian grocery store next door. We only went in for a few items, but somehow I managed to leave the store with these fun Multi-Color Tapioca Shreds:

I've seen hundreds of blog posts about tapioca pearl sensory play and actually entered this aisle of the store to purchase a few bags of tapioca pearls for a classroom bin next week. Instead, I discovered the Tapioca 'Squiggles' right next to the pearls. They were multicolored & about $1.00 a bag (7 oz/200g) - perfect!

I hid a few bags under the other items in my cart - which turned out to be a weak attempt at avoiding my husband's questions; he quickly spotted the new addition to the cart & gave me a bit of a hard time about buying yet another item for my classroom - I quickly assured him that our child would also be playing with them and he let it go! I also thew these Training Chopsticks into our cart! 

Since pretty much everything on the bag is written in Vietnamese, I did a quick internet search to figure out how to cook the strange little squiggles. My search didn't turn up many great directions, other than 'cook until soft' & a few recipes for some coconut tapioca desserts (which I imagine might be tasty if you like the texture of tapioca). So here's basically what I ended up doing:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil & add tapioca shreds.
2. Boil for 15-17 minutes, stirring frequently. (I tested them by tasting them - if you can't chew them, they're not ready!)
3. Drain & rinse with cool water.
4. Pour into container for play & add a few drops of oil - I used olive oil.
5. Play!

They were warm, wet, squishy, ooey, gooey & slimy! They looked a lot like gummy worms, but have no taste whatsoever. When my son was finished with them for the night, I put them into a plastic bag and threw them into the fridge to keep them from drying out & spoiling quickly. The next morning, they had solidified into a sticky gelatinous mass of tapioca noodles; I quickly remedied the issue by placing the tapioca noodle brick into the colander for a quick rinse under some warm water.

I placed a towel under the tray to catch any rogue tapioca shreds from becoming stuck to my furniture. As a warning, we did discover that a wet a tapioca noodle dries rock hard, sharp & very stuck to whatever surface it was left on... So clean up well, before anything dries! And, a dry tapioca shred cannot be put down the garbage disposal - we learned this the hard way!

I'm still unsure how long they'll last - we've used them twice & have rinsed them a few times. I was thinking that I'd add a few drops of lavender or tea tree essential oil to perhaps slow the growth of bacteria in our classroom sensory bin - to hopefully get 2-3 sessions at the sensory bin before they need to be trashed.

Anyone have ideas preventing or delaying the growth of mold and germs in wet, squishy or sticky sensory bin fillers? 

          

Valentine's Wrap-Up

Since last week's Valentine's activities were put on hold as a result of the snowy weather, we will likely finish up hearts, friends and love themes next week.

Here are a few of the activities that we've been enjoying (when we aren't home for a snowday!)

Valentine's Themed sensory bin - Both the girls and the boys LOVE this bin, containing metallic red 'grass,' purple, white, pink and red pompoms, plastic jewels, heart boxes, silicone candy mold, tongs, foam heart table scatter, red buckets and plastic heart shaped filler. Some kids just like to explore the contents, other like to collect certain items and some kids like to bring it to the kitchen area for a tea party!

Light play with hearts - We've continued exploring different materials on the old overhead projector that I dug out for my classroom. I found these heart shaped translucent bracelets and 'links' in the seasonal aisle at a local big box store - the heart shaped jewels are from the dollar store. We talked about size and spatial vocabulary, colors and counting while playing with the hearts. Now that we've had some more experience with light play, the kids are starting to participate more, ask questions and engage with the concept more than when we first introduced it.

Heart Traywork Activities - Here's one of the activities from my printable hearts pack... and our fine motor gloves in use to help my students work on pinching the clips to open them.

Sometime next week, we'll have our Friendship party, exchange valentines & treats and finish up the activities that I already had planned (for last week) ... then, we'll be ready to move onto Dr. Seuss!!

Rewind {Snow & The Mitten... }

January was a strange, long month... filled with 2-hour delays, snow days, sick days and other odd interruptions to the usual routine. I'm glad to say that the month is over, but looking back, I realize that I blogged about only a few of our classroom activities from last month. Here's a quick recap of the month...

