Under the Sea

As you all know, I love to use thematic units to plan my treatment sessions.  Every summer, I do an Under the Sea theme, which is one of my favorites!  This year, my caseload is full of 3- 5 year olds, the perfect age to really enjoy Under the Sea activities.  I always start with a book, and this one is AWESOME!

This is one of those awesome books with wonderful rhythm and repeated line text, making it super easy for little ones to join in the telling of the story.  In case you're not familiar with this one, the story goes like this:  a boy is diving in the deep blue sea, looking for treasure to share with his mama.  On his journey, he meets many adorable sea creatures and even a shark who chases him after he finds the treasure.  He rises up from the deep blue sea to find his mom waiting for him with a fluffy bath towel.  The last page shows a bathtub full of sea creature toys, which is wonderful for making inferences about where the boy actually saw all of the creatures.  It is so fun!  I've used it for years!  Here is the link to Amazon if you'd like to check it out.

Here's how I use it.  I collected a box full of sea creatures that match the ones in the book.  I photocopied a picture of the boy swimming from the book, cut it out and taped it to the lid of the box.  We set the lid off to the side while we read the book.  When a new sea creature is introduced in the story, the child finds its match from the box.  We talk about the creature, and then put it on the lid as we say, "Swim away!"

I just love this book!  The pictures are so adorable and the kids stay so engaged.  It's a winner!

Another favorite activity has been building sand castles with that kinetic sand that has become so popular.  My son bought me a jar from Brookstone last Christmas and it's become another favorite.  It truly is amazing...it doesn't make a huge mess!  And it feels so soft and crumbly...it's addicting!  Anyway, we used those tiny paper cups to make awesome sand castles.  I made a little script:  First you put in 5 scoops of sand.  Then  you smash it down with the spoon, and add 5 more scoops.  Smash it down again, then flip the cup over.  Lift the cup to see your sand castle.  Finally, put a flag on top.

The kids quickly learned to follow the sequence.  It was fun to see them problem solve when their castles didn't turn out they way they expected them to be.  After they knew the sequence, I had them give me directions to make one.  This was a great activity for learning to tell a sequence.

Aren't they cute?  I made the flags out of straws and washi tape.

I have several preschoolers working on plurals, pronouns and verb tenses, so I made some fun activities to target these skills and others.  I made a deck of sea creature cards that can be used in a zillion ways.  Our favorites have been to use them to play some childhood favorites, Go Fish, Memory Game and Old Maid.  These games have withstood the test of time for a reason:  they are easy to learn and jam-packed with learning opportunities.  Here's one page of the cards...there are 17 different cards in all...34 if you double them.

Aren't the graphics by My Clipart Store cute?  So clean and colorful.  I love them!

I also used some of the cards to play another popular game:  The treasure hunt game.  I hid gold coins under sea creature flaps attached to a plastic sheet protector.  Kids turned over a card, and lifted the flap that matched the card.

If there was a gold coin under the flap, the child got to put it on his treasure chest.  If not, he continued to turn over cards and lift flaps until a gold coin was found.

What's under the flaps in addition to gold coins???  Target words and phrases!!!

All you have to do is print off this sheet and 3 others with different targets and place them all in the same sheet protector.  Then, print the sea creature page...

...cut them out, and tape them onto the sheet protector, covering each picture on the target page.  Be sure to only tape the top side of each sea creature square, and it's easiest if you work from the bottom of the page up.

This activity was great for working on pronouns, -ing verbs, past tense -ed verbs, and auxiliary verbs.  The best part about it is you only have to tape the sea creatures on one sheet protector.  You just have to move the target page of your choosing to the top of the pile inside the sheet protector.  How great is that?

I also used the treasure chest mats and coins for another activity.  A couple of my kids are working on auditory memory skills right now, so I made a sea creature themed activity for them.

This activity was harder than it seems for several of my kids. I even used it with a sixth grader, and it was difficult for her!  Anyway, what I did was start with cards that had 3-4 syllables on them and work up to ones that had 7-8.  I read a card aloud to the child and the child repeats it back.  After he/she says the words in correct order, they receive a piece of gold to put on a treasure chest mat.  We played until 10 pieces of gold were collected, but it's meant to be open-ended.  You choose how long you play!

I have to say, this is one of the most versatile sets I've made.  I've used it to target so many goals with several different age groups.  If you'd like to check it out, visit my TpT store here.  And, as always, I'd love to hear what you think about these materials.  Please leave a comment below!


