Please do not neglect your sensory tables. This is a serious plea.
Hear me out, before you abandon those lovely tables full of gloriously
colorful, squishy, scratchy, soft, hard, pointy, smooth, bumpy and
smelly materials.
Sensory tables allow you to differentiate for your class. Sensory work is not only academic, but it also addresses a student's learning modalities and their interests!
( . . . and when you're really good . . . you can meet their level of readiness too.) Kinesthetic learners need the movement and feel of the sensory table. Linguistic learners enjoy the dialogue associated with working with other students at the sensory table. The interpersonal learner loves working with other students. The spatial learner develops stories and scenarios for play based on the contents of the table. The logical/mathematical learner loves the sorting and classifying of materials. Depending on the materials, the naturalist can even be engaged by a shell collection or different types of rocks added to a sensory table. I think there has been this misguided notion that sensory work is 'fluff.' Sensory table work is not only academic, but it can be aligned to Common Core Standards, address learning modalities, interests and readiness levels of students.
Now that I have you convinced, check this out!
Materials:
Colored Pasta
Clothespins
Spider Rings or some other Halloween object
Skills Cards (beginning sounds, upper/lower case letters, word families, etc.)
Directions:
1. Color pasta by placing the noodles in a ziploc baggie with a 1/4 cup of rubbing alcohol. Add a good portion of dye (neon dyes give a bright color) and mix it up. Let the dye sit in the bag with the noodles for a good 30 minutes to hour. Dump the pasta on aluminum foil to dry.
2. Hot glue spider rings to clothespins. You can use orange/black pom poms or any Halloween fun object.
3. Gather or make skills cards. This is a matching game so it can be matching upper case letter to lower case letter, beginning sounds, or rhyming pictures. For a more challenging game, make words using word families, e.g. a single letter or blend on one card and the word family on the other card. They clip the two cards together to make a word and then record their word on a paper.
4. Students simply search the tub for two cards. When they find a pair that matches, pin them together with the festive little clothes pin (Fine motor practice)and clip it to the side of my tub.
You could even use this activity with math. Number recognition, counting, 10's and 1's, addition facts, etc.
Sensory tables allow you to differentiate for your class. Sensory work is not only academic, but it also addresses a student's learning modalities and their interests!
( . . . and when you're really good . . . you can meet their level of readiness too.) Kinesthetic learners need the movement and feel of the sensory table. Linguistic learners enjoy the dialogue associated with working with other students at the sensory table. The interpersonal learner loves working with other students. The spatial learner develops stories and scenarios for play based on the contents of the table. The logical/mathematical learner loves the sorting and classifying of materials. Depending on the materials, the naturalist can even be engaged by a shell collection or different types of rocks added to a sensory table. I think there has been this misguided notion that sensory work is 'fluff.' Sensory table work is not only academic, but it can be aligned to Common Core Standards, address learning modalities, interests and readiness levels of students.
Now that I have you convinced, check this out!
Materials:
Colored Pasta
Clothespins
Spider Rings or some other Halloween object
Skills Cards (beginning sounds, upper/lower case letters, word families, etc.)
Directions:
1. Color pasta by placing the noodles in a ziploc baggie with a 1/4 cup of rubbing alcohol. Add a good portion of dye (neon dyes give a bright color) and mix it up. Let the dye sit in the bag with the noodles for a good 30 minutes to hour. Dump the pasta on aluminum foil to dry.
2. Hot glue spider rings to clothespins. You can use orange/black pom poms or any Halloween fun object.
3. Gather or make skills cards. This is a matching game so it can be matching upper case letter to lower case letter, beginning sounds, or rhyming pictures. For a more challenging game, make words using word families, e.g. a single letter or blend on one card and the word family on the other card. They clip the two cards together to make a word and then record their word on a paper.
4. Students simply search the tub for two cards. When they find a pair that matches, pin them together with the festive little clothes pin (Fine motor practice)and clip it to the side of my tub.
You could even use this activity with math. Number recognition, counting, 10's and 1's, addition facts, etc.
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