Snowball Counting Tray  - The kids counted out white pompom snowballs on to the numbered mittens and then checked their work with a filled out tens frame on the back. We used one of our 'Fine Motor Gloves' to practice pinching one snowball at a time with thumb and pointer finger.

Salt Tray - A simple, but classic tray! A little iridescent glitter makes the salt look a bit more like snow too. Students traced sandpaper letter cards with a finger, then copied the letter in the salt tray with a finger. 

Magazine Letter Cut & Paste -  For this tray, I used my printable magazine letters and alphabet worksheet. This tray was time consuming and we worked on it over the course of a week+ Students found & matched letters, cut them out and then pasted them on top of the matching letter on the alphabet worksheet.

Pipe Cleaners & Beads - I really love this activity & have many seasonally coordinated sets of pipe cleaners & beads for other times of the year! Preparation was simple - just hot glue little laminated mittens to the ends of the pipe cleaners, write a numeral on the mittens and provide beads for stringing. Some students worked on making sets of beads to match the numeral, while others just worked on the fine motor aspect of stringing the beads - there's one of our fine motor gloves again!

Foam Alphabet Puzzles & Hammers - What preschooler wouldn't be motivated by the opportunity to hammer something? I found these small individual letter puzzles at a dollar store a while back and was smart enough to by several sets of them. I've sorted out the letters needed for each child to construct their name and added a fun little wooden hammer - students find the letters they need for their names, put them together and hammer the pieces in to make their names. I provide a picture of the finished product for students who still need a model to correctly order the letters of their name. 

The Mitten Cut & Paste - After looking all over the internet for a cut & paste activity with the animals from the mitten, I ended up making my own - that had straight lines for simpler cutting! 

We used this as both a retelling activity & a vocabulary/preposition practice activity. The students had to listen for the name of the animal & the location to place the animal. With more advanced students, I gave longer directions that included a list of 2-3 animals and their locations all at once. It was great practice following orally given directions!

Roll-A-Mitten Color Game - We used this game, from my Roll-A-Mitten activity pack, as a small group game for color practice, waiting for a turn, following directions and more. Students rolled the dice, named the color, found a matching crayon and colored a mitten.

Tubes & Balls Exploration - I bought a variety of tubes (black plastic drainage pipes & dryer vent tubes) at the hardware store and collected a basket full of white balls of different sizes & weights - snowballs. (Our favorite balls are these 'Snowballs' that are like giant pompoms) We cut and hung the tubes along the window using suction cup hooks (the kind you'd use in the shower) and rubber bands. Then we did experiments to see which balls would go the furthest and/or fastest. The kids also explored the tubes using other toys including blocks and animal figurines - some things got stuck and others did not. It's been a great activity for students of all ability levels - with so many great concepts to talk about and try out!

Monday {fine} Motor Madness!!

On this manic Monday, I'm sharing a fine motor idea right from my own classroom...

I made these...

'pincer' glove for grasping tasks

'thumbs up' glove for scissors

  ... they don't seem like much, but they're truly one of the best things that I've created for my classroom this year!

What are they?

You can just call them  "Fine Motor Gloves," but my students call them their "Super Gloves."

I picked these gloves up sometime in December at a local 'big box' store for less than $1a pair (and I wish that I had purchased 10 additional pairs!). Initially, they were destined for the dress up corner along with a basket of winter outerwear, then I saw this picture on Pinterest!

My first 'glove project,' was the pointer glove. I simply cut out the pointer finger & instantly the rest of the gloved hand couldn't activate the iPad, forcing the student to utilize only her pointer finger for the task. Success! I think that I'll sew the fingers together, like Lindy from the Considerate Classroom did, to help my students keep all their other fingers in place too!


The first 'glove project' worked so well that I started thinking about other ways to use this idea. What about the kid who couldn't use a pincer grasp to pick up one pompom at a time? or who had trouble stringing beads? I took another glove and cut out the pointer & thumb fingers - tada! Instant visual & tactile reminder to pinch items during the task.

