Cool Ali

Cool Ali, by Nancy Poydar,  is a story set in the city in the heat of the summer.  A girl who loves to draw goes outside to escape the heat in her apartment building.  There she begins to draw with her chalk on the sidewalk. She draws pictures that serve to distract the attention of all the neighbors from the heat of the day.  As she draws scenes of cooler seasons, everyone suddenly feels refreshed. 

It is a cute and clever story well suited to our current hot summer.  This book is fun for all of my speech therapy clients.  Here are some of my therapy ideas for this book:

Articulation:  Pull targets from the story and create carrier phrases. 

/k/ initial - Cool
/l/ medial - Ali
/l/ initial - "likes to draw"
/r/ blend - draw
"ch" - chalk
Any sound can be addressed as you and the client "draw" your own "chalk" (crayon, marker, map pencils) targets on cards or paper.  It would also be a fun activity to go outside and make chalk drawings on the sidewalk, if it is not too hot. Here in East Texas it is usually too hot.

Language & Processing: 

• Sentence Structure:  N-V-Obj: Ali draws an umbrella; cut apart sentences either word by word or in chunks (for lower functioning children) and have them reorganize the sentences.  For higher functioning clients, throw in some sentences that can be reordered in two ways; this way you can work out their mental flexibility skills as well.
• Verb tense: Ali is drawing... / Ali drew / Ali will draw / Ali has drawn; for younger clients you may only pick one tense to work on or the tense they have as a target; for the older kids you could have them work on changing sentences to reflect all of the tenses.
• Pronouns: She is drawing... Can also work on referent pronoun understanding: Ali drew an umbrella.  She colored it yellow and white. She=Ali / it= umbrella
• synonyms: hot, heat, sweltering; see how many words you can generate to replace a target word or ways to reword a sentence to convey the same idea.
• antonyms: hot / cold; Ali draws cool pics in the summer heat but she draws sunny pictures while it is raining.  This could lead to an "opposite day"...
• Predictions:  What will she draw?  How will it make the person fell? What do you think the person will do?
• Reasoning: Why did they feel cooler?  Were they really cooler? Were they pretending? Did they feel better in some way after Ali drew her pictures? Why/How?
• Figurative Language: mop their brow, chilled to the bone...

One of the applications that I really like about this book involves helping children with ASD or abstract reasoning problems process the ideas in the story.  It requires them to think beyond the surface structure of the pictures and words to realize that the "coolness" the people are feeling is a state of mind contrary to the reality of the heat.  Also, at the end of the story it begins to rain and Ali's wonderful pictures are washed away.  This event can serve as a model for helping the ASD child to process change and disappointment without becoming emotionally upset. At first Ali appears concerned about her drawings but then she enjoys the rainbow of colors streaming down the pavement and contentedly takes up her drawing on paper in her apartment while the rain cools off the heat of the summer; now she draws sunny pictures.

I have found several nice resources online:

The Teacher's Guide lists lots of online games, links, printouts to address vocabulary, matching, spelling, word searches, etc.

Harcourt for Second Grade Teachers  scroll down until you find Cool Ali

• Vocabulary PowerPoint - nice colorful powerpoint presentation
• Possessives & Vocabulary
• Grammar Test - How Many
• Vocabulary Test
• Study Guide for Story - Vocabulary and Comprehension

Cool Ali Jeopardy

Extension Activities

Julian Beever's 3-D Chalk Art - Truly amazing art that will "blow your mind".  Great for discussing perspective and illusion (helping kids to understand things are not always what they seem).  What is real in each picture?  How does the artist make the pics look 3-D? What are the people doing that add to the realism in the drawings?...

Great video that shows the artist at work creating his 3-D chalk art.

This video shows the ways spectators interact with the drawing after it is completed.

Extension activities to chalk art:  3-Dimensions, perspective in drawing.

Other extensions to the story itself:  temperature, weather, drawing.

An Alternative Approach to Teaching Sound-Symbol Correspondence

Over the years I have worked with a number of children with cognitive challenges.  Learning their ABCs is a difficult task and learning the sound associations for the letters can be even  more difficult.  In addition to working with this population I was also simultaneously working with children who had Apraxia, a motor speech disorder, and children with various delays or disorders in speech production.  I observed that almost all of the children, even some of the ones with Apraxia could imitate environmental sounds such as animal noises, car sounds, etc. I had been using a purchased product called Easy Does It for Apraxia.  In this program each speech sound is assigned an environmental sound in order to help the pre-literate child learn their target sound. ("K" is the dinosaur sound since dinosaurs were so large that they crashed "k-k-k" when they walked).  This is not a novel idea since Speech Pathologists have always used this method (I learned it 30 years ago as an undergraduate).   But since I was working with this specific program I adopted most of the sounds they used (even though some of them were less than ideal).  This is when I realized I had at least three clients in my caseload with varying degrees of cognitive impairments and all of their mothers were asking me about literacy skills for their children. All of these children had already spent several years in school trying to learn by traditional methods.  These methods were not working for them.  Most schools use the correspondence of the intial sound of a word to teach the phonic sound of the alphabet: A-apple, B-banana...  As an SLP working with speech sounds, I understood how difficult it can be for some neurotypical children to understand word and sound segmentation and that children with cognitive impairments would also struggle with this task. 

