Preschool Playtime: Helping Farmer Ted Theme: May 9, 2012
To watch a Windows Media Video about Preschool Playtime, Click Here. To watch a YouTube Video version, Click Here.
Each session of Preschool Playtime has a fun theme which distracts the children enough to not realize all the hard work they are accomplishing with their large muscle, fine motor, and sensory work.
Today’s theme was “Helping Farmer Ted”!
We greeted each other at circle time by taking turns picking animals to add to the “Old McDonald Had a Farm” song. Next, we walked like all sorts of different animals do (ie bunny, horse, cat). Then, we read a story all about animals on a farm.
We transitioned to the Sensory Gym for our obstacle course of finding hidden chicken eggs and delivering them to the egg cartons for Farmer Ted. This activity included lots of gross motor, strength and balance work where all the children would:
- Roll over a bolster (posture, upper extremity (UE) strength)
- Jump over rings (work on bilateral lower extremity (LE) coordination)
- Crawl over mats (proprioceptive input/increase body awareness)
- Climb up stairs (LE coordination, balance)
- Go down scooter-board ramp (vestibular input, posture, core strength)
- Search for eggs (visual scanning)
- Crawl through tunnel (spatial awareness/body awareness)
- Walk over rainbow bridge (balance, LE coordination)
- Open eggs and place the egg’s hidden objects in a bucket (Fine motor/hand strength, grasping pattern = pincer grasp to retrieve object, gross grasp to open egg)
- Place eggs in egg carton
When all the eggs were collected, we went to search for Farmer Ted’s missing animals in the BALL PIT! This activity gave the children tactile and proprioceptive input and work on spatial awareness of others. When the animals were found, they put the animals back in the farm house in their correct homes.
We moved to the sand box next to search for pigs in the sand (tactile input and messy play).
Our playtime ended in the fine motor room where each of the children was given a pot and a bowl of dirt. The children used spoons to move the dirt into the pot (grasping, pinching and using a utensil helps with feeding). We then isolated our finger and poked holes in the dirt to plant seeds in the pot. For hand strength, we used squirt bottles to spray water on our planted seeds. The children all took the plants home to watch them grow.
We ended with a gross motor/following verbal direction activity where we all started as a flower bulb (curled up on the floor) and grew up (peeking their heads up) and jumped out of bed.
Home Program Idea: Make a Flower – Draw with markers on a coffee filter, use a squirt bottle filled with water to soak the coffee filter; let it dry; pinch the coffee filter in the middle and wrap a pipe cleaner around it. A Flower!