Alligator Fingers!
Funded Mar 29, 2025Thank you so much for benefitting the OT students at 181 with these most wonderful and supportive sensory tools! The word puzzles and sight words sentence puzzles are fun and intriguing games that promote literacy! The students have been utilizing these to practice their letter-sound correspondence, and word/ sentence building. Research shows that children learn best through play. I have already seen how much more successful the students are at building words and sentences accurately, when they do so with these supports! The noticeable improvement in students' success as a result of these games, has inspired me to think about how these puzzles can be utilized class-wide, to encourage class-wide literacy success.
The Lakeshore behavior cards have facilitated improvements in behavior that previous verbal prompts and visual cues did not achieve. The visuals on these cards, and the wisdom in their design for encouraging student participation, exceeded my expectations. Specifically, the stop sign, ear (for "listen") sign, and "point to" signs have been invaluable at redirecting students back to their tasks, and helping them follow classroom directions.
The weighted lap pad has been helping students sit on their rug spot in class, and perform their fine motor tasks in a more self-regulated way. The weight allows better proximal stability for increased mobility of the limbs during fine-motor work such as writing.
Last, the gator golf has been a really fun way to practice visual-motor coordination, while being the wonderful visual to remind students of their "alligator fingers" for proper pencil grasp.
Thank you so much for making this all possible!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Handler