Everybody Loves Animals - Part 1

I suppose we all have tons of activities about animals. Please feel free to post your favorites in the comments. I'm hoping to post several of my very best over the next month.



This was a simple lesson I did with my special ed prek. First, we put all the puzzles together and talked a bit/asked questions about each one. Then I pulled the battery-operated yipping dog from my bag (very high interest as you can imagine!). The kids each practiced saying/touching the words on the sentence strip.

Valentine's Day!

Like most holidays, Valentimz (haha) has a wealth of activities. Here are 2 of my favorites!

Please contact me if you would like these files in PDF instead of images!

First, a little Dinosaur - see the upside-down hearts? Cute, eh?


I originally got this idea from Mailbox magazine. Here are scans of the blanks for the dinosaur and the hearts, both of which I copy onto construction paper.


And here is a bingo game, which I love for both language and artic. I printed out one board to make the cards. I have the kids pick a card and describe it and the other players have to guess which one it is. I always use Chipper Chat chips and wands - magnets are just so exciting!



I've uploaded 4 different board layouts, if you'd like to download and print them.
Board 1
Board 2
Board 3
Board 4

Clothing Unit Part I

There is SO much that can be done with a Clothing Unit! Of course, there are many books, such as "Jesse Bear, What will you wear?" and "The Jacket I wear in the Snow". I'll try to make a book list in my next post on Clothing. I like to do my clothing unit in January, and tie in seasonal clothing as well.

There are hundreds of worksheets and activities I could post, but this clothesline activity is always popular. My students will play this again and again - I get bored long before they do.

I start by 'washing' the clothes in my 'washing machine' (the clothes are in a decorated folder and we just shake them around). Then we go through hanging and unhanging each item. For artic kids, they say target sounds before choosing what they want to hang.

For language, it varies by goals. Here are some things I've done:
-make a riddle for each item
-the student describes what they want and I guess
-students compose a sentence about the clothing or when it is worn
-ask a 'wh' question such as "when do we wear pajamas".

For some of my students, it is quite a fine motor workout as well - clothes pins are pretty tricky for prek!

I made my clothes out of construction paper and laminated them. It might also be fun to go to a thrift store and get REAL baby/toddler clothes to hang. If you'd like to try printing out your own, I've scanned mine in this ZIP file - CLICK HERE FOR CLOTHES.

Here is the TechTalk grid I made for this unit - mostly used as a matching activity.






Please leave a comment if you have other ideas for using clothes for unit activities.

Santa Duck

We just had a massive snowstorm here on the east coast so all my remaining Christmas ideas may go unused! This book is new to me this year and contains a treasure trove of great WH questions. I'll list them below, basically following the sequence of the story. Naturally this is only appropriate for kids on your caseload who celebrate Christmas.

1. Does a duck come down your chimney? (if it's not a tough crowd, they laugh)

2. If there is one day left, what day is xmas? What does Nicholas usually get for xmas?

3. Who gave him the hat and coat? Did he like it? How do you know?

4. What do you think a chicken would want for xmas? (I cover the text for all the animal pages if I have a reader; also I accept any good associative word - even eggs). What do all the things the chicken wants mean/have in common? So what does the chicken want to do for xmas?

5. What do you think a cat would want for xmas? What does 'bonkers' mean? Why does Nicholas think all the animals are bonkers? What does the cat want to do with the things on his list? Also I review the meaning of canary and trout.

6.What would a turtle want? (I'll take almost anything..pond, friend, shell) Why does the turtle want something fast?

7. What would a squirrel want? (review almonds, walnuts) Why does he want a shovel?

8. What would a rabbit want? Does he want a big cake or a small cake? What's another word for 'frosting'?

9. For higher level students, we discuss what happened when the hat fell off? Did he forget? What did he realize? Why did he want to get rid of the hat? What does 'phew' mean? What do you think will happen to the cow now?

10. What would a cow want? Why does he want an XL hat?

11. Which animal is Nicholas' brother? How do you know?

12. What do you think Nicholas wants? Will he get it even though he didn't tell Santa his list?

13. Who wrote the note? What does Santa mean when he says "May I count on you next year?"

14. On the last page: I just review what everyone got and talk about it.

Harry the Dirty Dog

And now for another special ed preK lesson, this time featuring Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion. What a classic.

I have lots of activities with this one, again featuring the Hands-on Reading literature books by Mayer-Johnson.

I start by reading the book and asking questions along the way. I adapted the last page so the kids can put Harry on his pillow...sort of.



Next we match the Clean and Dirty Harrys (the teachers all exchange smirks over that phrase). This was adapted from a scan at the end of the book.



