Play skills

This is a basic "put in" task that is very useful. It is great for students who are learning how to play and it is motivating for students who are reluctant to go to the table or desk. Once you have introduced this task, all that is needed is to hand a car to the student and he/she will go straight to the box and put it in. It will take a bit of shuffling, but he/she will sit at the table/desk and continue the task! I made a new one because the previous was used so much, it wore out and we threw it away finally.

  The materials:
box, recycled from snack box
green, blue, yellow and gray duct tape
clear tape
clear tube, recycled from plastic Easter eggs
Velcro, I buy the roll so I can customize the size
Box cutter knife
small cars

The secret to getting the tube to fit correctly: cut the hole for it a tiny bit smaller, so the tube fits tight. I also trimmed the end that is inside the box a little so the cars would roll into the box easily, this box had it's own garage door, so removal of cars is easy.











I used some good ole' duct tape to anchor the tube to the box on the inside. Since the box and tube you use will be recycled from different sources, you will have to experiment to make your activity fit just right. The beauty of duct tape is that you can remove it and adjust. Duct tape is awesome!





Cut velcro into little pieces, a good way to place the item with the velcro is to attach to item first, stick the adjoining piece of velcro to the item and then place onto box. Do a test run on the first car to make sure the velcro doesn't interfere with the car rolling.




Here it is in all its glory! Ready for many hours of fun.






Another fun activity pictured here is to drop frogs down the tube, watch and listen to the "plop!"as they splash into the water! When gathering your materials, the most important feature to look for is a clear container.

I used this activity with a student who had limited language skills, and loved songs. We would sing the "Five little speckled frogs song" while he played with this. Fun and laughter! Priceless..

There are many variations to these tasks, experiment and have fun with your students.

Paula