Need some Valentine and Spring Ideas Right Now

I get all my ideas from teachers, magazines and Big Lots.  Sometimes I get desperate for new ideas, so I look at creative sites.  Here are some goodies if you're running into a dry spell of the brain:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/popupcards/

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/valentine/

High School Valentine Making

Most of the students in this class for highschoolers with autism breezed right through the fine motor aspects of our Valentine-making session, but a few needed a little help with folding, cutting and assembling the project.

Some students made complicated heart designs and a couple of students made simpler designs.

We had fun dabbing generous amounts of lavender oil onto the stamp pad and then using the stamps to put nice-smelling images on the valentines.  I've never put oils or essences onto a stamp pad before but time will tell whether or not it has a negative effect on the longevity of the pad.

Garnishing the valentines with candy conversation hearts was a sweet touch. 



Sometimes those corners just don't want to match up.



 











Sometimes OT Intervention Involves Running Up and Down the Hall All Morning

A little girl in one of my early childhood classes will consistently look in the direction of her favorite classmate.  So, today I used him as a "therapeutic tool" and asked him to hold her book while she listened to it being narrated on tape.  Even though she clearly prefers to turn her head to her left, she would turn her head to her right if her sweetie was sitting on that side.

She listened to her book being read as she depressed the Big Red Switch, connected to a Power Link and an old-fashioned tape player which we borrowed from the school library.  We borrowed the audio book from there, as well.

It took about 45 minutes to locate all the equipment and set it up for her, but it was worth it.  The library folks were glad to have such "old" materials put to good use.  Her teacher is excited about the student learning to access a fun, academic activity, with increasing independence.

Textured Books

Textured books are good motivators for students who are not usually interested in looking at books and for students whose visual impairments interfere with their ability to take in or process visual information.

This little girl seemed so-so with me presenting a fabric book for her fingers to explore.  She wasn't upset by the textures, just not very interested.  But, let the cute boy in class walk over and show interest in the book and all of a sudden it's a hot commodity.

When he was next to her she opened her hands and explored the book.  Oops, she explored his hand as well.  Valentines Day is drawing near.

Holes in My Heart for Valentines Day

Yes, that happy, chocolate-filled day is drawing close.  Every teacher in the county will be making valentines with their students in a week or so.  Give your kiddos a head start on working with this very tricky geometric shape.  Don't think it's so tricky?  Just ask your students to draw heart shapes without any coaching.

Use a die-cut machine to make multi-color hearts, then have students cut them down the middle and then cut the halves into skinnier shapes.  Combine them different ways to make joined hearts.  Using a hand-held hole punch is pretty tough at first, but many students eventually figure it out and that makes them so proud.  I added snowflakes to the design because the US is getting inundated with snow almost everywhere this week.

Please share photos of your students' cute Valentines.

Press and Paint

A couple of weeks ago I brought in Ed Emberley's "Great Thumbprint Drawing Book" to school, to use with students during fine motor activities.  The instructional assistant (IA) in one of my classes got inspired and used the thumbprint concept to create paintings as gifts from the kindergarten classes during Principals Week last week.  These paintings are now hanging in the school offices.

Sure, she's an artist and could have done the paintings anyway she wanted to.  However, she chose to use large and small fingerprints of each kindergarten student to flesh out the paintings.  The students participated in the process over a two-day period and then gave the paintings to their principals.  Aren't they lovely?

Make a Keychain with a Secret Code

Do you work with smart students who can't recall their locker combinations?  It's very difficult to stay calm and try to figure out your combination when you've only got a few minutes between classes and you're hemmed in by many other students who are diving into the crowd to get to their lockers.  One of our OTs developed this system for helping students remember their combinations.  She uses small "pony" beads to make a keychain; I used larger beads for the sample in the photo.

Starting with the left side of this keychain, look at the sequence of beads.  The blue beads are spacers.  The yellow and red beads represent the sequence.  The three numbers in the locker combination are 13--21--32, can you see it?

I don't know about you but the hardest part of figuring out my school locker, way back when, was remembering which direction to turn the dial.  I know it's usually left, right, left but it was pretty tricky.  My only recommendation for this is practice, practice, practice.

Thanks to Kathryn Mason for this idea.