Unit on School

Key Terms: school, bus, pencil, eraser, crayon

(note: I used a classic red school house pic because Charlie’s classroom is also red. If you can get a picture of your child’s actual school, that would be ideal)

Objectives: The child will recognize the above school-related items by sight.

Activities

School Bus Changing Station: This has become our go-to activity because it provides such great reinforcement and interaction. Simply put, I created buses out of sticky-backed foam and put them on the wall above his changing area. I don’t have a picture because Charlie’s “interaction” involves ripping pieces off the wall and chewing on them, and throwing them on the floor. This time I took a little tip from Ellen and tried to incorporate some PT into it as well.  So we changed him in the other direction to try to get him to use his right hand. No dice. He just reached over with his left. Still, great way to keep the learning going throughout the day.

Pretend School House: Playing pretend is a cognitive skill and I have no idea if Charlie knows how to do it or not. My guess is no, so we’re working on it. I painted a diaper box to look *roughly* like a school and then rolled up a plastic bus that we had and had the occupants get off the bus and go into the school. I didn’t have any people that were the right size so this bus had a driver, a chick, a pig, and one very tiny man. 

Same/Different: Another new concept for us. We would show Charlie three buses and then have him tell us which one was different. He wasn’t real interested, but you can bet we’ll be repeating same/different for a while.

School Sensory Bin: I filled a bin with rice and then added school supplies: erasers, pencils, and crayons. Charlie then got to explore the bin. He was real excited to touch the things inside until he felt the rice–apparently rice is disgusting to Charlie. Funniest part is when a piece got in his mouth–I’ve never seen him stick his tongue out that far before.

Finger-painted School Bus: I cut out a bus shape and then Charlie finger painted it yellow. After it dried, we glued it to a white sheet of paper and then glued on two black bottle caps for wheels. This came out really cute and Charlie is getting better and better at painting.Book We Enjoyed

Wheels on the Bus: Raffi Songs to Read by Raffi. Charlie is still pretty unimpressed by books, so anything that we can sing is good. This is just the Raffi song as a book.