It’s nearly March and it’s time for the wonderful Victoria from Rhyming Multisensory Story’s monthly article with loads of ideas for your classroom. Visit Victoria’s Mash Store here!
🙋🏻♀️TLDR?
Teaching ideas, activities and inspiration to celebrate the month of March including St David’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, Holi, Shrove Tuesday, Holi, Alexander Graham Bell Day, Spring and more!
Dates at a Glance
1st March – St David’s Day
4th March – Marching Music Day
7th March – Alexander Graham Bell Day
8th March – ‘Holi’
13th March – This Day in History – The Discovery of Uranus
16th March – National Panda Day
17th March – St Patrick’s Day
🏴 1st March: St David’s Day
Explore Welsh Foods
Food exposure can be beneficial to individuals with a limited diet as it supports exploration of different food types, smells textures and tastes.
Present a variety of Welsh foods for the individual to explore at their own pace.
Initial explorations could be through touch and smell.
When progressing to tasting, present a tiny touch to the lips, then offer a morsel or a drop in the mouth, an egg spoon building up to a full bite.
Be Allergy Aware!
Explore:
- Welsh Cheese: Caerphilly, Capel Newydd, Celtic Promise, Dragon’s Breath, Perl Las Blue, Welsh Cheddar, Welsh Goat’s Cheese
- Welsh Vegetables: Leeks, Samphire
- Welsh Seafood: Cockles, Seaweed (Laverbread)
- Welsh Sweet Foods: Welsh Cakes, Bara Brith
Welsh Rarebit Recipe
Ingredients
- 350g Mature Cheddar, grated
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 2 tbsp milk
- Thickly sliced bread
Option to season with mustard/pepper/Worcestershire sauce
Method
- Grate the cheese.
- Mix the cheese with the milk and the beaten egg.
- Preheat the grill to high and toast the bread on both sides.
- Spread the cheese mixture on the toast.
- Grill until the cheese is melted and starting to turn golden brown.
Explore Food Textures (Model the Language)
Aromatic, bitter, buttery, cheesy, chewy, coarse, creamy, crispy, crumbly, crunchy, delicate, eggy, fishy, fresh, mushy, oniony, peppery, pungent, ripe, rubbery, salty, savoury, seasoned, sharp, smooth, soggy, squidgy, squishy, toasty, vinegary.
Alternative Activity
Mark Making using Leeks
You will need
- Whole Leeks
- Card or Paper
- Paint
(Option to use a template flag for students to follow the lines and paint)
Using the leeks as a paintbrush, dip into paint and paint the flag of St David.
🥁 4th March
Marching Music Day
Celebrate the ‘March Music Genre’
- Listen to a marching band.
- Watch footage of a marching band.
- Explore a selection of instruments.
- Join in with the music.
- March with your feet to the music.
- Make musical shakers using recycled items: clean yogurt pots/containers and cardboard boxes filled with dried rice/pulses/beans.
📞 7th March
Alexander Graham Bell Day
On this day Alexander Graham Bell uttered his famous words to his assistant Mr. Watson, ‘Come here; I want you.’ via his new invention, the telephone.
Using the telephone is an important life skill. Disused landline phones and old mobile phones (batteries removed) are excellent tools for developing communication skills, firing the imagination, and building confidence.
Explore telephone role play.
- Make an imaginary phone call to a relative, friend or a famous person.
- Role play ordering food, a booking a taxi or making an appointment.
- Relay messages, give or receive directions and instructions Provide a diary/notebook to write appointments and information in.
Extend Learning
- Teach students how and when to call the emergency services.
Make Paper Cup Phones
Paper cup phones are fun to make and excellent for promoting turn-taking and listening skills.
You will need:
- String
- Two paper/polystyrene cups
How to make the Paper Cup Phones
- Cut a piece of string (15-20 m in length)
- Poke a small hole in the bottom of each cup.
- Thread the string through each cup securing each end with a knot.
How to use the Paper Cup Phones
Each person takes a cup and holds it at full stretch.
One person talks into the cup while the other puts the cup to their ear and listens.
🎊 8th March
Holi
‘I visited India on the first day of Spring
And what a surprise that did bring!
I walked onto the street, a young boy ran by
And threw powder paint high into the sky
Paint covered my clothes, face and my hair
Bright coloured mist clouded the air’
Excerpt from ‘Holi – A Multisensory Exploration’
https://mash.ie/holi-a-multisensory-exploration-themed-sensory-extension-activities.html
Edible Holi ‘Powder Paint’
This alternative to powdered paint and provides a wonderful sensory experience.
You will need
- 1/2 cup Corn Flour
- Milkshake Powder
- 1tsp of water
- A few drops of essence/food flavouring (strawberry, banana, mint)
Method
- Mix the ingredients to a mouldable, yet powdery consistency.
Alternative Activity
Rainbow Rice
Promote fine motor skills and involve the students in making the rainbow rice.
You will need:
- Lidded Container
- 1 cup of Dried Rice
- 1 tsp Vinegar
- Food colouring
Method:
- Place the cup of dried rice into a container.