Pam

Don't Break the Ice Game Companion for Winter Clothing Vocabulary

We've been having so much fun using the Winter Clothing Vocabulary Cards from my Indoor Snowball Fight that I decided to make a companion activity that can target a bunch of goals based on the same theme.  My kids go BONKERS for Hasbro's classic Don't Break the Ice Game, so I made some materials to use while playing it.  And I was right...it is a HIT (no pun intended)!

Here's what you do:

Then, decide if you want to use these game cards...

...or these!

The players take turns turning over a card and tapping a matching ice block until it falls.  Play continues until all the ice breaks and everyone laughs!  And then play it again.  And again.  And AGAIN, if the kids get their way!!!

I've used this game this week with kids ages 2-12.  Did you catch that?  Two-year-olds were able to play this without smashing all the ice blocks in at once.  I think having the pictures on them really helped to slow it down.  Here are some of the goals I was able to target:

*  articulation:  CVC, CVCV words for my younger kids; /th/ for "this" and "the"  as in "This is the match; final /s/ in "ice", and the list goes on.

*  receptive vocabulary:  finding items based on attributes comes to mind immediately, but also matching pictures and identifying items by their names.

*  expressive vocabulary:  winter clothing words, adjectives such as warm, cozy, stretchy, itchy

*  third person singular verbs:  when using the attribute cards, I had my students respond using complete sentences that included third person singular verb.  For example, "A hat COVERS my ears."  "A snowman MELTS".

*  use of have/has:  "Boots have laces."  "Hot cocoa has steam."

*  following game rules and turn taking.

That's just a start.  Be creative and I'm sure you'll find many ways to use this with almost all of your kids.

Do you love it?  You can find it at my TpT store here.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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

Balloon Bop-o-rama

I saw this pin on Pinterest today from The Weekend Homemaker blog and got inspired!

I taped tongue depressors to the back of a couple paper plates, blew up a balloon and quickly thought up several ways to play.  I used this activity ALL DAY LONG with kids as young as 2 and as old as 13!  Talk about multi-purpose fun!

I'm dying to share my ideas with you!

Let's start with my littlest ones.  I've got several little guys working on producing bilabials and CVC words.  I simply gave them a paddle and tossed the balloon gently to them after they said a word like "bop" or "pop" or "boom". We chased the balloon down, and did it again (and again and again!).  After awhile, we ditched the paddle and went on to "kick" and "bump".  Lots of laughter and giggles for sure.

Here's what I did with my preschoolers.  Do you remember the Christmas gift activity that I made using sets of cards from LessonPix?  I made a balloon version that looks like this:

I made a set of 12 balloons (click the link...it's a freebie!)  with cute graphics from a cute freebie by Kelly Leatherman and cut them apart.  I slid several Picture Card sheets that I made on LessonPix into a sheet protector and taped the balloons over the top.  By the way, did you know that you can make custom picture sets in minutes on LessonPix?  It's so easy!  And then, you just put the ones you need for the day inside the page protector and they're all lined up, ready for a quick change between kids!  Such a time saver!

Next, I hid a little picture of a balloon popping under one of the balloons.  The child then tried to find the hidden balloon by looking under one balloon at a time, saying each word 3 times before looking under another one.  When the hidden balloon was found, we both grabbed a paddle and moved to an open space.  I set the timer for one minute, and then we bopped the balloon back and forth.  We either said the target word under the hidden balloon for the entire time, or we counted how many times we hit the balloon back and forth before it hit the ground, and then had to say that number of targets the next round before bopping the balloon again.  The kids wanted to play this ALL DAY!  I cannot believe how many reps I got in this activity alone.

Now here's what I did with my older kids.  I made these cards to use with decks of picture cards that I already have.

Here's how to play:

1. Print 2 copies of each page. Cut and laminate cards. 

2. Mix the Action Cards with the Number Cards and place them face down in a pile.

3. Choose a set of target cards; Place them face down in a pile next to the Action and Number Cards pile.

4. Players take turns turning over a card from each pile.  If the card is a Number Card, the player says the target word/phrase/sentence that number of times.

5. If the card is an Action Card, the player must bop the balloon with a partner using the body part indicated by the arrow while saying the target for one minute.  To make it even MORE challenging, the players must bop the balloon using a paddle and the selected body part!

6. Play continues as long as you’d like :-)  

Isn't that fun?  I'm using it for articulation targets, language targets/concepts and resting posture activities.  Who knew you could get so much mileage out of a balloon???

You can download this super fun game here.  Be sure to leave feedback!

