Dr. Seuss Day

Dr. Seuss Printable and Activity

Dr. Seuss' Birthday is on March 2nd. Schools everywhere will be celebrating his work in literature with activities, costumes, and of course Books, Books, and more Books. This is an activity I created using Cat in the Hat graphics for my preschool group. Using dot markers the kids will fill in the circles from start to finish. Along the way there are fun activities to complete. 1. What do you do on rainy days? 2. How much can you balance on your head. During this activity the kids will place plastic cups, plates, balls and other items on their head to see how much they can hold on their heads before it all tumbles to the ground. 3. What would you put in a red box? 4. Would your parents be happy if you behaved like Thing 1 and Thing 2? 5. If you could spend the day with the Cat in the Hat what would you do? This work sheet could be completed in small groups, partners, or independently (if the children can read). Ways to make this worksheet a bit more challenging require the kids to write their answers down. You could turn this into a small game by making each of the circles a game board space and then they roll the dice and move along their way. The other part of the printable is the Cat in the Hat's hat. Kids can practice making the pattern of red, white, red, white... They can write their favorite Dr. Seuss book titles on each strip. Younger kids can write all their "at" words on the hat - hat, cat, sat, rat, pat, mat... So click on the link to download the file. Thanks  Dr. Seuss Printable

Color Words

Many kids need lots of practice with colors. This is a task that is in my TEACCH system (independent work). The child matches the colored balloon to the word, and places the word in the library pocket. The version here requires the child to read. To make the task more simple, you could have them match a 3x5 card that is the same color or different hues of the same color (light red, dark red, bright red) to the library pocket. To go even easier have the child match exactly the same picture to the library pocket.

Color - Matching

Candy Necklace

Who remembers candy necklaces? I always thought they were so cool. Were you the type of kid that ate them immediately or saved them because once you ate the necklace it was gone? I usually saved mine for a little while and then ate the necklace. For Valentine's Day my kiddos made their own candy necklace. I did this with a group of preschool kids and the goal I had for them was to simply string the candy onto the necklace. I tied the first candy on and then put tape on the ends to help with the stringing of candy. This was a challenging fine motor skill. Now for my older kids I had them create a pattern with their candy to add in some math skills with the fine motor. All the kids had fun. By the end of the day it was funny to see who had just, the string left and who had not even touched the candy. I bought candy necklace kits made by Wilton. But afterwards I thought for next time I may simply buy pre-made candy necklaces, cut the string and tada candy necklace kit... This could easily be incorporated into any holiday based on the color of candy you are stringing.

Letter & Motor Practice with Stickers

As my students learn their letters I have used many different techniques to help them understand the shape of each letter. This is a fun activity. Print the letter on paper and then give the students a sheet of stickers to cover the letter. By the end they have a good understanding of the formation of the letter. Also you can clearly see students with stronger fine motor skills, and kiddos that will need more strength and accuracy practice.

Alphabet Stickers

Alphabet Stickers





Lucky Charms Graphing

Lucky Charms Graphing

St. Patrick's Day is a fun time to work on math skills with Lucky Charms. I hand out a small baggy with Lucky Charms. The kids separate the shapes into groups and then graph how many they have. When they are finished we complete a graph as a class to see which shape has the most and least. Lucky Charms Download.

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day Art Project

This a simply art project. Have the kids cut out a clover. Then cut up different shades of green tissue paper, into small squares. Drop the squares onto your clovers and spray with a water bottle. You want to soak the tissue paper so that the colors will bleed onto the paper. If you add a little vinegar to the water the colors will bleed out more and stick to your art project.

Sight Word Practice

Sight Words & Pictures - Edmark Words, Boardmaker Pics

I am always trying to find ways to include generalization throughout the classroom, of skills my students are learning. I use various reading programs with my students including Reading A-Z, Reading Milestones, Zoo-Phonics, and Edmark. Students learn differently so what works for one students will not necessarily work for another that is why my toolbox of programs is so full. This task is placed in my independent work area (TEACCH) The task is to match the sight word to the picture. You can also have the students paperclip the match together to add a fine motor skill.

**Many students who are non-verbal are not challenged to their fullest potential. I initially made these cards with words and pictures to see if my students who could not speak were actually reading the words. To my great enjoyment 2 of my kiddos had been introduced to language enough that they had a large sight word vocabulary. When you are working with a child who is non-verbal you can ask them to hand you a particular word to check for receptive understanding and then you can have them match the word and picture together to check for expressive language. This is an amazing skill because it opens doors for children who are non-verbal. This skill plays into AAC (Augmentative Alternative Communication), social skills, self esteem, and so much more. Make sure you are always pushing the boundaries of your students. Just because a child cannot verbalize does not mean that they are not understanding. You just have to find the way for them to express what they know.  

