Jumping Jack: How I Use My Favorite Spring Game

My new favorite game for spring (or anytime!) is called Jumping Jack by Goliath Games. It is a bright, appealing game similar in play style to an SLP favorite, Pop Up Pirate, that can be used with both preschoolers and elementary school students. Students take turns pulling carrots out of the base, trying (or maybe, NOT trying) to make the rabbit jump out of his hole.

I love using games like this for the following reasons:

• High-interest: the students generally enjoy games that have some level of anticipation associated with them. They want to play them again and again.
• Easy to play: there are very few rules to follow.
• They promote joint attention and turn taking: players happily watch other players take turns, watching to see if the rabbit will jump.
• Simplicity: There are very few pieces to manipulate.
• Flexibility: I can adapt the way we play the game by adding companion materials designed to target speech and language goals.

In the photo above, students practiced their speech sounds while playing the game. Each student was given a page of stimulus pictures that contained their target sound. Students took turns choosing a target word to say, practiced it a specific number of times, and then removed a carrot from the base. If the rabbit didn't jump, the students placed the carrot on top of the picture. Play continued until the rabbit jumped, and then we played again. The picture pages featured in this photo are from my product Itty Bitty Black and White Articulation Cards and can be found in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

The more I played Jumping Jack with my students, I realized I needed more companion materials to target both speech and language skills. So I created Jack's Garden of Carrots:

This packet contains 89 black and white activity sheets that are perfect to pair with Jumping Jack, but can also be used as a stand-alone activity. It contains two separate sets of articulation pages, one with pictures (all the most frequently targeted sounds and blends) and one with words only (later developing sounds). Language targets include synonyms, antonyms, multiple meaning words, describing, categories, comparing, contrasting, answering WH- questions, and inferences. I use these sheets at the same time as the game, completing a task before each turn, and sometimes I have the students complete the worksheet before we play the game.

Sometimes I use these print and go sheets with dot paints, and other times I'll use play dough or mini erasers to cover the carrots.

Here's a photo of using an articulation sheet while we play the game...
  

 ...and here is one of when we completed the worksheets first. I had one student paint the tops of all the carrots and the other paint the bottoms the first time through the target word set, and then we traded paints and said all the words again. I got double the amount of reps! Score!

To push my luck even further, and get even MORE milage out of this handy dandy worksheet, I had the students say their words again before they removed carrots while playing the game. We covered the carrots with bunny erasers to keep track of the words we said.

Here's a shot of us using mini erasers to cover the carrots while we practice describing the size, shape or color of objects.

Honestly, this game is so much fun and so flexible! I love it when I can use one item to target so many different skills.

What do you think? Do you use this game or one that is similar? I'd love to know!

What's In My Cart Linky Party

The Teachers Pay Teachers "Teachers are Heroes" sale is just 2 days away and I am VERY excited to get some new products and save money, too.  I've been shopping around and finding some fabulous things, so I thought I'd join up with Jenna and the other SLP bloggers and share them with you.

The first item I'd like to share is The Speech Owl's No Print Spring Time Fun for receptive and expressive language.

This one covers it all - positional concepts, pronouns, negation, categories, inferencing and many more skills, and the best part is, it's no print so I can use it with my iPad!  I have her winter version of this product and love it, so this one is a MUST HAVE!

The second item I can't wait to buy is The Pedi Speechie's You Can Social Skills.  I am building my library of social skills activities and this one looks awesome!  Do you have any of The Pedi Speechie's products?  Her stuff is unique and incredibly clever.  She makes wonderful products! And this one is no prep, too.  Yes!  I love that!

My kids and parents love the Speech Summit's Sound Rings, so I am going to give this one a try:  WH-Question Rings.  I send the sound rings home for homework and the parents love them because they are so easy to use and convenient.  I'm guessing these will be a hit, too.

Here's another super convenient product in my cart:  Articulation Strips for R by Sublime Speech. These look like they would be great to send home for practice, too

So that's a look at what's in my cart.  I can't wait to see what everyone else has in theirs!

I'd like to tell you about my newest product that I'm very excited about.  It's called Fast Pace Race.

It is an articulation challenge activity for students who are moving beyond drill and practice and are moving toward skill generalization.  The students race against the clock to beat their own times in three different challenge activities and earn trophies and ribbons, each with different point values according to their performance.  My kids ask for this one again and again!  The challenges include Warm-Up Tracks...

Qualifying Races with three different levels of difficulty...

...and Face Pace Races.

This 42-page set includes challenge cards for Voiced and Unvoiced TH in the initial, medial and final positions of words, phrases and sentences, game cards and token boards as well as detailed instructions for use.  Check it out!  I'm sure your students will love it as much as mine do.  And then be on the look out...I'm working on new sound sets that will be added soon!

You can find this in my TpT store here.

So what's in YOUR cart?  Leave a comment and tell me!  I always love a good sale!!!

