Hearing!

Today we started the day in the most unpredictable, sensory stimulating way we possibly could have!  The lights were flashing in the hallway, the lights were out in the classroom, there was a constant beeping coming from the power box, AND the Touch and Feel pool was full of instruments!  Goodness what an overload!  The kids handled it like champs and by 10:45 all was good and everyone was back in the groove.

Ms. Michelle came today, and even that required some flexibility from everyone.  It was too dark in the room we usually use for OT, so we moved it into the classroom.  And the playground was super wet from all the rain last night, so we went on a walk instead.  To say the morning was off schedule, would be an understatement!  Once Ms. Michelle got set up, we crawled through the fish tunnel and then had to sort foam squares into matching colored containers with tongs. While the other friends were waiting for a turn, they built things from blocks.  Then, we used wiki sticks at the table to make letters, numbers and shapes.

Our story today was "The Sensational Sense of Hearing." We learned some cool new words. We hear because of the vibrations in our ear. Inside our ear, we have an ear drum and tiny hairs. We need to take care of our ears by not listening to really loud music and wearing ear plugs when the noise is too loud. The kids learned that if someone has trouble hearing, they can wear a hearing aid. Also, some people are not able to hear and they use sign language to communicate. After the story, we discussed things that we can hear with our ears. We can hear loud and soft noises.

For science, we recorded each of the kids saying "I like school." out in the hallway.  Then we played the audio back for the kids to listen to see if they could guess which friend was talking. We had to be really quiet and think about who were heard talking. The kids did a great job identifying their friends....it was a great listening activity and a perfect demonstration of how different all our voices sound.  The highlight for each kid was hearing their own voice and watching how easily their friends knew it was them.  Big smiles all around!