Rainbow Writing ABC



Rainbow Writing

Children need lots of practice with writing the letters in the correct formation. Each week my preschool group does "Rainbow Writing". They use every color in their crayon box (24) crayons to write the letters. Each worksheet also has pictures that begin with the letter we are learning. This type of practice reinforces the correct way to write each letter along with fine motor skills and basic recognition of the upper and lower case letters. You will find the worksheets for the rainbow writing for letters A-F. Check back for more letters later. Rainbow Writing



Categories

Categories - Speech, TEACCH

Here is another task that I have placed in my TEACCH work system. After teaching my students different categories in small and whole group settings I place this task in my independent work area. The pictures are from Boardmaker. Learning categories is critical to language development. If you would like this document click on the link: Download Here

Prepositions

Prepositions

For extra practice on prepositions this is an easy task to create. Simply create pictures representing each of the prepositions. Then the student places the correct picture in each library pocket. For student who do not read you can add a simple picture representation on each pocket.

Money Library Pockets

Money Library Pockets - TEACCH

Money Library Pocket with Touch Dots on Money

Money is such a challenging skill for kids to learn and then to generalize to real life situations. This is an activity that I made to incorporate money skills into independent work in my TEACCH system. I found these money stickers at a teacher supply store. I put various amounts on each library pocket. One version has touchdots and one without. Then I made corresponding cards with pictures and prices. This is to help the kids learn to read price tags.  

Ideas for generalization of money: Vending Machines. Field Trips to a dollar store, if you cannot go to a store bring the store to the classroom and use real money to purchase items. Class stores with class money to learn about saving, spending, reading prices, and understanding if you have enough to buy a particular item.

Puzzle Valentine

Create a Valentine and then cut it up into puzzle pieces so that the "Valentine" has to put the card together. The picture here is for a very young child. Older kids can create much more complex puzzle pieces.

Math Mats

Several years ago I was at a conference and a colleague of mine and we created several TEACCH tasks using our laptops. This is a math task Rebecca created. This is one of the tasks we made. The format comes from a program called Boardmaker. The fonts include "Fonts 4 Teachers" We also used Touch Dots on our numbers. What you do is print out the orange number boards on card stock and laminate. Then print out the numbers you want to use, cut and laminate. You can work on number recognition, object counting, addition, subtraction, reading the number words, etc. (this will make more sense if you look at the document that I have linked below) Then place the task in your TEACCH system. You could place 2 or 3 numbers at one time or 0-10 depending on the students academic level.  Math Mats Link

Fishy Numbers

Students love when work is not a simple worksheet. I have tried to come up with fun ideas to engage my students. This is part of an ocean unit that I teach my students. You can either ask the kids how many fish are in the bowl. You can work on simple addition and subtraction. I have each student put together their own fishbowl. I have used goldfish crackers where each student places the correct number of crackers on each fish.

This link will take you to the printout for the activity - Touch Dots Fish

Mitten

I love Jan Brett and her amazing stories for children. With all the activities I could spend an entire week on one story. This week we are reading "The Mitten" The art work is incredible and the kids love to look at the pictures on the far left and right sides of the book that tell extra pieces of the story. Day one we read the story and talk about each animal. Day two we review the story and then act out the story. I set up a white sheet over a table or several chairs. This becomes our mitten. Then the children are given an animal to portray. As we retell the story (sequencing) the child crawls into the mitten when their animal is called. This is a very fun activity. Today I did this with a group of 3-4 year old and by the end they could tell me the exact order of animals and they provided details about the story that I had forgotten. Day 3 the kids color their own mitten and animals. Day 4 they lace their mittens together and place their animals inside the mitten. On the final day I used the rhyming pattern from Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, to create Red Mitten, Red Mitten. This is simply an added activity that works on colors. Make sure to check out Jan Brett's Website http://www.janbrett.com/index.html which has lots of printables. Also the mitten poem is linked here.   Mitten Link

Rainbow Fish Art

Rainbow Fish

When you are teaching colors this is a fun art project. I read the story "Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister. Then each student painted their hand the colors of the rainbow starting with the fingertips: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple (this child flipped the blue and purple). We added bubbles in the water for the fish. After the paint dried they glued on eyes and drew a mouth. This art project was also a great sensory activity to have their hands painted. All the kids were laughing at the feeling.