Click here to peek into MORE SLPs' carts!

Pam

Quick Artic Activity: Domino Mazes

Here's a quick, no-prep activity that's been a hit this week with my upper elementary and middle school students:  Domino mazes!  I used this for an articulation activity, but you could use it for language goals, too.  Just use your favorite deck of articulation cards, turn one over, have the student say the target word as he/she places a domino on the table, creating a maze.  I have the student say the same word 5 times, placing a domino for each repetition.  The maze pictured above was completed in less than 30 minutes, and was done by one student who completed over 150 reps of her target sound in words.  This would be fun to do in a group as well.

Of course, the best part is knocking it down ;-)

If you've got dominoes, give this a try!

Owls, Owls, Owls!

This week at Small Talk, we've been reading the book, Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell.  This is a fantastic book for preschoolers that tells the tale of three babies owls who wake up to find that their mother is gone.  Sarah and Percy are very brave, but Bill just wants his mommy!  The owls make guesses about where their mother might have gone, but become less brave the longer they wait.  Finally their mother comes back and the baby owls rejoice.  It's a great story that most little ones can relate to, and its just plain adorable!  Here are some of the owl activities I planned to go with this book:

Sorting day and night objects:  I gathered small objects of things that we see or do in the daytime or the nighttime and put them in my mystery box.  I made a mat for the daytime objects and one for the nighttime objects.  Kids reached into the mystery box, pulled out an object, labeled it and then put it on the corresponding mat.  This activity was so great for improving vocabulary skills and answering "when" questions, not to mention sorting items of a category.

Following 2-Step Directions Game:  I made a cute open-ended game board that I used for several different activities depending on treatment goals.  This one was one of the kids' favorites and could be played with a single player or several.  Players turned over a card, I read the directions on each card, and the child performed the actions to follow the directions.  Many of the direction cards contained actions an owl might do, such as flap their wings or say "hoo hoo".  For the kids still working on novel 1-Step directions, I used the same cards, but only gave one part of the the direction.

I turned my Butterfly Garden canopy into a treetop that covers the ceiling in my office.  I attached felt leaves with safety pins and it feels like we are sitting right among the branches.  The kids made owls to hang from the canopy.  It's magical!

Look what I found at my favorite toy store...Owl flashlights!!!  We'll be using those next week when I hide the Mommy Owl around the room.  We'll turn off the lights, and go on an owl hunt!  I can't wait!  I'm sure it's going to be fun!

I've been using this awesome toy as a reinforcer during drill activities.  After the child says the target word or phrase, he or she gets a piece to put on the tree.  This darling wooden tree set comes from Hearthsong and has lasted many years.

Since the Owl Babies text includes many past tense -ed verbs, I decided to make a game to provide more past tense -ed opportunities.  I made another game board that explained that the baby owls watched the kids who were busy in the house and yard below the owls' tree.  Players took turns drawing a card and describing what the owls saw the kids do.  This worked great for both past tense verbs and pronouns.  I even used this game with my older elementary kids who are about to join a social thinking group and are working on identifying another person's plan.  I had them make a "smart guess" about what the person on the card was doing, or how they might be feeling and then had them make a guess about what that person might do next.

And speaking of games, these two games are great for preschoolers.  Easy to learn, easy to play, and not much set-up required.  I found these at my favorite toy store, too.

Last but not least...look at this adorable owl!  His eyes pop out when you squeeze them!  I can probably find a million different ways to use them, but for now, we just say our target words 5 times while we squeeze our owls (I have an orange one, too)!

Whew, that's a lot of fun crammed into one week!  I'm exhausted!  Do you have any owl ideas to add to my plans?  I'd love to hear them!

Early Speech Sounds Spinner Christmas Freebie

I'm so excited to share this Freebie with you!  I call it the Santa Sound Spinner -Final K edition.  It is part of a complete set of spinners and lotto boards that I'm almost ready to publish, but I just couldn't wait to share just this one piece with you!  My kids and I have been playing with it all week and loving it.

So what's it all about?  It's a spinning disk with 10 target words that fastens to the back of the Santa page.  Kids get to "open a present" and look inside to see a picture that goes with their target sound.  Here's what the disk looks like:

And here's the Santa page:

See those dotted lines around the green present?  You cut along each side and the bottom to create a peek-a-boo flap that the kids lift to see a picture.  Kids spin the disk by pushing the picture to the left or right to reveal the next picture.

You can play this game two ways.  If you're playing with more than one person, give each person a lotto board, and as the pictures are revealed, players cover the matching picture on their board.

Single players can spin the disk, say the word and then cover the dot on this Santa page using a dot marker or a chip (or maybe even a cotton ball, which might be really fun...you could have a "snowball fight" with the cotton balls after the game is finished!)  (I'm trying this TODAY!)