The SLP neurons started firing and I tried to devise another method for my clients.  Most of these clients were able to learn the basic sound symbol associations using this devised strategy.  Those with milder impairments eventually understood enough of the basic skills and then went on into learning literacy skills by more traditional methods.  The children with greater cognitive issues all learned the sound symbol correspondences but did not really go on to be literate.  However, they did learn enough to be able to use prediction settings on various devices since they could identify initial sounds and basic vowels in order to key in word portions.  In this way they did develop rudimentary phonics skills.  I understand that most cognitively impaired children are taught primarily by sight word methods, however I still feel there is a benefit to having some basic phonics skills.

My disclaimer in presenting this idea here is:  Always attempt traditional methods for literacy development, but if those methods fail over time, this is an alternative method that could be tried to teach the basic skills.  This method is to serve as a bridge to understanding sound-symbol correspondence and then pick up more traditional methods when possible.  One more important note:  The limited time in speech therapy sessions is not adequate for learning this, copies of all must be sent home with the parent to work with their child at home.

Step 1:  Learn to say the alphabet:  I first observed that most of these children learn to say the alphabet (or sing it).  So the first step I undertook was to teach them one to one correspondence and to touch each letter of the alphabet as they slowly sang the song. 

                                                

Step 2: Learn to order the alphabet: Once they demonstrated this skill, we worked on laying out the alphabet in order. First I traced ABC cut outs and made an alphabet line to match letters. For lower cognitive clients, I broke the line into groups of 5-6 letters for practice. Clients did not have to master ordering before we worked on sound symbol correspondence.

Step 3: Sound symbol correspondence: This skill does not have to be addressed in any specific order. If the child was working on speech sounds, I chose those targets first since the children were already familiar with the corresponding environmental sounds (e.g. /l/ singing sound, /s/ snake sound... Although I used a lot of the sounds from the program, I substituted some with sounds I felt more appropriate or easier to be identified). Most of the time I presented the sounds in alphabetical order since it was easier to keep track of the presentations. Depending on the cognitive skills of the client I presented groups of letters and sounds 2-5 at a time. We played with toys that correspond to the sounds (/s/ rubber snakes which we slithered around the room while saying "s-s-s-s:).  The short vowel sounds were introduced initially since most traditional methods do this and since those are encountered first in the phonemic awareness step. I also made letters for several sounds that incorporated the symbol in some way: either the sound was pictured on the letter or the letter was morphed into the object associated with the sound. As we played the sounds games, we matched the items to the letters. Most of the children learned them fairly quickly.
 

Step 4:  Practice with the sound symbol correspondence:  We then played a variety of games such as returning to the ABC sequencing activity and placing the letters on the alphabet line when their sound was produced by the therapist or placing the corresponding sound card (singing face) on the letter (L).  Once the child was proficient in the sound symbol correspondence we launched into phonemic awareness.

Step 5: Phonemic Awareness - Sounds in words:  At this point I had a magnetic board with magnetic squares of the alphabet.  I wrote the alphabet on the board with a Sharpie and arranged the letters in alphabetic order (So that they could return the letters to their proper places in the sequence, making them easier to locate when needed and to further reinforce alphabetical order).  We then began working on c-v and v-c combinations (real and nonsense words).  I would say /æ/ ("a") and the child would place the A, then /t/ and the child would place the T.  Then we would run our finger smoothly under the word to blend the letters into "at".  I worked on blending immediately to avoid the child segmenting the sounds during production. (It always drives me crazy when a child has not learned to blend sounds smoothly.)    Once two sound combinations were mastered we proceeded to c-v-c words: "h-a-t".  I worked in word families to increase success: at, hat, bat, cat, mat,... 

Step 6:  Phonemic Awareness - Initial sound changes in words:  Once that skill was mastered we worked on word changes.  At first I only worked on intitial sound changes.  "Spell the word "at"; add a sound to make it say "hat"; change "hat" to "bat"."  Word changes required some help initially with lots of verbal cues (added emphasis, reps of initial sounds...) but once they understood to listen to the first sound and segment it back out of the word then replace it with another letter they were hearing, they were able to be independent. 

Step 7:  Phonemic Awareness - Final sound changes:  Same as above but at the end of the words.  Once again they learned that sound changes can occur at beginning and ends of words. Then I would mix up the two positions: "Make the word 'in'. Now make it say 'pin'. Change 'pin' to 'pit'. Change 'pit' to 'hit'."

