Monday, January 30, 2012

Valentines Day in the Speech Room

It's coming up on February. As if you didn't know by cruising around Pinterest these days! Here are a few things we've been doing in the Speech Room!

Positional Concept Hearts



I made these quick hearts to use with preschool - 2nd graders. They each have a positional concept on them . I passed them out to my kiddos and they  demonstrate the concepts. They particularly enjoyed demonstrating 'above' Ms. Rayburn's head :) Lots of giggles. For my older kiddos, I added two step directions (ex: Place one heart on the corner of the ipad, and the other heart between 2 mirrors.)

Grab it Here!!


Find it Articulation Game







I printed several  copies of this game. I let the kids pick either pink or red. Then I gave them a pack of articulation cards. As the child flipped over each card they said their target and then looked for the color on their heart anywhere on the articulation card. If they find the color on their heart, they make a tally mark. Every articulation card (or language card!) they say, gives them a chance to find their color. The person with the most tally marks at the end was the winner. I laminated my heart sheets and that way I could wipe off the maker after each session.

Grab it HERE!!


Articulation and Language Wreaths





Two materials: Three activities. Grab a box of paper plates and some construction paper. Cut out about a zillion hearts with the ellison machine. You will get two parts of the heart (the inside and the outer part). I had my students write their articulation and language targets on the inner hearts. We used 10 each, and added them to the paper plate to create a simple wreath. 


The wreath above was an S-blends wreath I made for one of my examples. 



This is a heart - venn diagram that a student and I made comparing and contrasting rose and daisy flowers.



And here's a quick activity I did with another student! She is working on categories and wrote 5 types of Valentine's candy in her heart.


Figurative Language




I asked on our Facebook page (if you aren't a follower.. see the box on the right side!) what you wanted to see targeted for Valentine's day. Well most of you asked for Figurative Language or middle/HS activities. I only work with kiddos up to 5th grade so I stuck with idioms. 


Above is an Idioms wreath that I made with my kiddos. I picked several love/heart themed idioms to add to our wreath.


My kids didn't really know any of the idioms I tried to use, so I made them booklet for their reference. It took us a couple sessions to make these wreaths. The kids copied the idioms to their hearts. Before they could add it to the wreath, they needed to explain it to me, without referencing the example book! 



You can grab it HERE at TPT!


Developing Questions



The last activity that I created targets question generation. First I went to Dollar tree and grabbed some small foam hearts for a buck. Then on each heart, I added the answer the questions. (ex: 'on Friday', ' the nurse with red hair', ' my uncle bob') Just write answers that will have your kids generating all different types of WH/ DO and yes/no questions. Make sure your kids are using the little words correctly. For example if the card says 'to Disney' and 'at Disney' you will need different types of questions. The student reads the 'answer' heart and then develops an appropriate question. On the back write random numbers. If the student answers correctly - they earn that many points. (I used mostly 2's with a few 0's and a few 10's.)

My kids needed a visual cue card. I added the WH words and some notes on a white card as we went. You could make a visual with boardmaker as well if they really needed it. 

Made sure you check out my Pinterest board and other other blogs on my blogroll. Tons of great ideas out there! I've been downloading lots of create ideas! 

Happy Valentine's Day!