Or what about the child who struggled to hold the scissors w/ her thumb up? (check out this older post for another thumbs up scissor idea) The third 'glove project' was born! I cut out just the thumb - and voila! instant visual & tactile reminder to - put the thumb in the small hole & all the other fingers in the big hole AND keep the wrist rotated with the thumb up.

The kids love them & they're really helping them to focus on HOW they're completing their tasks!

I'd love to see how you're using this idea with your students! 

{snow}

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, we've officially moved on to "Winter" themed activities in my classroom. I currently work at a school that does not really celebrate any holidays; our mantra is something like 'educate don't celebrate' ...  so this season can be a bit challenging!

Although we don't have any snow (yet), we've moved on to books about snowmen, snow, hot chocolate and other wintery themes. This week might be uncharacteristically warm, but next week they're calling for snow!

Here's our new sensory bin for the week- Snowballs Bin! containing cotton balls, a bag of glittery decorative balls from the craft store, plastic snowflakes, tongs, scoops, pots, pans, bowls and spoons!

 A few new fine motor trays - one for using tongs and one specifically focused for pincer grasp. Both contain simple items: various size pompoms (some sparkly), ice tray, empty oatmeal container and tongs. We also use both of these trays to practice reaching across mid-line by strategically placing the bowl and the tray/canister so that the students much reach as far across mid-line as possible -- then we switch placement, so that they must reach with the other hand across the other side.... my students HATE when I do this... so we only do it for a designated period of time, then I allow them to complete the remainder of the activity however they choose!

And this afternoon's craft activity - make-a-snowman gluing activity... contents included simple pre-cut shapes for mittens, stick arms, hats, boots, buttons, scarves, mouth, nose and eye stickers. The snowmen were cut from watercolored paper from earlier in the day - we painted with liquid watercolors using turquoise, blue and sliver paint and sprinkled salt over the wet paint for a 'snowflake' effect!

I think that our snowmen turned out great! There's more winter fun to come! What have you been up to?

Down on the Farm...

Along with the usual fall themed activities, we're also preparing for a field trip to a farm at the end of the month. My students are loving the farm activities - to be honest, what preschooler doesn't LOVE farm animals?

This year, I tried to come up with a variety of farm related books  - a few classics and a few wildcards.  I was looking for especially fun, exciting and unusual books to hold my kids' attention. Here's what we came up with:

Duck on a Bike  - This is a great funny book about a duck who rides a bike. All the other farm animals think that duck is ridiculous, but they all end up riding bikes too. What preschooler wouldn't love farm animals on bikes?

The Cow Who Clucked - This was a cute story about a cow who lost her 'moo.' She walked through the farm looking for it, asking every animal that she meets on her way - she does eventually find it. Great repetitive lines for students to help read aloud. We used animal figurines with this book as props during our readings - the kids loved helping to tell the story.

The Little Red Hen - Just a classic storybook that I remember from my childhood. The Little Red Hen is such a hard worker, but her friends are more interested in being lazy...

Old Macdonald Had a Farm - Another classic!  I have the board book version of this story. The pages are durable, pictures are simple and the cutouts between pages are fun (each page reveals more animals than the last). My toddler loves the book and so do my preschool students. We usually sing Old MacDonald while we go through the book.

I Went Walking - Super simple little book great for practicing colors and animal names. We enjoyed recreating the story in our own class book and making our own 'animal parades' during playtime.

Little Blue Truck Board Book - I got this book on sale some where a while back. My toddler loved it and I just thought that some of my 'truck obsessed' preschoolers would enjoy it too. Great combination of trucks and farm animals, every little boy's dream - right?  We used animal figurines again, a yellow dump truck and a blue truck (that I had hastily spray painted) as props during our readings. Then we took the story to the sensory bin and play it out there too.

Color Farm - Full of colorful geometric pictures of farm animals. A nice addition to our usual farm book collection...

Who Sank the Boat? - This was a cute book that I picked up at a yard sale over the summer. The kids thought it was funny to see the animals walking upright (the illustrations are very funny!) and getting into a boat. It was a great intro to a little science experiment on sinking and floating.