Step 8:  Phonemic Awareness - Medial sound/vowel changes:  Now they understoond that any sound in the word could change and their ears were able to listen and hear what those sounds were.  We then mixed it up and played with changes everywhere in the word:  Spell "hat"; change it to "bat"; now "cat", now "cap", "tap", "top" "tip".....

Step 9: Phonemic Awareness - Blends:  ccvc words (plot), ccv words (try), cvcc (desk), etc.

Step 10:  Hooked on Phonics:  At this point the child is ready for more traditional methods and the program I had on hand was the Hooked on Phonics program.  This program pulled in diphthongs, sight words, and other spellings.

The only part of this program that is really different is the method of learning the sound-symbol correspondences.  I admit I have only used it a handful of times but I was surprised how children that I did not think could learn this skill were able to do so.

Phonemic awareness methods are invaluable for all children in their literacy skills and I have used them often in therapy.  I especially spend time teaching this with my clients who have both significant speech disorders and language impairments because these children are at risk for literacy problems also.  These skills fit well with practicing our articulation, phonology, and auditory processing skills. 

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth is a fun book to use with older kids.  I typically pull this out for a middle school to high school aged student with language difficulties.  This book is chock full of vocabulary and figurative language.  It can be quite humorous.  It also usually requires a good deal of discussion and explanation for the language disordered student to grasp many of the ideas. 

The main character, Milo, a very bored little boy,goes on a journey via a magic tollbooth.  He encounters a number of strange characters in the Lands Beyond.  He returns from the journey a very imaginative boy.

When working with a long book I generally do the following:

• Take turns reading aloud.  I will read and have the client follow along.  This allows him to see the words, hear the proper pronunciations, and improve his own reading fluency skills.  When it is his turn to read, he can practice words he has heard and I can assess his reading mechanic skills, helping him sound out or figure out difficult words.
• Pick out new vocabulary.  As we encounter words that may be unfamiliar, we can discuss what they mean.  I also like to work on learning to interpret contex clues by pointing out clues to the meaning already in the passage.  We can then discuss synonyms that are more familiar to the client.
• Sometimes we create vocabulary cards.
• I will find or create supporting worksheets that target specific areas the student is needing to address such as chapter questions, vocabulary reviews, plot diagrams, character analysis, etc.
• At the end of each chapter, the student must summarize what occurred in the chapter.  This serves the purpose of working on written expression skills and providing a quick synopsis that we can use to review the events each week and at the end of the book.  The student can also take these summaries and use them to write a review of the entire story.

Some good objectives for this book:

1. Vocabulary Development: lots of new words to look up, define, or use with context clues.
2. Figurative Language: lots of terms to examine such as "time flies".
3. Multiple meaning words, homonyms, heteronyms such as "whether man"
4. Synonyms in dictionopolis
5. (I will add more as I progress through the book with a current client... it's been awhile since the last time I used this book).

Here is a list of mined resources on the web:

ReadWriteThink 

Figurative Language Chart and Answer key

Quizlet

     *  Flashcards vocabulary

     * Characters and lessons learned

     * Idioms

Mr. LaMarr's Fourth Grade Class
     * Phantom Tollbooth Unit Plan
    

Sparknotes 

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

Link to my Facebook page where I have posted links to activities and resources related to this fun children's book, Pete the Cate I Love My White Shoes. 

This is a cute and simple book that can be used with preschoolers.  There are two prominent goals I have pulled from this book:

1. Teaching colors and associations of colors to specific    

     objects.

2. Teaching children not to get upset about little problems.

So tomorrow in the preschool group we will read this book in circle time.  There is an audio cd with my book that plays the song or the song can be downloaded from the Harper Collins link.  Youtube video.

The boys have come a long with sitting in circle time.  Participation is another issue but I hope such a fun song will get them singing along and perhaps stomping their feet as we sing.  I have found loads of games and printables online as well (see links).

During circle time we will use the flannel board cutouts to keep the little ones engaged.  The cutouts are a set of colored shoes to add at the appropriate times during the reading of the story (matching the items that Pete the Cat steps in changing the color of his shoes).  Then we will sing the song.

While still in circle time, we will introduce the concept of seasons and will discuss what Pete might wear on his feet each season: Winter = Warm Boots / Spring = Rain Boots / Summer = Sandals / Fall = Sneakers.

We will break to Art time where we will assemble a mini book of the story and color the shoes on each page the color associated with the items in the picture (strawberries = red).  This will exercise their association of colors to constant objects and their matching and naming skills.  The children can take this mini book home in order to practice the story with parents and reinforce the concepts as well as just having fun reading time.

Play time will include a game of "pin the shoe on Pete". 

Links to these games and more can be found here (look in the comments boxes for specific links).

I have discovered some other Pete books that I plan on adding to my library:

6-6-12 Update

We repeated this book today with the pre-k group.  Our most reluctant child readily engaged in dancing and singing the song.  It was a success.

