How to make Christmas Trees

I love these Christmas trees.  They are so easy to make, require very little skills and are fun to do.  They also allow for a lot of artistic expression.  Children can decorate them with anything you have on hand.  String, stickers, sparkles, glitter, beads, sequins etc.  Put out a variety of items and see what they do.

Father's Day Gift Freebie

In a couple of weeks it's Father Day and I thought we would get a head start on our gifts.

I started with plain jars I picked up at the Dollar Store.

I found ones that had a large flat top. 

 I printed out the labels and had the children cut them out.

I have a sticker machine and it is fabulous for running the labels through.  They come out sticky on the back and are then easy to adhere to the jar.  If you don't have a sticker machine, you can use regular glue.

We used some Core vocabulary to talk about what we doing as we went along.   Here we were talking about putting the nuts in the jar.  This communication board is available for free on the Minspeak website.

After we added the nuts, the children added their names to the top of the jar.

To grab your free labels and directions, click on the picture below.

Marble Painted Easter Eggs

Marble painting is great way to work on fine motor skills.  You don't need many supplies and it's not too messy.

Take a cookie tray or cardboard box and put a piece of paper on the bottom.  

I added a couple of marbles.  You can use any number you want.

I added a few drops of paint.

I then had the kids tilt and move the tray so the marbles rolled the paint around.

Once it was dry, I had them cut it out in an oval shape for an egg.  If your student can't cut, you can cut the shape out before putting the paper on the bottom of the tray.

Happy Easter!!

Adapted Egg Painting

A few years ago I found this egg painter with an easy push button.  It's great for kids with poor motor skills because all they have to do is push the button to decorate their egg.

I added food colouring to the egg.

 And then we pushed the button to spin it around.

I added another colour and we spun it some more.

For children with very little fine motor control, I used hand-over-hand for spinning. 

Here are our beautiful eggs.