This blog offers ideas to help you make the most of resources that you have, or can easily acquire, in order to create a range of related activities for your students. Making several uses of the same resource, or sensory input, allows for cyclic learning, generalisation, and consistency across a topic or period of time.
This blog post is all about… Cups and Mugs!
Back to school…a new academic year and the perfect time either to get to know your new class; new members of your class or perhaps the opportunity to explore how your returning students have changed over the summer. After all, the transition from being at home with home routines and sensory inputs is very different from the routines and sensory inputs of your school and classroom. This blog explores an everyday item from this perspective – hopefully, these ideas may be useful OR spark an even better one of your own.
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Transition. Why not ask for a favourite cup/mug/drinking bottle to be sent in from home? The familiarity might make a sensory connection between home and school and thus ease transition.
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Construction. Fine motor work can be so much fun especially if you use some plastic or paper cups as exploratory construction materials. Can you build towers…and knock them down? Can you make an alien? Can you make a house for the dinosaur? Can you make the longest line?
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Sand Play. Make the sand in your sand play tray wet, not soaking but enough for it to hold a shape. Gather a real mixture of cups and mugs to use to make sandcastles. Look at all the different shapes you can make. You can use hands, or more difficult is to use spoons or spades to fill, tap and release the castles. Can you build one on top of another? Some additional objects and materials could be added to decorate …maybe photograph and have a competition? Don’t forget to squash them down when finished…the best bit!
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Find the cup. One person goes out of the room (or one person plus one staff member). The rest of the group choose somewhere to hide the cup. They call the student back in and can answer with yes or no to any questions to guide the student to find the hidden cup. (Can play the game using hot and cold clues or two hand signs – whatever works for your group)
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Drinks time choice. We frequently offer choices of what to drink to our students at drinks time but how often do we offer a choice of what to drink it out of? Gather a wide selection of cups and mugs and let the student try them. Which are best to hold? Which are best to drink from? Which ones have a shape and/or pattern that appeal to the student? Can people explain their choice? If students have to drink from a particular type of feeder bottle/cup for health reasons, why not try different textures/decorations?
Carol Allen