Today's art activity involved using pre-cut blue construction paper shapes to assemble into Pete the Cat and glue onto a yellow sheet of paper.  Of course, they then chose the color shoes they wanted for their Pete the cat.  The project required:

• 1 large oval = Pete's body
• 1 medium circle = head
• 2 small triangles = ears
• 4 small rectangles = legs
• 1 long curled piece = tail
• 4 shoes

Rocking in My School Shoes:  Youtube Reading

Four Groovy Buttons:  Youtube preview clip

Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood

In Audrey Wood's book Quick as a Cricket, a boy uses similes comparing himself to a variety of animals.  This is a fun book well suited for working on similes, word associations, opposites, adjectives, and figurative language.  Each animal is paired with a descriptive word: Quick as a cricket, busy as a bee, gentle as a lamb.  Nicely enough, many of these are also common idioms or figures of speech.  Here is a list of the adjectives and the animals in the book:

Small / large                               Sad / happy                         Nice / mean

Cold / hot                                   Weak / strong                      Loud / quiet
Tough / gentle                             Brave / shy                         Wild / tame
Lazy / busy                                 Quick / slow

Lizard / bee / monkey / poodle / tiger / lamb / shrimp / rhino / clam / lion / buffalo
cat / fox / frog / shark / bunny / lark / basset / whale / ant / cricket / snail

Watch a Youtube video of this book.

Activities: 
1.  Read through the book discussing the vocabulary as needed. Classify types of animals: pets, wild, tame, ocean, bugs, etc.  (It is always fun to print photos for sorting.  I will try to upload my boardmaker pages that go with this story later.)
2.  Print the printables found at this link to kidzclub.com.  Discuss which adjective goes with each animal and why.  This will help the student begin to understand word associations and how to interpret figurative language.
3.  Brainstorm other animals or adjectives that might go together and why.
4.  Act out some of the words: Dramatic play / experiential learning.
5.  Cut out the word boxes found in the printable link at kidsclub.com and match opposites.
6.  Think of new associations: "What could we say about a snake? A porcupine?..." or "What other animal is quick?"
7.  Have the students make up a book that illustrates some of their own qualities.
 
 

                         

More Resources:

Book a Week Lesson Plan

Homeschool Share

Audrey Woods site

It Looked Like Spilt Milk (by Charles G. Shaw)

It is a beautiful Tuesday morning and I am sitting at home... sick.  Instead of wasting my day, I decided to try to post another blog in between sneezes.  Since I discussed the book Little Cloud  in my last post, I thought I would discuss It Looked Like Spilt Milk this time around.  I am also "killing two birds with one stone" since I am planning on using this book tomorrow with our little pre-K group. These books go well together since they both visit the idea of cloud shapes.  The main difference is that "spilt milk" story has more shapes to look at and identify, and it doesn't tell you it is talking about clouds until the very end of the book. If you are not familiar with this book you can check out the youtube link below to see a video of it being read.

Our pre-k group consists of 3-4 three year old boys with communicative disorders. They are high energy kiddos. Our main focus with these boys is teaching them how to interact appropriately with one another: sharing toys, playing together, requesting items (instead of grabbing out of the other child's hands), waiting, taking turns, sitting in a short circle time (without hitting, kicking, getting up, etc.), and attending/participating in the story time.  So I will choose some of the easiest activities that will work with short attention spans.

Here are some of the targets/goals that can be readily pulled from this book:

• Perceptual skills: Let the kids look at the pictures and guess the shapes.  Most of the shapes will be easy to guess.  Add to this, if desired, by making your own additional shapes out of tagboard or felt pieces.  Can use a grab bag to pull out shapes and decide what they might be.
• Vocabulary:  Naming the items in the book or game (above).
• Categorization:  Group items - What animal shapes were in the book? What food shapes, etc?
• Articulation:  /l/ sound - "looks like".  Any sound can be addressed if you add an appropriate carrier phrase.  You could also follow up the book by having the children make their own take home books and add the criteria that all of their cloud pics contain their target sounds. (Ex. /s/ blends - skate, skunk, spider, snail, smoke....). They can practice in single words by naming pics or in sentences by inserting the target into the repetitive text. A fun oral motor game (found in the Preschool Express link below):  Use Straws and cotton balls to play a game of "blowing the cloud around the table". (Or, if you are really brave, blow white paint around on blue paper).
• Repetitive text / Verbal expression:  "It looked like a (car) but it wasn't a (car)."  This allows the child to fill in the new word in the first and/or second slot, similar to an early cloze exercise.  It also makes it easier for the child to learn the carrier phrase which is actually a compound sentences 10 words in length. 
• Grammatical skills:  Highlight (say with added emphasis) any grammatical target needed: 

                Articles:  a car.
                Pronouns:  it
                Past tense verb:  looked, wasn't
                Negation:  was not - teach about negation
                Conjunction: but - introduce "but" as a contrasting idea. 
                Temporal concept / adverb: Sometimes - can discuss the difference
                    between "always" and "sometimes" in the context that the cloud
                    changes shape.