This freebie includes four lotto boards and spinner for the final /k/ sound.  If you like this one, be sure to check back soon for additional sound sets, because I've got a Princess and Superhero set that includes P, B, T, D, K and G in the initial and final position almost completed, and I might even make a few more Christmas sets.

Newsflash!!!  I had some extra time this afternoon and pulled together a Christmas Set for P and B sounds.  This set contains 4 lotto boards for each sound in the initial and final position...16 boards in all!  It is available in my TpT store.

If you'd like a copy of the freebie, visit my TpT site here and please be sure to leave feedback!

Merry Christmas!

Halloween Eraser Fun

This little jar of Halloween-themed erasers has been my go-to material for the past week.  Who knew that an inexpensive little bag of erasers that I picked up at a craft store was worth its weight in gold?  Let me show you some of the ways I've been using them.

I used them for sorting with some little orange buckets I found at Target in the dollar section.  They were perfect for my little Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) kids working on Consonant-Vowel pairs while we said "in" and "out".  Then we turned the buckets over and put the erasers "on" and "off".  Then I used them with preschoolers for following directions such as "Put a bat on the bucket with a ghost".

I used them with every articulation kiddo I saw, too.  Last year I printed off this great pumpkin from 3Dinosaurs.com and laminated it.  I give the kids a handful of erasers and have them put one eraser on a dot on the pumpkin after they say a target word/sentence a pre-determined number of times.  It's fun to watch them decide where to place their erasers.  Some make patterns, some put them in rows and some just place them randomly.  But no matter where they put them, we get lots of opportunities to practice sounds.

Here's another version of using erasers to track productions.  I use these strips with my younger kiddos who need to work in shorter bursts of time.  Like the example above with the pumpkin, kids put an eraser on a picture on the strip after attempting a target word.  After filling a strip with 5 bats, I give them a new strip with pumpkins or ghosts and fill that one, too.  I don't know about you, but I am always looking for ways to get my littlest friends to give me at least 10 good attempts at saying new words.  This one usually works for me.  I like to change it up a bit and let them select which strip they'd like to cover, so I made four different ones for Halloween.

Gotta love those cute Halloween graphics from Scrappin' Doodles!  I'd love to share these with you if you'd like.  Just click here.

One last way I used them was to hide a bunch in my tub of beans.  It's all kinds of fun!  And speech and language opportunities abound.  What kid doesn't love to dig for "treasure"?

What are your ideas?  I'm sure you can think of a few...

Buggy Mats: Open-Ended Activity Mats

I just love open-ended materials that can be used for multiple purposes, don't you?  I purchased some adorable bug graphics earlier this spring when I made Froggy's Feeding Frenzy and decided to use them to make a set of activity mats.

You can use these versatile mats with play dough....

...or with your chips and magnet from Super Duper's Chipper Chat...

...or with dot paints for any speech and language goal you can think of!

There are five adorable mats in this set, and they can be found here.  Graphics credits go to Goodness & Fun on etsy.com and Kelly Medina Studios.

Have fun!

Pam

Pick Up the Trash! Freebie for /p/, /b/ and /m/

I've got a two-year-old who is OBSESSED with garbage trucks...and that's not exaggerating!  So instead of trying to fight his obsession, I decided to make a garbage truck/trash game to work on his goals.  And, since it's Earth Day tomorrow, I thought I'd share it with you.

Here's what you do.  Print the garbage trucks on cardstock and cut the page in half.  Attach them to an empty tissue box (the larger Kleenex boxes work the best), one on each side.  Make sure the opening of the box faces up.

Cut out the cards and scatter them on the table or on the floor.  Have the child push the garbage truck box to each trash can and say the word as he/she puts the trash can in the box.

So easy, and so fun...especially for boys who LOVE garbage trucks!  I'm sure it will be a hit.  If you'd like a copy,  you can find it on my TpT store here.

Pam

Monkey Business Combo Pack

I had so much fun using my Monkey Business cards for /sh/ this week, and I got so much great feedback from many of you that I made a combo pack for R, S, and L and Blends!

This pack includes 27 pages of cute monkey cards organized into three sets:  R/ R-Blends, S/ S-Blends, and L/L-Blends.








Each set features its own distinct colored frame around the target words, and a symbol indicating the position of the target sound.  The R/R-blend set contains 8 initial position, 8 medial position, 16 final position, 32 blends and 8 blank cards.

 The S/S-Blend set contains 8 initial, 8 medial, 8 final, 24 blends and 8 blank cards.

The L/L-Blend set contains 8 initial, 8 medial, 8 final, 16 blends and 8 blank cards.  Each set also contains a banana page to record answers.

I'm finding this activity to be really helpful for transitioning to using these sounds in spontaneous speech.  It's also a great language activity, because the students need to name 5 items in a category or talk about 5 features of an object.  Who doesn't love an activity that hits both speech AND language???

You can find this combo pack at my TpT site.  If you download it, please leave feedback!


Enjoy!

Pam