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").