Have fun,

Pam

Santa's Sled Rhyme

Happy Thanksgiving!

I want to share a couple of fun Christmas activities with you.  Both are based on a little rhyme I made up about Santa's sled.  The first version is a beginning letter sound activity.  It goes like this:

 You select a letter card and place it in the candy cane frame.  Then together with the child, you say the rhyme together.

I typically display three or four picture cards for the child to choose from.  Together we say the names of the items on the cards, emphasizing the beginning letter sound of each.  The child selects the one that matches and puts it on the sled picture.

This is what the sled will look like with picture cards placed on it as the rhyme progresses.

We repeat the sequence using other letters until Santa's sled is full.

The other version is a matching version, which is great for younger preschoolers.  The rhyme is slightly different:

Instead of letters, you place a toy picture on the elf's list.  Display three or four picture cards and let the child find the one that matches and put it in the sled.

These are great activities for promoting early literacy skills.  I hope you enjoy using them as much as I do!  The picture card set I created for the matching game were chosen specifically for a few of my kids working on bilabial sounds and CVC words.  They look like this:

You can download a copy of both activities here.  I printed mine on photo paper again, which I really prefer.  The colors are much more vibrant than they are on card stock, and I don't have to laminate them, which saves a bunch of time.  In the past,  I've stuck Velcro dots on the sleigh to hold the toy pieces in place.  It's not necessary, but it also gives the child visual cues to assist with placement of the toys.

I hope you like it!  Leave a comment if you do.  Credit goes to Scrappin' Doodles (again!) for the darling graphics.  Where would I be without them???

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pam

Fall Flip Book for S-Blend Practice

Last week I posted a little Halloween Flip Book that was extremely popular with my readers.  I was surprised by it's popularity, as it was something I made years ago and hadn't pulled it out in a few years.  But as I saw how much the kids enjoyed using it this past week, I decided to create another one.  This one is specifically designed to be used to work on S-Blend words and phrases, as I have several little buddies who struggle with those skills.  I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but basically I plan to use it just like the Halloween one.  The stack of pictures on the left side of the book are adjectives as in the Halloween Flip Book, and the stack on the right are objects/people.  The words on all the picture cards begin with S-blends, which include SP, SL, SM, ST, SK and S.  Most of the adjectives pair up with at least one object that makes sense, but it is fun to talk about why when they don't.  There are twice as many adjectives in this set than objects so you can be selective.  If you'd like to use this little book too, you can download it here..  I recommend that you print it on photo paper if you have it.  It's my little trick for not needing to laminate!

Enjoy!

Pam

P.S.  I love receiving your comments!

Halloween Bugs Book and Craft for Preschoolers

I just love Fall and Halloween, can you tell?  There's so much fun to be had!

One of my favorite books for toddlers and preschoolers is Halloween Bugs by David Carter.  The kids just can't seem to get enough of this little lift-the-flap book!  Even my elementary school-aged kids love it.  Each page features a unique lift-the-flap door with a bug-in-disguise hiding behind.  Some of the bugs pop out, some have crazy hair, and some are just plain silly.  Another feature I love is that it has repetitive-line text.   Each page asks, "Who's behind the _____ door?"

I'm using it this week to work with young preschoolers who are working on building two-word phrases and/or consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words.  I can easily change the text to suit whichever goal I'm working on.  For example, instead of using "Who's behind the door?", I might say "Knock knock!" to target a CVC word.  Before I allow the child to open the door, I might have him say "Open door"  or "red door" to target a two-word phrase.  Depending on what we find behind the door, we can say a descriptive CVC word, and we can say "bug".  Before we close the door again, we can say "Bye Bug".

Download this page to make the Knock Knock Paper Bag Book

I made a little activity to go along with this book that my students can take home with them.  It's a book whose pages are made from paper lunch sacks!  This is how I did it.  I cut out the "Knock Knock!" squares and the Halloween graphics from the printout you can grab here.  I used darling graphics from Scrappin' Doodles to make it.

I stacked four paper lunch sacks and cut off the top 3-4'' and then stapled them together.

I glued one "Knock Knock" square on the first paper sack, and a red rectangle door that I cut from card stock on top of the bag bottom, which is like a flap.

I lifted the flap and glued the moon graphic under the flap, and then flattened the flap to close the door. I like to let my graphics peek out a bit from behind the door to give the kids a hint to what they might find when they open it.  Repeat for the remaining pages.  You could change the colors of each door if you want, or you could just draw a door shape using a marker if you don't have time to cut and paste on doors.  In fact, I've been drawing doors on the flaps all week and it's actually worked out better.  You can make the doors "spooky" by letting the child put Halloween stickers on them, too.  That's it!  Super easy, and super fun.