Art activities:
Tear paper into shapes.
Glob white paint on paper and see what shapes you end up with.
Glob white paint on blue paper, fold and decide what shape emerges.
Shaving cream paint:  One of my new favorites!  Mix equal parts shaving cream
   and Elmer's glue, stir, and paint.  Dries like a white puffy paint.  Great for clouds.
   Can also do the folded paper trick with this.
Stamping clouds:  Use large stampers (I know have these somewhere) and use white
   paint to stamp shapes onto blue paper.
Tracing shapes:  Best for older kids.  Trace around tagboard or other shapes.
Cotton Balls:  Can fill in the shapes with cotton balls.

Sensory Play:
Shaving cream:  Use bare hands to move shaving cream into shapes. Change shapes  
      into other shapes.
White playdoh or clay:  shape into the book shapes.
Finger paint white shapes.
Pull batting or pillow filler material into cloud shapes. Can even glue onto tag.
Pinterest: One of my friends pinned this recip e and it looks perfect to go along with this book.  Use 8 cups of flour mixed with 1 cup of baby oil. Makes a really soft "moon sand" for sculpting clouds and such.

Songs:
The Wind Moves the Clouds  (tune of "The Farmer in the Dell")
The wind moves the clouds,
The wind moves the clouds,
And when it does they change their shape,
The wind moves the clouds.

Clouds are Floating  (to the tune of Frere Jacques)
Clouds are floating, clouds are floating,
Up so high, up so high,
Floating up above us, floating up above us,
In the sky, in the sky.

CLOUD RIDDLE

What is fluffy?
What is white?
What can you see
When skies are bright?
What can float?
What brings rain?
What may be higher?
Than a bird or plane?
Say it loud:
CLOUD!

* You could also make up riddles about the shapes:
What is furry?
What is white?
What has long ears?
What can hop?
RABBIT

Science: Make a Cloud
1. Need hot water (not boiling), glass bottle, thin piece of cloth, rubber band, crushed ice.
2. Pour hot (not boiling) water into a glass bottle. When the bottle becomes hot, pour out all but one inch of water.
3. Stretch a thin piece of cloth over the mouth of the bottle and fasten it with a rubber band.
4. Place crushed ice on top of the cloth. Have children observe the cloud that forms as the warm air meets the cold.

Links: Check out the links below for more great ideas.

youtube video story

Preschool Express Cloud Theme

Story patterns at Kidzclub.com

Weather Wiz Kids info about clouds

Clouds Power Point Displays for those who really want to dive into clouds with older kids.

Little Cloud by Eric Carle

I used this book again this past week.  Although I included it in my blog about Spring books a year ago, I think it is worth having its own forum here.  This is another perfect book for this time of year.  It is the story of a little cloud that drifts away from the other clouds and plays around by changing into various cloud shapes.

Lessons I have pulled from this book for my speech therapy clients:



Articulation:  Good book for working on  the following sounds

• /s/ Use the carrier phrase "I see..." to identify cloud shapes
• "sh" shape, shark, sheep, carrier phrase "______ shape"
• /kl/ cloud, clown, carrier phrase "cloud is a ________"
• /l/ carrier phrase "Little cloud is a _______"

Language:

• Vocabulary
• Answering questions: What is it?  Why did he turn into a sheep? (because he saw sheep in the field)
• Sequencing: First he turned into a sheep, next he was a ....
• Verbal expression: Retelling the story.  This would be a good time to use blue paper and white chalk or crayons, or white paper cut outs to reconstruct the story into a take home book for practice with targets. 
• Narrative Development:  I love to use spin off stories that follow the original structure but with the child's own ideas of cloud shapes and why the cloud chose that shape.
• Sentence structure:

            Pronouns: He/She
            Linking Verbs:  Cloud is a _______.
            Past tense verbs:  Cloud turned into a ________.

Cognitive/Perceptual Skills:

• Recognizing cloud shapes.  What a great task for flexible thinking!  Here is a wonderful website (brucecvanpatter.com) that helps even the poorest at this task.  Scroll over the cloud and a drawn outline appears to help the viewer perceive the shape.  The fun thing about this is that once you see the line drawing, it is much easier to discern the shape in repeated attempts with the help.  I took this idea and located cloud shapes on Google Images which I then printed.  I placed two pages in clear page protectors (front and back) and used a sharpie to trace around the images onto the protector (works as a clear overlay).  With younger children we first view the pics with the overlays.  Then we view them again removed from the protectors/overlays to see if they can still find the images.  Older children can do the same process in reverse; guessing first then seeing the overlay added.         

