Highlights 

Ocean Sensory Bags for Introduction to Ocean unit in Social Studies 

-When we began a new unit in social studies with our unit content being oceans, I thought it would be fun to provide students with a more "hands on" learning experience for one of our lesson activities, so we made ocean sensory bags.  Each student was given various materials to put in their sensory bags, such as glitter glue, sequins, wooden ocean animals, fake rock pieces to mimic the ocean floor, etc.  These bags also served a dual purpose for students to keep as fidgets throughout the day or to utilize during sensory time during the school day as well.

Fun Friday Social Group 

-On Friday afternoons, our class participated in social group, which was a time for students to have an opporutnity to interact with one another and their staff in a structured way via a game of some kind.  Typically the game of choice was "Hedbanz" with our own spin added to it.  We would pick a category of words such as healthy and unhealthy food or something that aligned with lesson content from one of our subject areas that we focused on that week to promote continued learning for students, while also allowing them to continue developing their vocabulary skills as well.  Students utilized their individualized form of communication with their 1:1 paraprofessional to come up with a clue to provide to the staff member guessing the word that went with the chosen academic topic. Once each student had a clue, the staff member who was guessing the word would come back in the room and start calling on students to hear their clue word.  After hearing at least 2 student clues, the staff member who was guessing could start to share what they thought the word might be.  This continued on until the correct word was guessed for that round and would go on for as many rounds as time would allow.  This was a fun activity for everyone and the students loved it every time that we did this!