Differentiating for Special Needs

I've mentioned before that I've got 2 little sweeties in my room who have special needs. Both are intellectually impaired with one also having global development delay. His development in all areas is around that of a 2 - 2.5 year old. Obviously, everything we do has to be modified for both of them. I thought I'd start sharing some of the things they're doing in class in case you are looking for ideas for your own class. I'm also on the lookout for new activities, so please share! 

Today, I'm going to share some staples that we use almost every day. 

Bowls, beads and teddy counters. We use these for colour naming, sorting, matching etc. When naming colours, we also use non-verbal gestures (e.g. red is touching the chin). We use the beads for threading to develop our fine motor skills. We also use the bear counts for counting.

Here are some more things I've bought to develop their fine motor control. The smaller tweezers can be held with the pointer and thumb (like a pencil) to pick up poms, cotton balls or any other small manipulative. These are a little hard for my two to use at the moment though. The bigger animal tweezers are a little easier. We use the tweezers to move the manipulative from one spot to another and to drop into numbered cups to help with counting  (this is mostly done verbally since number recognition isn't there yet). We also attach pegs to the black tub and to the numbered cups for counting.

The sand trays are used for hiding pictures and objects in (so far this year we are learning the letter s and m) and for letter writing with our fingers. 

What do you do with kids who need to develop basic skills and concepts? I hope to share more of what we are doing soon.