                                  

• Link to this page
• More cloud pics

Sensory Activities (Art):

• Chalk on blue paper to draw shapes
• White finger paint on blue paper: Draw cloud shapes or create whole pages of white textured painting to dry and cut out into cloud shapes (Eric Carle style).
• Shaving cream mixed with white glue will dry into puffy paint clouds.
• Torn paper clouds
• Cotton ball clouds

Snacks: Whipped cream, marshmallows, cotton candy, meringue cookies, cream cheese... think white and fluffy.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This is a terrific book to use for a Springtime theme. Here are some of the language development concepts I have pulled out of this book:

• Sequencing events: first, second, third, next, last...
• Counting 1-5
• Learning days of the week
• Life cycle of the butterfly: Get a butterfly house, find or buy some caterpillars and watch the life cycle as they grow
• Concept "through": I made large versions of the fruits in the story and cut a hole in the middle of each one.  I use a plastic caterpillar and have the children pass it through the hole along with the story.  A fun follow up activity is to play with a fabric tunnel and crawl through it.
• Basic sentence structures: It eats..., it is eating...,  it ate..., he/she, etc.
• Food groups: Fruits, Sweets, etc.
• Articulation: multi-syllabic words, medial sounds, any target when using an appropriate carrier phrase.
• Expressive Language: Retell the story with props such as plastic caterpillar, butterfly, or felt board pieces.  A good activity would be to use some of the printables available online to make a take home book for the children.
• Arts & Craft activities are unlimited. Check a few of my links below or simply Google a few.
• Snack ideas:  Make caterpillar shaped foods.  Pinterest is a good source for these.  Children with ASD are especially picky eaters and this might be a good time to attempt to have them pretend to be the caterpillar and nibble on the foods in the story.

There are tons of online resources.  Here are a few that I have "mined".

• http://www.teachingheart.net/veryhungrycaterpillar.html Find a wealth of activities and links here.
• http://www.dltk-teach.com/books/hungrycaterpillar/index.htm Sequencing pics, feltboard pieces and other activities.
• http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/Caterpillar_Lesson.pdf Lesson plans with pics for days of week and foods eaten on Saturday.
• http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/TheVeryHungryCaterpillar.html More printables

Pinterest has a wealth of treasures for this book as well.  Just go to the search bar and type in "very hungry caterpillar" and tons of great activities will appear.

One of the best activities we ever did (think I will do it again this year) is to actually raise some caterpillars until they become butterflies.  I purchased a net house like this:

More info on ordering and raising caterpillars can be found here:

http://www.thebutterflysite.com/rearing.shtml

and here:

http://www.wikihow.com/Raise-Butterflies

Here is a great video of the life cycle of a Monarch butterfly

Youtube Link

It is always fun to follow up a story with other theme related books, fiction and nonfiction.

          

And, if seasonal, why not take a little walk outside to see if you can find a caterpillar or a butterfly in your yard.

Easter Egg Hunt Fun

We love those plastic Easter eggs at The Speech House.  There is not a more versatile and inexpensive therapy tool to be found!  I have been known to pull them out anytime during the year for a quick and fun therapy lesson.  Most of my ideas are pretty intuitive to anyone who has worked as an SLP for awhile.  But, if you are new, or a parent, who needs some ideas to get you started, here are a few ways to use them:

1. Classic Easter Egg hunt:  Fill eggs with candy, small toys, stickers, etc.  Hide them and have clients find them.  When it is time to open them, require a speech or language target such as a carrier phrase or sentence.  If working on /f/ sound, it could be, "I found a blue egg."  You can figure out a phrase for any target to require articulating prior to opening the egg. 

2.  Fill the eggs with small toys or pictures that represent speech targets: /b/ - bee, ball, baby, bug, bell, bow, etc.  After eggs are collected, open them up and tell what was found inside, make sentences with the targets, tell something about the item (to make a language task). 

3.  Get duplicates of all kinds of decorated eggs and work on matching "same" eggs.

4.  Have a variety of eggs to work on descriptive vocabulary.  I have eggs that are shiny, sparkly, pearly, spotted, striped, flowery, small, medium, large, etc.  I will ask the child to give me a sparkly orange egg and I will then fill it and put in the basket (receptive language).  Or I will have the child tell me which egg to choose (expressive language).

5.  I will hide the eggs completely out of sight and the child will have to follow my directions to find them.  This is especially good for working on positional concepts:  Look "behind" the desk, or "under" the pillow, or "between" the desk and the file cabinet...

6.  Play "hot" & "cold" to teach an abstract way of finding eggs.

7.  For social skills work, play "follow my eye gaze to find the hidden egg". 

8.  For older children, have "treasure hunts".  Follow clues to figure out where clues are hidden.  You can use riddles or descriptions:  "I am hiding in a dark and cold place.  The light comes on when you open the door.  I am beside some milk." (Refrigerator)

9.  For Social Groups, have the group work together to decipher the clues or have one child find one part of the clue and then they have to share their clues to figure out the location of the egg cache.  One way to do this is to write or draw the final location on tagboard, cut up into puzzle pieces and have each child earn a piece of the puzzle.