Next we actually scrub and dry "Harry". I searched for a white and black plastic dog and was considering resorting to plush. In the end, I opted for this completely unHarry-like German Shepherd. The kids didn't seem to mind and there is NOTHING so fun as playing in soapy water.





Here are 2 more activities I prepared but didn't really have time for. The first is a 'wh' sheet from the MJ books - I cut them into strips and make booklets so there is a reduced amount of visual information at a time. The other is a Harry sequence - again from Hands-on Reading, but I used re-sized photocopies from the actually Harry book.

Maisy Makes Lemonade...and so can you!

Last Friday's SpEd PreK show was all about lemonade. First we read "Maisy Makes Lemonade" by Lucy Cousins. Maisy books are some of my favorites for basic language stuff.

After the book, the kiddies answered 'wh' questions using the TechTalk. Love that thing. Here is a scan of the template I used. It is significantly doctored up so no Boardmaker file for ya to download.

I do have BM files of the icons I used for a sequence activity and wh/pasting activity (in B&W and color),and a big Natural Aided Language Board (NALB). You will need Boardmaker - an expensive, but highly useful bit of software - in order to open these files. Here is the Word doc that goes with the cut-n-paste. Basically, for this activity, you ask things like "Today we made..?" and they choose a picture of "lemonade" or "coffee" (for example). Please let me know if any of these clickable downloads don't work for you.

Then we mosey on over to the table to whip up a batch of lemonade. First we examine and talk about the lemon. If I have a large group, we use bottled lemon juice, but for just a coupla kids we can actually squeeze the actual lemon. Then, using a handy-dandy child safety knife, we all take a few hacks at the lemon until it is open. Then, get your cameras ready, the bravest among them have a taste of the lemon juice. I quickly teach the word 'sour'. Then they all have a taste of sugar. This sometimes backfires as the tasters are occasionally afraid to drink the lemonade they made, fearing a repeat of the 'sour' experience. I have a tiny whisk for stirring. Sometimes I bring some red food coloring so we can make pink lemonade.



I also do this activity with my older students. It's a nice break from drill drill drill.

Head to Toe

This week's theme in Special Ed PreK was "All about Me" with the focus on body parts. Same for your school? Well, I decided to do a lesson featuring Eric Carle's "Head to Toe". The book pictured is from our school library, but I ordered my own from Paperback Swap and when it comes I'll velcro the laminated scans into the book. Yes I scanned every one of those animals and prettied them up. Click HERE to download them from a zip file. All images copyright Eric Carle, natch.




After we read the book, talked about and matched the animals, I used some lessons adapted from MJ's Hands-on Reading book. I made my own "match what we wear on head and feet" activity with pictures (I'd rather have had real objects but I was pulling it together too last minute!)






I also used a 4 question 'wh' worksheet from that book (not pictured here). We also played "Simon Says" using the Techtalk. I used the version from "Hands-on" but I'll be making my own with Boardmaker...in my spare time hehe. Well, this was quick-n-sloppy post. Hope it gives some good ideas anyway.

First Special Education PreK Lesson of the Year

Let me start off by stating that I am not employed by Mayer-Johnson nor do I benefit from any sales of their products (unless you buy through my Amazon link, but they are often out of stock of MJ stuff). I do love many of the MJ items, especially Boardmaker; I'll be blogging about that in future posts.


Today I brought 2 activities into my special ed prek class for our Back to School opening lesson. First we read the MJ book "Let's get Ready for School" which is sung more than read (try singing "Now it's time to put on our socks and shoes" to the tune of "This is the way we wash our clothes"!). Each page has a velcro item to manipulate. I love velcro as you will see. As we go through the book, I ask questions (depending on each child's level) such as "What is a bed for?" or "Where do we brush our teeth?". Each child gets a turn to groom the little fellow and they especially love it when I use the brush, etc, on them!



After the bus comes and takes the guy to school, I bring out my closed backpack and we begin to talk about what's inside. They are completely fascinated by this. I talk about how in my backpack are some silly things that we don't bring to school, and some things that ARE for school. Of course, all the things, logically, could be part of a school day at some point, especially in preK, but I tactfully evade this point. They absolutely love to reach in a pull things out, and of course the first to come out are the fun, non-school ones. We talk a lot about each one and pass them around...the rock is heavy, the spatula is used in the kitchen (each child's hand is a pretend pancake which I then "flip"), the big sock goes on your feet, etc. I use lots of questions about function and location. I also ask a lot of yes/no questions, which are great for the non-verbal kids (Does the sock go on your hand??) as well as for getting a laugh. And naturally, any kids working on artic repeat sounds, words, and/or sentences. Then we make a big deal of putting all the items back IN the backpack. This takes about 30 mins and if there is a little time leftover we sing a song (Like "Open Shut Them").