You could do a variation of this book with older kids, too.  Just think up a repetitive line that will work with your goals, and write it with a marker on each page.  If you're working on adjectives, you could let your students make the doors be dusty, sparkly, spooky or whatever you decide.  You could have the kids make bugs to hide behind the doors, just like in the book, and you could embellish them with yarn, paper shreds, googly eyes, etc.  Or, check this out:  I grabbed this cute memory game made by Carrie at Carrie's Speech Corner last week from Pinterest.  Thanks, Carrie!  You could hide these cute trick-or-treaters behind your doors!  Language opportunities abound!

I hope you find this idea as much fun as I do!


Pam

A Spooky Spooky Story

How about a cute, spooky tale to get you in the mood for Halloween?  I made this cute little book using graphics from Scrappin' Doodles and would love to share it with you!

It's a 7-page rhyming book with a pop-out ghost at the end that is sure to charm your little ghosts and goblins.  All you have to do is print it and cut out the pages and you're ready to go.

The pop-out ghost is the best part of this spooky little tale.  Just fold a strip of paper accordion-style, glue one end to the ghost and one end to the "Boo" page. He will pop right out when the "door" page is turned.

If you'd like to download a copy, you can grab it here.

I've used this little book in lots of ways.  It's great for vocabulary, and perfect for practicing /sp/ blends.  You could also make this a more hands-on activity for your students by letting them make all the pages of their books.  Just enlarge the graphics and text, cut them out individually (not as pages, just graphics or blocks of text) and let your kids glue them to blank pages cut from card stock.  Like this:

What do you think?  Will you use it?  Tell me how!


Pam

Treatment Tricks: Introducing Structure to Young Preschoolers

I've got a little one on my caseload that's just turning three.  He's highly entertaining and loves anything with wheels.  He's a little buddy who demonstrates characteristics of Childhood Apraxia of Speech, and is very self-conscious about imitating speech sounds or words for me during our sessions.  I've been working with him for approximately 10 months, and during that time his vocabulary has grown from less than ten words to well over 100.  Most of our treatment time has been child-directed, which you would expect with a two-year-old.  Most of my attempts to introduce activities with specific targets have been met with a strong, emphatic, two-year-old "NO!"  He's using several word shapes, his vowels are mostly accurate, he's got most of the early developing sounds in his repertoire, and he's producing 3-4 word sentences.  However, as his language complexity increases, his intelligibility of speech decreases, making things more frustrating for him than ever.  So what's a girl to do, to get a little compliance?

I threw caution to the wind and decided to make a plan for a little structure.  And guess what?  It actually worked!  Even better than I'd hoped it would!  I'll share it with you now.

First I found three little boxes to "hide" activities in.  I made them appealing (I hoped!) by putting vehicle pictures on them.

Each box contained either an entire activity or a piece of an activity that I had prepared but wouldn't fit in the box, and a paper vehicle with velcro on the back.

The vehicles each had velcro dots on them to attach two wheels.  One of my targets was the word "wheel", as he is learning to make the /w/ sound with rounded lips.  During this sequence of activities, he had many opportunities to practice that word.

I displayed all three boxes on the table and let him choose which one we would open first.  I removed the other two from the table, and together we opened the box.  He removed the paper vehicle, and I showed him that we would put it on the road that I had displayed on the back of my bench after we played a game with the other item or items in the box.

One of the targets of the day was words beginning with the /h/ sound.

Inside the box he found six items to practice words that begin with /h/:  hat, horse, heart, hop, hot and high.  We said the words as we removed them from the box, again when we played with them, and again when we put them back in the box.

When the activity was completed, we put the wheels on the vehicle (after he said "wheel" of course) and then put the vehicle on the road.  By the way, my choice of vehicles was also planned ahead of time.  he uses a generic "word" (wah-we-oh) to refer to all emergency vehicles, so I chose police car (pees car), fire truck (fa ya tuk) and garbage truck (ga ba tuk).  He made great attempts to imitate all three with very little reluctance.  After putting the vehicle on the road, we chose another box.

My little buddy loved this format.  I was hoping that maybe we'd get through two boxes, but we actually completed all three!  Success!  Smiles all around.  I wonder if it will work next time...?

What are your tricks for working with young preschoolers?  I'd love it if you'd share!


Pam