Happy Groundhog Day!

In case you forgot Groundhog Day is coming up this Thursday, February 2nd.  I grew up celebrating Groundhog Day.  I know what you’re thinking...who really celebrates Groundhog Day?  Well my family does!  My dad grew up there and my family lives in Punxsutawney, PA.  I have been to Gobler’s Knob.  My grandfather’s pharmacy was in the movie "Groundhog Day".  My grandmother was named Woman of the Year in Punxsutawney, PA.  I have danced to the Pennsylvania polka (maybe I shouldn’t admit to that).  So when Heidi Kay over at Pediastaff asked some bloggers to create Groundhog Day activities, I couldn’t pass it up.   

Here are several activities to use for all of your groups on Groundhog Day.

Irregular past tense activity here.

Groundhog Prepositions here.

Groundhog, Groundhog What Do You Wear? here.
This is a good opportunity to talk about the weather and different seasons.  Use the clothing cards included and have the children decide what Punxsy Phil should wear depending on the season. 

6 More Weeks Of Winter/Spring Is Right Around The Corner Articulation Game, here.

Throw the cards in a "tree stump" and the kids take turns and try to collect as many "Spring" cards as possible as they practice their articulation words.

Here's an example of my tree stump.  I just used a coffee can and put brown paper around it and added a groundhog image from clipart.  

If you're looking for any other information on Groundhog Day visit their website.

Happy Groundhog Day everyone!  

Let it snow?

The title appropriately has a ? at the end because I'm not sure how I feel about snow.  I like it because it's pretty.  I hate it because it goes from pretty to ugly so fast. I like it because what teacher doesn't like snow days?  I hate it because it generally means it's cold.  I love it because I get to wear my cute snow boots.  I hate it because it makes my cute snow boots dirty.  So you see, it's definitely a love-hate relationship.  

I will enjoy my 70 degree January while I can and I hope you all enjoy my snow and winter themed ideas to use in therapy.   

Don't Eat The Yellow Snow!
I made a joke the other day about yellow snow and none of my students got it.  So I thought to myself ...either I'm not as funny as I think I am, or these kids need to be warned not to eat the yellow snow!  I knew it wasn't the first option, so I decided it was my duty to teach them about yellow snow (I hope you all are feeling the sarcasm here).   Hence forth the birth of the game Don't Eat The Yellow Snow! There are a couple different ways to use the cards, and they are included in the document attached to the title of this game.  I bought some styrofoam balls from the ol' Dollar Tree and the students were given an opportunity to earn snowballs to throw at "Joseph" our teacher of whole body listening. 

It was their one and only opportunity to throw things at this "person" for making them sit still and listen with their eyes, ears, mouth, brain, hands, feet, bottom and heart.  You should have seen the aggression! I'll make sure never to put a picture of me behind that basket! I have to say this was a really fun game that the teacher and kids enjoyed!
Note:  (Get your copy of Joseph here and learn more about Joseph here).

Snowball Poem
This Shel Silverstein poem is pretty cute.  I wrote the poem on sentence strips and then took certain words out and made cards of those words.  There are a couple ways to do this.  With my younger kids we spread all the cards on the table and tried to make sense of the poem.  With older kids, or kids working on social skills like teamwork and interacting with peers you could step out of the way and let them work as a team to figure out how the poem goes.

Get your copy of the poem and cards here.

Brrrr It's Cold In Here

An igloo made of artic words.  It's as simple as that.  Here are the labels I used. Make sure to check out my sound pages on the bottom, right side of the blog.  Lots of words for all of your articulation needs!

Stay warm out there!

Language Games

One can basically make any game an articulation game. When it’s the child’s turn they have to say their articulation cards and then they get to roll the dice, or whatever it is blah, blah, blah.  These games are as boring for me as they are for the children.  That being said, occasionally this speech lady is too exhausted to get her creative powers going.  Check out my low-tech games for some more interesting go-to games. 

Ok, it’s time to get to the point of this post.  Sometimes it’s harder to target specific language goals through games, so here are some that I like to use with my kids.

Guess Who?

Great game for asking questions, using descriptive words, looking at facial features, and inferencing.

Headbanz

Another great game for asking questions, talking about function of an object and using descriptive words.

Apples to Apples

Great for working on “why”, inferencing etc. 

Conversation Chutes and Ladders

I am really lucky in that my school district has a program for children with Autism and children that have social deficits.  It is called SCORES and there are teachers trained to work solely on social skills.  I know, right… be so jealous!  Not only do the kids on my caseload get direct teaching of social skills from this wonderful woman, but she’s also super fun, creative and a great friend.  Angela is the lady to go to for social skill building activities.  I have learned so much from her!  Here is her website, but more specifically here is her conversation skill game for Chutes and Ladders. 

http://acardenas.weebly.com/resources-and-tools.html

What about you all? What are your go-to games for language?