10.  For higher level students, let them figure out hiding places for eggs.  Then they have to write their own clues.  This can be tricky for some kids because they may have trouble with being too concrete or being too vague with their clues. 

I will add more ideas as they come to mind.  Readers please share your ideas too by adding them in the comments section.  I know there are many other ideas out there!

At The Speech House we are planning on having lots of egg hunts next week.  Since it is usually more fun to do in groups, we plan on having each therapist bring her client together with other clients to join in small hunts outside. 

ST & Games: Cadoo by Cranium

Good old fashioned board games are excellent speech therapy tools. They can target many language and processing skills, they promote communiciation between players (unlike video games), and they add an element of FUN to the hard work of remediating speech and language deficits. Over the next few posts, I will be discussing a few of my favorites.

A good rule of thumb when using board game is to "adapt" the game to the child. Simplify game play or rules as needed. Quicken the pace of the game before they tire of it. Assist the child whenever necessary to ensure success. Do Not le...t the child win everytime (tread carefully here because the goal is fun but we do not want to create a monster that meltdowns as soon as someone else pulls ahead...little doses of reality sprinkled in sparingly...)

Cranium games are AWESOME! Cadoo is geared toward children aged 7+. I always recognized the language development connection but there is also value in this game for children with Autism spectrum disorders, especially high functioning Autism or Asperger's. These children often have diffiiculty with inflexible thinking, pretend play skills, sensory issues (clay sculpting), processing skills that require thinking outside of the box, etc. This game taps into social skills development in the simple interaction of game playing: turn taking, reading and understanding directions, reasoning strategies for winning, blocking the opponent, and the use of the sand timer (which you may need to play without at first) exercises the childs ability to work on a deadline (instead of being a perfectionist) and to deal with anxiety. The specific skills addressed with the card decks are addressed below.

Double Meanie cards: This task exercises flexibility in thinking by helping the child realize that a word can have more than one meaning.
Think of word that means both things:
   - The outside covering of a tree trunk.
   - The sound a dog makes.
The child uses red glasses to read the hidden answer: "Bark"

ACE OBSERVER:  Cards contain a close-up picture such as the #2 on a yellow pencil.  The child must tell what it is a part of. Although children with Autism disorders have stronger visual skills they often have difficulty with processing partial information; abstract ideas rather than concrete ideas and understanding inference.

CODE CRACKER: Another task for processing inference. Card contains a picture code such as an EYE + 2  Drinking GLASSES = "eye glasses".  This task can be difficult for a concrete thinker.
 
FAST FIND: Find 2 items within the minute: something shiny and something that starts with "C". Again a processing activity that requires quick thinking and looking around the environment and noticing specific items.
 
CAMEO: These cards require the player to act out (pretend / conceptual play) an item or activity. The child has to work to develop these skills so the other player can successfully guess and they also have the opportunity to observe the other players and learn how to clarify their own portrayals.

CLOODLE: Draw a picture for the other player to guess within one minute...use of the timer requires the child to move beyond the need of perfectionism (no time to erase and redraw). This may too difficult at first so may need to play without the timer. Drawing is also another task of conceptualizing something concrete (abstract representations through art).

SCULPTURADES: Using clay to form the object on the card. Once again, like Cloodle, a task of conceptualization. It also has a sensory processing component in handling the clay.

Playing this game with a child with a language disorder can be done with the game as a whole or you can pick specific cards to work on each skill at a time and then later combine the cards to work with changing requirements. For the children with Autism Disorders, I recommend addressing one skill at a time because each skill set will likely require much effort game play should always be fun and not overly effortful. If the child is learning while having fun, then the task is a success!

For more games on my favorites list go here.

Spring is in the Air... Part Deux

Just when I thought I would scream if I had to endure another cold and gray day (cold in East Texas means below 60 degrees).... I awoke to a beautiful day full of sunshine.  What a sorely needed gift to my blighted mood!  This of course turns my thoughts to Spring themes....

I plan to ponder this idea as my week progresses and I will add to this blog.  But until then, here is a link to Spring is in the Air (Part one).

I never actually got to do the gardening theme last year (my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer in March and my life went into survival mode; thankfully we have been blessed and he is doing well.)  So... I am really thinking maybe I WILL put in the extra efforts toward this project this year.  We shall see....

Social Thinking: "Just Me" versus "Being Part of a Group"

Another concept taught in Michelle Winner's Social Thinking curriculum involves being a "Just Me" (borrowed from an old Munro Leaf book) versus a "Thinking of Others" type of person.  "Just Me" behavior revolves around only thinking of yourself and what you want.  "Just Me" behaviors include always wanting to be first, always wanting to play what you suggest instead of anything others might want to play, always wanting to be the winner in the games, only talking about topics of interest to you, not sharing, etc.Whereas "Thinking of Others" involves the opposite behaviors because you realize that others have feelings and desires too.  Relationships are "give and take", not "take and receive".  These lessons involve teaching children the art of compromise and learning to think, act, play as part of a group. 

