Monday, February 4, 2013

Preparing for Valentine Goodies

Students of all ages will be making lots of Valentine treats this week and next, why not get a head start and create goody bags for those little trinkets and candy hearts?  A great opportunity to practice writing, making requests, planning how to lay out the decorations on the bag and get an early whiff of honeysuckle.

First, wake up those dried out stamp pads with a little something extra.  In this case, it's honeysuckle oil from the candle making aisle at the local craft store.
Drip a few drops of oil on top of the stamp pad and enjoy the fragrance.  There are many scents to choose from at the store but I thought this one would be more appealing than some others, like a strong rose scent.



Some high schoolers in the class for students with autism could verbally request which color stamp pad they wished to use and which stamp they wanted to try first, but others used a communication sheet or their personal communication device to make their requests.  Our SLP brought the stamps so she made sure there were symbols related to the stamp designs on the communication sheets ready for our activity.


My thrill is to see students squish hard and they sure had to in order for the designs to show up on the brown paper bags.


 We confirmed that the students had a "Mom" at home and wrote that, plus each student's name on their bag.
 This student could not be convinced to use his left hand to stabilize the bag as he wrote.
 What an excellent grasp.
 Best handwriting award here and I don't dare mess with his grasp style.
I had pre-cut Valentine designs from the Sunday newspaper flyers and we used these in the final step to embellish our goody bags.

In discussing this activity afterward with the SLP I realized that the table got a little visually crowded as the hour progressed, which made it difficult for the students to focus on the sequential steps in the task.  Need to tidy up a little after each part next time.

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