For the Love of Speech Blog Hop

I am excited to be participating in the For the Love of Speech blog hop!  Isn't this a fabulous way to get a whole lot of Freebies you can use for Valentine's Day???  And even better, it's a chance to visit a whole lot of amazing SLP's blogs and Facebook pages!  Isn't social media awesome?  I think so!

If you haven't visited me before, welcome!  I'm glad you're here! Let me tell you just a few things about me.  I'm a pediatric SLP with my own private practice.  I work with kids age 1 through middle school and love all things speech and language.  I've been having fun with my first ever social skills group...four boys, ages 9-12, and I realized that I really need to target perspective taking skills as well as making inferences and other critical thinking skills more in our sessions.  I made a quick little activity before Christmas where students chose presents for imaginary people based on their likes and dislikes. It was one of my favorite activities all year, because it got them all talking about another person's likes and dislikes, their own likes and dislikes, and helped them to choose something for someone else that might not be one of their own favorite things.   It really helped them to be able to take another person's perspective and make inferences about what would be the perfect gift.  You can find that freebie here in my TpT store, if you're interested.

Anyway, I wanted to make a similar activity for Valentine's Day since doing things for people you love is such a big part of this holiday.  So I created Choose the Right Valentine:  A Critical Thinking Activity.   I'm offering several pages of this activity as a FREEBIE for a limited time.

This freebie version contains four mini-character sketches that list each person's likes and dislikes, one page of Valentine Cards, one page of Kindness Coupons and two blank character sketch pages.

Students are given one character sketch and are told they need to choose a Valentine Card to give that person as well as a Kindness Coupon.  Students make their choices based on their character's likes and dislikes.  These are the Valentine Cards...

...and these are the Kindness Coupons.

After the students make their choices, they must explain to the group why they chose the cards they did.  The group decides whether or not the student made good choices.  The SLP can also ask about alternative cards and have the student explain why or why not that card would be a good selection.

This is a fabulous way to help your students think about what another person might like to receive on Valentine's Day as well as help them see why things they personally like might not be the best fit for someone else.  I am using this with a group, but it would also be great to use with just one or two students at a time.

Grab this FREEBIE here.  It will only be available today, February 1, through February 4.

Don't go yet though!  I want to tell you about the second part of this activity that is ONLY available by purchasing the full product version.

This version includes twelve character sketches (8 more than the freebie version), the Valentine and Kindness Cards, blank templates to create your own Valentine and Kindness Cards and 24 Critical Thinking Task Cards.

These task cards are designed to be used with the completed character sketches as an extension activity.  These cards provide opportunities to target problem solving, empathy, inclusion/exclusion, perspective taking, inferencing and using social graces in a Valentine's Day context.

I really LOVE this new product!  I just know you will, too.  You can find it here at my TpT store.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll visit me again soon!  But for now it's time to hop on over to Figuratively Speeching's page to show her some love.  Click on the arrow below!

Happy Valentine's Day!