This seemingly simple lesson is not-so-simple to learn.  I have had the experiences of completing this lesson, introducing a game, and being immediately met with "I will go first" or "I want to be the blue piece"... (sigh). 

Here are some links on activities or video clips that might be useful in teaching this idea.  I provide Youtube clip links to illustrate the ideas but as always (disclaimer) I suggest people purchase the actual videos of the movies referenced (you probably already own many of them) for actual use of the materials.  Another SLP and blogger, SpeechTechie, has made an excellent suggestion to subscribe to Netflix for access to materials.

* As usual, check back periodically since I add newfound ideas into the old posts to keep things more organized and concise (so I can find them again when I need to use them).

Being a "Just Me"
"Mine" Seagulls scene from Nemo. I did not link to it but there is one clip that loops this soundtrack repeatedly for 10 minutes... that should convey the annoyance of this behavior effectively!

Cooperative games

Youth Group games

From Cindy Meester's Blog

• Noodles - http://meesterc.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/noodle-activity-cm.pdf
• Maze Directions - http://meesterc.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/cooperation-maze-directions.pdf
• Maze - http://meesterc.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/cooperation-maze.pdf

Teamwork

Linj

• Musical (comical) example 
• Penguins and Whale 
• Pilobolus 
• Teamwork video with stills and captions 
• Crabs vs. Seagull   (Also see Ants & Fireflies)
• Coke commercial:  Bugs help each other steal the Coke                                                                                         

Fun Winter Books

A wordless book, The Snowman is excellent for working on interpretation and language development.  Have the child look at the pics and tell what they think is happening.  Prompt them to notice details in the pictures and assist them in processing the clues to arrive at a logical narrative.  This is a great activity for developing narratives, working on verbal expression skills, and improving grammar and written language. This task is also excellent for the child with weak processing or pragmatic language skills.  Social skills weaknesses can be addressed by discussing how the characters may be feeling, why they feel this way, and how we come to those conclusions based on what we see or know. See Snowman Art ideas at Deep Space Sparkle.

The Mitten is a classic story about a lost glove and the forest animals who find shelter there.  This story lends itself to sequencing tasks and story retelling.  There is also lots of advanced vocabulary to be learned in this version of the story.  Jan Brett's website includes many freebies such as story masks, mitten patterns (which I like to hole punch for the kids to lace together), story characters (which we print and place into the laced mittens when retelling the story or sequencing), and other items.  The mitten lacing is a fun activity and the kids can even earn items such as sequins, buttons, and stickers for decorating their mittens.  You can add all types of activities depending on your goals:  matching mittens (real one, wallpaper/scapbook paper cutouts, or pencil paper tasks with worksheets), learning about the different kinds of animals, or creating your own story based on another article of clothing.  The Hat is an example of expanding an idea from one story to another.

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert is about making Snow People from lots of items such as scraps of ribbon, toys, and natural items.  It is a great book to read and then make your own Snow People.  Paper plate snowmen are easy to make and you can find items similar to those in the book for decorating the plates.  I like to supply the children with yarn, buttons, pipe cleaners, and an assortment of items.  Or, you can take them  on a nature walk to find items to add to their snowman such as acorns, sticks, leaves, etc. There are all kinds of 3-D snowmen to be made.  One of the cutest ideas is to take empty water or soda bottles and cover them with cotton balls and then add the decorations.  Other ideas include air dry clay, floam, styrofoam balls, and edible snowmen made of marshmallows, rice cakes, etc.   See more ideas in my post Let It Snow.  Deep Space Sparkle is a fun art blog with lots of cute ideas for snowmen pictures.

Snow is the story of a boy in the city who anticipates snow even when the rest of the town people say it is not going to snow.  This would be a good book to springboard to a snowglobe project. 

The Snowy Day is the quintessential book about snow activities.  The boy ventures out and engages in all of the classic snow play activities.  He also discovers that his snowball melts when he tries to stuff one into his pocket and take it home. Here is a cute YouTube link that retells the story with live action.  There are also some nice resources for retelling here.

Lapbook idea from 3G=Growing Godly Girls


Update 1-25-14: here is another great resource from The Budget SLP. Here are my favorites from her resource list:

• We Give Books:  Read the book online; free
• Animated book at Ezra Jack Keats webpage
• Printables at Homeschool Creations: Basic skills like tracing, counting, also a winter clothing sort.
• Homeschoolshare.com lapbook

With the pretty snowflakes on the cover, this book might go well with making paper snowflakes. Here is a site with advanced designs for snowflakes (for older kids).







More Winter Favorites.