Free Pumpkin Counting Mat

Do you have children who need to work on their fine motor skills as well as counting and one-to-one correspondence?  Then this is the perfect activity for you.

Print out the colour version and laminate.  I printed out a few of them and ran a group activity.

I used play-dough and had the children roll ten small balls before we got started.  If you don't have play-dough, don't worry.  Use blocks, counters, or poker chips. 

I had each child roll a dice and then put that many balls on their pumpkin.  The first child to fill their pumpkin is the winner.

I also included a black and white version.  This one is great for putting letters, shapes or numbers on. Use a bingo dabber or crayons and dice that you can put what you want on them.

Click on the picture below to grab it for free.

Work Station Wednesday - Dog's Colourful Day

It's work station Wednesday and I thought I would highlight one of my favourite books for the beginning of the year.

"Dog's Colorful Day" by Emma Dodd.

Now this dog goes about his day, getting a new spot on his body for every item he runs into.  It's perfect for working on colours and numbers.

When I do this book, I read it to the children every day and each day we work on a different skill.

I believe that it's very important to work on sentence structure with my non-verbal students as well as my verbal students.

This activity is perfect for that.  As we read each page, I have the children make the sentence "Now Dog has _____ spots.", changing the number each time.  I think it's important for the children to move the words to form the sentence, so that they realize that sentences are made up of individual words.

I love this activity.  As we read the story, I have the children put the correct coloured spot on the dog and put the number of spots in the box.

This activity also works on forming sentences.  We talk about what item is on dog.

As we move through the week, the sentences become more complex.  By now, we've read the book quite a few times and we talk about the object and the colour.

Testing Tuesday - Fine Motor

Whenever you are doing an assessment, you need to ask yourself "What am I testing?"

This is especially true for children with fine motor problems.

Children with fine motor problems often have trouble with pencil and paper tests.  Their printing skills are often not legible enough to read or is so labour intensive that it would take them a long time to finish a test.

Children with fine motor issues need a different way to show their learning.

One way to show learning is by doing cut and paste activities.  If their cutting skills are not good, make sure the pieces they need are already cut for them.

Remember, the skill you are assessing.

  

In this case, it's the beginning blend, bl.  Can they find words that start with the sound?   You are not assessing their cutting or pasting skills.

In this case, the skill being assessed is whether or not the child can count a certain number of items.  It doesn't matter how well the shamrocks are coloured in.  If the child can't colour at all, use a bingo dabber and have the child dab the correct number of items.

Here we want to know if the child can count the objects and put the correct number beside it.  This activity does not require the child to be able to print the number.   Remember, we are testing whether they know how to count how many items there are and if they can identify the correct number.  We are not testing if they know how to "print" a particular number.

 This activity shows us if they know what number is missing in a given sequence.  Again, no printing required.

This is an excellent activity for a bingo dabber.  Dab the correct answer to show mastery of the skill.

Cut and paste activities can take many forms and can cover a wide variety of skills.

Using manipulatives are also useful when testing children.  In this activity, the children are showing they can count by two's without having to print the numbers.  Velcro helps keep the tiles in place.

Use cubes or other manipulates to show number concepts.  They are easier to pick up.

Add cubes to paper type games so the children have something to hold on to when picking them up.  Papers that are flat on the table can be hard to grasp. 

I hope I've given you few ideas about how you can remove fine motor problems from your testing situations.

Fun-Day Sunday - Bird Feeders

Funday Sunday is a late this week. 

 I know it's Monday, but we were having so much fun yesterday I didn't have time to post.

So here is Sunday's post, a little late.

Since we have been talking about forest animals, we decided to "make" something to "eat" to "give" to the birds.

We went for a walk and found some pine cones.   We then covered them in peanut butter.  This was wonderful fine motor work to scoop it out of the container and spread it on the pine cone with a plastic knife.

I then put a layer of seed on the table (after I put down parchment paper).

And the kids rolled their pine cones in the seeds.

They told me if they were "all done" or they wanted to do "more".

We then hung our masterpieces outside for the birds.

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!!