Caterpillar Science!

Our life cycles unit is always one of my FAVORITE to teach. Somehow, I missed out on ordering caterpillars last year, so although some of my students have participated in this unit before, it was like new to them.

We received our caterpillars last week, and after they spent a weekend at my house getting comfy, I brought them to school to begin observing them. 

Five days and a couple drops/shakes/students trying to remove the cover later, there is a possibility that come Monday, we may have some chrysalises! 

Here are some of the fun things we did!

We read and watched The Very Hungry Caterpillar to kick off our unit. I had gotten this felt set a few years ago secondhand for free. It is missing a few parts, but it sure beats paying $50 for it!! One of my very talented paras is going to sew us a new apple and leaf. My students took turns adding the correct piece to our felt board to sequence the whole story. We reviewed it after each new piece was added, and I had one of my most reluctant readers labeling the story events by the end! 

We briefly went over the life cycle of a caterpillar, and as the days go by, we review which phase our caterpillars are in. 

We used our imaginations to picture our caterpillars eating some of the things in the book. It was hard to come to the conclusion that "real" caterpillars only eat leaves-how boring!

Every day, we come together as a group and pass the caterpillars around to make notes in our daily observation journals. This is something I created myself a few years ago, and the repetitive, predictable nature of it works really well for my students. It involves calendar work, counting, reading, measuring, colors, and visual motor skills for each page. The best part is the kids actually enjoy it because it is based around creepy crawly living things!! 

We are so excited for our caterpillars to turn into butterflies. Stay tuned! 

Topic Boards-Expanding Skills

In case you couldn't tell from my other posts, I am OBSESSED with topic boards! I know when I create one that I will have everything I need visual-wise for a lesson at my fingertips, which always makes everything go smoother! Also, I cannot stress enough how easy it makes building another layer of language into any activity. If you haven't seen it, check out my intro to topic boards here.

This is the third one I have done with my kids, and each time I get more ideas about how they can be used for so many different skills. Today, we made our 100th Day of School Snack Mix. The 100th day was technically yesterday, but with a parent meeting and Groundhog Day and so many other projects, this activity got pushed to today. Oops! :) I made this last year with my class, too, WITHOUT a topic board, and I remember it being a great activity for sharing, counting, reading, appropriate waiting, following directions, and fine motor skills. Little did I realize (then) what a perfect opportunity it would be for language, too! 

I made this one last minute because I thought of the idea about 5 minutes before lunch was over (literally one of my paras was cutting and velcro-ing while simultaneously singing the Days of the Week song in circle time!) Because of that, I didn't do my standard background colors to distinguish different categories. I plan to update it before labeling and storing it for next year. 

(I will post a picture of it tomorrow!)

This is the snack mix mat we used, which I originally found on TPT. (Hint: this is part of an awesome freebie pack for 100 days!!) 

Below are some of the skills we hit in this lesson: 

Yes/No
One of my kiddos with emerging language skills who is having a difficult time understanding and answering yes/no questions was getting antsy waiting for his turn! I quickly pulled off my yes/no pictures from the board and did a mini-session with him using a food he loves (goldfish) and one he hates (raisins) from our snack mix ingredients. ("Do you want xx?") He was not only handing over the correct picture after just a few trials, but also yelling YES in the loudest voice I have ever heard from him! 

Being Persistent and Correcting Requests
This is a higher level communication skill that requires students to respond to a communication partner's errors. We do it all the time in our lives. Think about the following conversation:
A: "Can I have two coffees; one iced french vanilla and one caramel?"
B: "Ok, so you want three coffees?"
A: "No, just two."
B hands A one coffee.
A: "I'm sorry, I actually asked for two coffees. I got the french vanilla, but I am still waiting for a caramel."

Without the ability to try to repair communication breakdown when one person makes an error, this customer would be really sad and slightly caffeine deprived. It is so important to teach our kids these valuable self-advocacy skills as well!! Using the pictures gives even verbal kids a cue to how they should try to fix the breakdown.

We touched on this skill today in a couple ways. After a request came, I would purposely either give students the wrong item or the wrong amount. They had to correct it by adding the "more" and "quantity" pictures to their sentence or stating no and presenting the request again. At first, I got some really confused looks, grabs, and a near-meltdown. But after a few times modeling it, they did great! One student loved catching my "errors" haha!

I gave her 9...she was quick to ask for "1 more m+m!"

2D:3D Matching
Some of my kiddos are working on recognizing 2D pictures and learning that they represent a real object. With one student, I checked her understanding of the picture by asking her to point to which ingredient she just requested from a field of 3 or to find the picture that matches the object. Great way to get some correspondence checks in for DTI or PECS kiddos! 

Changing her picture after getting a closer look at what was in the bag!

A little extra support for what he still needed was given by putting the pictures on his mat and swapping out with the actual food once he asked.

Following Directions
As with all of my topic boards, I put some pictures on that would be used just for adult directives or modeling. In this activity, I switched up the "conversation" every couple of times. Instead of validating their request by handing them the items, I gave them the box or bag and told them "Take 10 xx" using the pictures to support understanding. This provides variety and helps students learn that in a conversation, there can be more than one predictable response they need to distinguish between.

My direction back: Take 10 goldfish

Compromises
As an added bonus, one of my students got to learn about the power of compromise :) She is on a gluten-free diet, and about half of the ingredients in the snack mix contain gluten. We talked about what a compromise is and how to do an even trade. With the pictures from the topic board for support, she was able to "trade" her restricted ingredients with her para for some gluten-free alternatives we had in the classroom in the same amount. Instead of getting upset, she loved having the power to choose what she wanted to trade for! 

Swapping out cheerios for gluten-free cocoa cereal

It amazes me with each new topic board the many skills we are able to cover in just one lesson!! I never would have believed that making a snack mix could help with so many language concepts...and it is delicious, too :)