Sunday, January 31, 2010

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.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Product Review: Phonology and Artic Fun Sheets





Don't you just hate it when you order materials with your precious budget money and they stink! The books or games sit on your shelf, year after year, taunting you.

For me, this was definitely NOT one of those items. I use these worksheets almost every therapy session. The themes cover almost everything: pets, gardens, animals, seasons, holidays. I love this book and if you do a lot of cut-n-paste (which I do ti generate homework) then you just might love this book. Below is my own "view inside" since Amazon doesn't have one.