A Magical Gnome Home

I've always loved the idea of magical holiday traditions such as Elf on the Shelf, where children find a mischievous little elf somewhere in their home, fishing out of the sink or headfirst in the flour bin, in the days leading up to Christmas.  I've toyed with the idea of hiding an elf in my therapy room, but just couldn't bring myself to do it.  I love the magic and creativity, but I'm just not a fan of the whole "elves catching me being good before Christmas" aspect of it.  So I found an Elf on the Shelf alternative:  a Gnome Home!

I've got this great dogwood tree right next to the sidewalk that leads to my office.  It's full of knots from branches that have been pruned in years past.  I decided it would be the perfect location for my magical gnomes to live.

I painted rustic windows on the knots...

...and made a stone pathway up to a door made from a piece of wood that I found at a craft store.

My 16-year-old son made the little table and chairs from a branch from the tree.  We decided we needed a bridge...

...so my older son crafted one and we painted it red to match the doorknob.  I love red!

We placed the bridge in the midst of the path...

...and added a scarecrow for a festive fall touch.

And now the magic begins!!!  All week long, my little friends have been enchanted by this happy little house tucked in amidst my landscaping.  If they don't notice it as they walk by, I take them by the hand and show them, telling them all about the magical little gnomes' new home.  Then I tell them that the gnomes left me this note:

...and tell them that we need to be on the lookout for those pesky little gnomes or for things that might belong to them.

In a week or two, the gnomes will make an appearance in my therapy room.  And, oh, the mischief they will create!  I can hardly wait!!!  They will be sure to bring with them lots of opportunities for practicing our speech and language goals and magic for the holidays and beyond.

Saving Time: Repurposing What I Already Have

Who has time to put together one more elaborate activity before the Holidays?  Not me!  I'm going to show you how you can repurpose something you probably already have and make a useful activity that can be used with multiple kids.  Let me introduce Lift-the-Flap Presents!

I had a few extra present cards left from making Clothespin Christmas Surprises and found a great way to turn them into  something fun and useful.

First, I printed off a page of picture cards.  This one happens to target the /k/ sound.  I put it in a plastic page protector.

Starting at the bottom of the page, I taped a present to the page protector, positioning it over the top of one of the squares from the picture card set.  I put tape along the upper edge only, so the present card becomes a flap to lift.

I continued to tape the presents over each square, filling the rows from bottom to top.  That's it!  It's ready to be used!

Here's the great thing:  you can store multiple pages of picture cards in the same page protector.  You just need to make sure that the one you need is on the top of the stack!  So, since the presents are taped to the page protector and not the actual page of picture cards, you can use this activity with a child working on /k/ in one session, and then quickly change it to work for a child working on /s/.  Just find the page you need and slip it in!  Easy, huh?

Of course it helps if you use sets of picture cards that all come from the same source so the grids are the same size.  I use the ones I created on lessonpix.com.  If you don't know about LessonPix, you should.  You can create your own sets of picture cards and other materials in minutes.  You choose the targets based on the sound and position in words, click a button, and then download your materials directly to your computer to save and use whenever you need them.  So easy and SO COOL!

I'll be using this for articulation for sure, but I'll probably find other ways to use it, too.  How about for irregular plurals or other grammar targets?  How about for following directions? "Open the green gift in the bottom row."  Or, "After you open a red gift, open a pink one."  How about visual memory?  Have them open one row of gifts, name them, cover them back up and then see if they can tell you what the three gifts were.  Oooh, I like that idea.  I might do this with Christmas vocabulary!  I know, I'll use the sheet of cookies from Santa's Cookie Slam! Game!!!

Wow, THAT was easy!  Especially since I used the same grid template to create both the presents and the cookies.  No resizing necessary!  I actually tried this with a fourth grader and it worked great.  This is what we did.  First, I had her open one vertical row of three presents, name them, close them, and then say the names of the three presents.  We repeated the sequence for the remaining three rows.  To make it more difficult, I added a 5 second delay between the time she closed the flaps and telling the names of the gifts.  After two rounds of opening vertical rows, we moved on to opening horizontal rows.

I'll bet you could come up with some ways to use this idea, too.  Will you please share?

One Idea from Pinterest Turned into Multi-purpose Fun!

A couple of weeks ago I pinned this cute  What's in the Stocking activity from Pinterest:

It comes from a blog called Little Wonders Days and is such a great idea that I just had to try it!

Of course, everything I make or plan depends on the needs of my current caseload, so this one started as an activity to do with my s-blend kids.

I found 22 different objects whose names started with an s-blend and put them in a Christmas stocking. The kids removed them one at a time and used the carrier phrase, "I found the _______ in my stocking," giving them the opportunity to say two s-blend words in one sentence.

The kids enjoyed this activity, and I could have just left it at that, but I had to change it up a little.  I put all 22 objects in a mayo jar and filled the jar with rice.  I made a list of everything in the jar and gave it to the child with the instructions to find each item on the list by rolling, turning and shaking the jar.  The one firm rule was that they could NOT remove the lid.