- Add 1tsp vinegar.
- Add the food colouring (adjust the quantity according to the depth of colour required.)
- Place the lid on the container.
- Shake until the rice is coloured.
- Spread onto a baking tray/kitchen towel to dry.
Sweet Stuff!
Explore multicoloured sweets: ‘Rainbow Drops’, ‘Rainbow Sprinkles’, ‘Smarties’, ‘Jelly Tots’, ‘Skittles’, ‘Fruit Pastilles’, ‘Dolly Mixtures’, ‘Midget Gems’
Promote Fine Motor & Colour Sorting Skills
- Can the students pick up the sweets using safety tweezers, grippers or scoop up using a cup to transfer the sweets into a container?
- Can the students sort the sweets into piles according to their colour?
https://mash.ie/holi-a-multisensory-exploration-themed-sensory-extension-activities.html
Table of Contents
- Story Props Checklist
- How to Tell a Multisensory Story
- Holi – Fully Resourced Step-by-Step Multisensory Exploration
- Holi Themed Sensory Umbrella
- Holi Themed Sensory Tent
- Holi Themed Sensory Bin
- Holi Themed Sensory Bag
- Holi Themed Listening Game
- Let’s Make…Holi Powder Paint
- Jackson Pollock Themed Art
- Scented Paint
- Paint Bombs & Cinnamon Stick Painting
- Paint Splatter Picture
- Colour Sorting
- Thandai Recipe
- Holi Ideas & Inspiration
🪐 13th March 1781
Discovery of Uranus
‘The clouds of Uranus are smoky and smelly
It wobbles around on its side like a jelly’
(Excerpt from ‘Journey into Space’ https://mash.ie/journey-into-space-a-rhyming-multisensory-story-exploration-of-the-solar-system-themed-sensory-extension-activities.html
Explore Uranus
- Light the incense stick out of reach of the student but within their eye line. Can the student track the smoke as it dances into the air? Can the student smell the heady perfume of the that fills the room?
- Engage the student’s sense of touch as they investigate the elasticity of a jelly and how it wobbles and moves when touched. Would the student like to taste the slippery, shivery jelly?
☘️ 17th March – St Patrick’s Day
Activity Idea
Bell Pepper Shamrock Painting
You will need:
- Bell Pepper
- Card/Paper Bell
- Green Paint
Method:
1. Cut the bell pepper in half width-ways to reveal the natural ‘shamrock’ shape.
2. Dip into green paint then print onto paper.
Extend this activity by using two colours: orange and green paint (to represent the colours of the flag)
Can the student make a pattern by alternating the colours?
Join the celebrations with this fully resourced, step-by-step multisensory exploration of St Patrick’s Day https://mash.ie/st-patricks-day-a-fully-resourced-step-by-step-multisensory-story-themed-sensory-extension-activities.html
Table of Contents
- Story Props Checklist
- How to Tell a Multisensory Story
- St Patrick’s Day – Fully Resourced Step-by- Step Multisensory Exploration
- Developing Comprehension & Understanding
- Story Map
- St Patrick’s Day Listening Game
- St Patrick’s Day Sensory Bag
- St Patrick’s Day Sensory Bin
- Leprechaun Food
- Sensory Art
- Sensory Stuffed Sock Snakes
- Bubble Snakes
- The Leprechaun’s Science Lab
- Soda Bread Recipe
- Interesting Facts
- St Patricks Day Ideas & Inspiration
🐼 16th March – National Panda Day
- Although quiet animals, Pandas do make ‘barking’, ‘huffing’, and ‘growling sounds’. Listen to an audio clip of a Panda making these sounds. Can the student imitate the noise? Record their vocalisation and play it back.
- Pandas move slowly with their toes pointing inwards.
- Watch footage of a Panda walking. Can the student move like a Panda?
Make a Panda Themed Sensory Bin:
- Line the base of your tray/container with green shredded paper/grass/dried rice/noodles/green tagliatelle.
- Add ‘Bamboo’ (small sticks or twigs, lollipop/craft sticks, cinnamon sticks) and assorted leaves and grasses.
- Add a toy panda (or draw/print out pictures of pandas on card, laminate and affix to a lollipop stick or straw)
- Add other interesting black and white items: Beads, pom poms, Lego bricks, dice, counters, pipe cleaners, feathers, sequins.
Other Dates:
- March 3rd – World Wildlife Day
- March 8th – International Women’s Day
- March 20th-26th – Downs Syndrome Awareness Week
- March 22nd – World Water Day
- March 25th – Earth Hour
Birthdays
- 2nd March 1904 – Dr Seuss – Share a story ‘Green Eggs & Ham’, ‘The Cat in the Hat’, ‘One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish’, ‘Horton Hatches the Egg’
- 6th March 1475 – Michelangelo – Explore his artwork
- 14th March 1879 – Albert Einstein – Explore light (torches/light-up toys), gravity (throwing balls in the air), space and time.