Sensory Letter F & Introducing the 5 Senses

We're continuing with our Body and Senses Unit this week, with a special focus on sensory discovery. Monday started with our morning calendar board... with a twist. Our scholar was not too keen on updating our board for the day: "You do youself mommy, I want to play with my truck." Well.... I just so happened to need a truck to help with the board, so..... we made it through that part of the day with no fuss; singing the days of the week as the street sweeper drove over them.  Hooray for little victories....Yippee!! We moved to the kitchen table for snack (earlier than usual because the kids are waking up earlier than usual lately.... which explains my recent zombie mom performance), and our Letter/Number of the Day activites. We started with a number workbook page.  He was much more willing to do this than he was last Thursday.  He is still having a hard time with pencil (maker, crayon, etc.) grasp, and I need to do some reading on how to help him.  Practice, practice, practice I suppose.  

He knows to correct the position of the writing instrument, but doesn't have the finger coordination or strength I guess to hold it properly to write with.  He hasn't figured out how to close his hand around the pencil (in the above case, crayon) and support it while writing.  

His left handedness is also throwing us for quite the loop.  He gets pretty frustrated when the crayon skips as he pushes it, as opposed to pulling it as right-handed writers do (the things you don't realize until you have to, huh?!)

For now, I'm not very concerned with him being able to write numbers.  He can give tracing the numeral a shot because it was included on the page, but I would like to focus more on tracing and learning to write letters.

He did well with the workbook instructions to color/circle groups of two.  It was pretty much the same thing he did in a different workbook on Thursday so he knew what he was doing.  

Here he is being a goofball and asking if he should circle the box with 1 frog in it.  I told him yes.  He thought that was hilarious.... (he knew the answer all along, of course, so sometimes I play along so he can correct me).

After the workbook, we moved onto making a sensory letter F.

I didn't intend it to be an F is for Feathers type craft, it just ended up being a happy coincidence.  My plan is to create a letter each week with some sort of sensory material (pompoms, pieces of sandpaper, sequins, rice, sand, cotton balls, etc) so that we can feel the shape of the letter when they're done.

We started by writing a large letter F with glue.  (I'm thinking of cutting out the shape of the letter and having him trace that with the glue instead of doing it this way, or perhaps writing it with marker and having him trace that with the glue, but can't decide which is better).

We worked in some practice with scissors (we to incorporate this more!) and cut the feathers into smaller pieces...

...Finally, he stuck the pieces of feather onto the letter F.

For the (not-so) little (anymore) one, I made the glue letter for him and he stuck the pieces of feather on by himself.  Did a great job, too!

 The later part of our morning was filled with speech therapy, Panera lunch, and strolling the mall.

When we got home and got the giant baby down for a nap, we settled in at the kitchen table and put all of our senses to use.

I made a 5 Senses Checklist for record keeping because........

The checklist worked well for him.  It was the perfect level of recording for him at this pre-writing stage.  The pictures representing each sense were easy for him to follow and relate to.  He did well moving from sense to sense. 

I included a notation space on the side of the checkboxes so that I could write down his observations for him and get him talking.

Sight (eyes):  We observed the lemons were yellow, and a little rounded.

Touch (skin):  Of course we used our hands to touch and feel, but I tried to emphasize we feel with the skin all over our bodies and touched the lemon to his cheek and arm.  The lemons were cold, and the skin was bumpy.

Sound (ears): Lemons don't make a sound, but if we drop them onto the cutting board we hear a thump.  And of course if we bang them they make a sound on the table, as he loudly pointed out for me.  Later, we were able to hear the juice being squeezed out and dripping into the measuring cup.

Smell (nose):  We cut the lemons open and gave them a sniff.  

"Smell like I don't like."

He has had lemons before... for our entertainment at a restaurant... and he already knew he wasn't a fan of them, so smelling them was a little stressful for him because he knew what was coming next!

Taste (tongue):  On the count of three we each gave the lemon a lick.  He did it, even though he knew he wouldn't like it.  His observation: "It taste only a little bit good, but I don't like it."  How cute it is that he was trying to be polite about not enjoying the taste?! haha.

He loved giving the lemons a squeeze (although he did need some help getting them started).

How funny are those faces?!

He looked at the halved lemons and announced- "I gonna make letter F when I'm done."

So I quartered the lemons for him when he was done juicing them, and he did just that.

Before calling it quits I wanted to use our sense of taste one last time... he wasn't thrilled.... but he played along.

Then I told him he had to do it again:

Don't worry.  I was kidding.