This has been quite the hit, I have to tell you!  EVERY kid on my caseload is completely enthralled with it, and it's use has expanded way beyond /s/ blend articulation!  Yesterday I used it for the following purposes:

        *  /r/ sound carryover:  "I'm looking for ....", "It's right there.", "Here is the ....."

        *  Categorization:  How many things are Christmas Things, Winter Things or Other?

        *  A distraction activity for a girl with tongue thrust to practice her resting posture for 5 minute
             segments

        *  Improving processing time/speed of task completion:  I have a couple of kids on the spectrum who take a lot of time to execute the steps necessary to complete a task.  We used a stopwatch and raced to see how many objects we could find in 3 minute segments.

        *  Following steps of a process:  I used the list worksheet and added category boxes.  We found an  item on the list, crossed it off, and then recorded it in the category box.  Sounds easy, right?  It wasn't for this particular second grader.  He needed to be reminded to complete the last step in almost half of the opportunities.

        *  My littles liked it too.  We worked on action words like shake, roll, and tip.  We just named things that we saw.

These are the worksheets that I made to go with the jar.  The first one is the list...

...and the second one is the list with the category boxes.  I'd share them with you, but your list will be different then mine.

These activities were actually very easy to put together.  Finding all the objects was the hardest part!  I hope you'll try it.  If  you do, please share with me how you used it.


Pam

Rudolph's Crazy Cookie Exchange

I loved those Christmas Cookie graphics so much that I made another game!  This one is called Rudolph's Crazy Cookie Exchange Game.

It's a card game that will work for 2-3 players if you print it as-is, or 4-5 players if you print out an extra sheet of cookies.

The object of the game is to be the first player to share all of your cookies by following the directions on the game cards.  You can read all the rules below for complete instructions, and continue to scroll down for a quick look.

This is what the game looks like when it is set up:

Players start with 5 cookies in their own Cookie Stash.  They choose them from the center pile before the game begins.  Players take turns drawing a card and following the direction on the card.

In the example above, the player drew a card that stated that Granny wants a red cookie.  The player chooses a cookie from his Cookie Stash that matches the description and places it on Granny's plate.  If he does not have one that matches, he finds one from the center pile to give to her instead.

Sometimes the card will tell you that the character DOESN'T want specific colors or shapes of cookies.  The player must remove the cookie or cookies from the character's plate that match the description and place them back in his Cookie Stash.

Sometimes a player will draw a card that gives them special instructions.  Some of the cards direct players to put cookies back in the pile or to trade cookies between the characters.  And some tell you to give two of your cookies away.  The SWAP! cards mean that the player must move all of one character's cookies to the other character's plate, and vise versa.

Play continues until a player shares all of his or her cookies.  It's fun, and not as easy to get rid of your cookies as you'd think!

I've played this game several times already.  It worked GREAT for working on medial alveolars with a third grade girl, and for several others working on /s/ or /r/.  I plan to use it with a child to work on negatives such as "don't" and "doesn't" as well.  How about using it with kids who are working on following directions that include adjectives?  You could make the game more challenging for your language processing kiddos by reading the cards to them without letting them see the pictures, too. There are lots of possibilities!

Do you like this game? You can find it at my TpT store. *Update: This product was offered as a freebie for a short time. Due to multiple difficulties with downloads, I transferred it from Google Drive to my TpT store, where it is now a paid product.


Whew!  I think I'm done making games for a few days!  Graphics credit again goes to Scrappin' Doodles for their wonderful Christmas Cookie collection and Granny Swallowed Christmas.  Credit for the plates goes to my son, Jake!  What will I do when he moves out???

Fa La La La La!

Pam

Santa's Christmas Cookie Slam! Card Game

I fell completely in love with these cute Christmas Cookie graphics from Scrappin' Doodle and just knew I could find several ways to use them!  Here's a fun game I created for following directions and language processing.  It's called:

The download includes these cookies...

 ...and these playing cards...

...for some fast-paced fun!  This is a great little game for a whole variety of skills.  You could use it for articulation practice, practicing giving directions, following directions and language processing, just to mention a few.  I'm thinking my kids will LOVE it!  In fact, I'll probably send a few copies home with kids as homework.  (P.S.  Update:  I've played this several times today and it was a major hit!)

Do you want to play, too?  You can download this game here.  I've been using this game as is, but you might want to make two copies of both cards and cookies to extend the length of the game (not to mention the laughter!)

'Tis the Season!


Pam

Christmas Brainstorm

Earlier in the month I posted a worksheet for thinking about Thanksgiving.  It worked so well for me that I made a Christmas version.  It was created for use with the Expanding Expression program, but you could easily use it without utilizing those methods.  I find it is a great way to get kids talking about what they know and expand their vocabulary.

Download your copy here.  Graphic credit goes to Scrappin' Doodles.  I hope you'll find this useful, too!

Pam