Silly Sally - Just a great 'silly' book with funny rhyming text. Silly Sally meets lots of farm animals and does lots of ridiculous things on her way to town. We had fun trying to act out the book. Unfortunately, no one could walk backwards, upside down.

Barnyard Banter - Bright lively illustrations with lots of farmyard noise! A fun quick read that is always a hit.

Moo on the Farm - I don't normally like sound button books, but this one is an exception. It's well made with thick board book type pages and realistic (and pretty loud) farm animal sounds. The sound quality and volume of these sorts of books usually falls short for my students who have varying degrees of hearing loss -- this book, however, was loud enough and good enough quality for every one in my class to hear and discriminate between the sounds.

The Very Busy Spider - I do love me some Eric Carle! Just an all around classic children's book with some great farm animal illustrations.

There are so many fun Farm Themed activities that my preschool students love. Most of the activities in this unit are great for listening practice and aural rehab activities since there are so many learning to listen sounds! Here are some of our activities and ideas for speech, language and listening:

Farm Puzzles: We've got a whole collection of farm puzzles available for the kids to explore. The favorites are the Melissa & Doug sound puzzle and the Melissa & Doug barn puzzle with opening doors and magnetic pieces inside. I collect a wide variety of puzzles because I have a wide span of abilities in my classroom - some puzzles have pictures on the board to match the pieces to, others don't, some have knobs or handles etc.

Puzzles lend themselves great to listening and language activities! Receptively we work on choosing animal pieces based on sound, name, description etc. and following increasingly complex directions. Expressively, students can name a piece before choosing, give directions to a peer or teacher or tell where they're placing the pieces.

Farm Lacing Beads: I inherited these farm themed lacing beads from a teacher before me. They're a nice addition a couple of times a year to the morning tray work options. The farm set is pretty small, so I added some generic people, tree and pig shaped beads too.

Sometimes we use the beads as props for when we sing Old MacDonald or another farm related song; we add the correct animal bead as we sing or take off a bead as we sing - depending on how I'm feeling that day and what skills we're working on.

We also use them for listening activities to practice following increasingly complex directions (i.e. first string the farmer, second string the pig and third string the barn OR I want the barn, farmer and horse, then the tractor and the pig).

Farm Sounds Bingo -  This is a great listening game. I think I picked it up at Walmart a while back for less than $5! Although it comes with enough game cards for each child to have one, we usually play as a group or two teams of 2. The CD has 5 different tracks of the animal noises (in different orders) with a few seconds between each animal noise; I usually pause it between sounds to let the kids have more time to find and cover the correct animal. The sound quality is good and I can turn it up as loud as I need to so that everyone can hear it well.

Sound Books - I mentioned this book above in my book section. Here's one of the ways we've used it this week. I put painter's tape over the sound buttons so that they could still be pressed, but the students couldn't see which animal they were pressing. We practiced listening to the sound and finding the animal in the book, then we'd peel back the tape to see if we were correct. Super simple, but surprisingly engaging!

Feed the Pig - This was one of our fine motor practice trays this week. I think I got the feed the pig game from Lakeshore Learning a while back. It's like a lot like this game. I added a handful of green, yellow and white pompoms of different sizes to supplement the little corn cobs that came with it. I provide both a scoop and tongs for the kids to use, since the tongs really frustrate some of the kids. The goal really is for them to work on their fine motor skills - so, for some kids that simply means picking up the pieces one at a time using a pincer grasp, for others that means using the tongs to transfer the items. The kids practically fight over this tray!

Farm Animal Figurines - Of course I switched out the zoo animals for farm animals! We've been using them for story telling activities and during playtime! When I can, I get the kids to use them for other things too -- like lining them up to make letter F for Farm!

Sensory Bin - The sensory bin for our Farm theme has consisted of a few bags of plain popcorn kernels, tiny fall leaves from the craft store, a handful of sweet gum seed pods and our farm animals, book props or kitchen pots and pans in rotation. The popcorn is a bit loud, so I can't say we accomplish all that might language work while playing, but the kids sure do have fun with it!

What are you favorite farm themed activities for you little ones?