Free "I SPY" printables - Excellent for Mixed Groups!

I have gotten more use out of these printables than almost any other resource. And they are FREE! Here's how I use them:

• Mixed groups - Students busy finding and coloring while other students rotate for drill
• Sentence expansion: Sometimes I make a sentence strip and write or paste it on the bottom 
• (i.e. "I found the ____"
• WH questions - Which one is for ___?
• Describing - I model a few then ask "tell me about the___"

There's a huge variety to chose from in the 40+ Printables. You can even sign up for email notifications for new additions! That way you can see that Harry Potter and Food Trucks have been added! 

I'm not affiliated with the site at all; I've just found it incredible useful and the printables are well done.

Where's the Turkey FREE book Companion + Paperback or Kindle Edition

"Where's the Turkey" is available as a Kindle book or paperback!

It's time for a warm holiday gathering, and traditional family favorites are making their way to the Thanksgiving table. But where is the turkey? Find out in this richly illustrated picture book about a vegan family's Thanksgiving. 

My students love to search for the turkeys hidden throughout the book. I am the author-illustrator and I'm a long-time vegan, as well as a speech therapist. Like most SLPs, I use children's literature almost daily in my sessions at a primary school, and I was inspired to create my own Thanksgiving picture book after finding a need for a story in which the Turkey is not threatened at some point. 

Click on any of  the illustrations in this post to get my free 12-page book companion which contains bingo cards, a pragmatic activity, activity extension ideas, and more.

Of course you can use the companion pack without purchasing the book, but if you would like a copy, click here for the Amazon link.

Animal Sort

As part of my unit on Animals, I get out my old plastic animal set and some props. The wooden house and barn were made when my daughter was little, but you can use anything that represents a habitat - even just a laminated picture or a Lego structure. The pond is a piece of felt.

I put all the animals into the black bag, then the student says a target word or asks a question (see the prompt below - we were working on using "IS"). Then they pick an animal and choose the correct habitat. Some of my students practiced saying "The (animal) goes in the (zoo, farm, etc).

Sometimes I ask the question. For example, "What animal says moo?" or "What animal lays eggs?" Then I hand them the animal when they guess.

Snow Prepositions

These bears are from an old game by Linguasystems. I don't play the game. Instead, I use the pictures to work on prepositions (using the sentence strip as needed). Seems boring but my K, 1, and 2s seem to love it!

Snowman Cootie

I'm not sure where I got the "parts" for this snowman, but I'm sure you can find some online somewhere. I drew the snowman body myself, and again, I'm SURE you can find a better body! Just like in the old fashioned cootie game, you roll a die (or spin a spinner - in fact you could even make a spinner with the parts on it) and see who completes the snowman first. Now, if we would just get some snow..

Rice Box

I've never been a big fan of using food for non-food purposes. For example, I really disapprove of pasta necklaces on principle. However, I do love my rice box and, sanitary purists plug your ears, I've been using the same rice for 4 years. We build immunity in my classroom!

I hide all kinds of things in the rice throughout the year. I don't bring it out until Halloween, when I hide some themed erasers. What you see in the picture is a selection of the mini-toys I hide around December. Sometimes I hide picture magnets and we put them up on a surface as we find them. As usual, say sounds, make sentences, describe objects at each turn.

Folder Articulation Activity

This one takes some work, but I used it as a warm-up for many weeks in a row. When the students and I were tired of it, I packed it up and sent it home for homework.

I made a Tree.

I originally made this tree at the suggestion of my awesome special ed prek teacher. We hung Easter eggs on it that had different pictures inside (and some had candy - intermittent reinforcement heh heh).  I found, though, that I can hang lots of stuff on it through the year, like these flowers we made in the spring (each petal was earned by doing a speech task, but you knew that already!)

All I did was pour some plaster of paris in an old plastic flower pot (that I lined with a plastic shopping bag- gah so much plastic!). Then I stuck a suitable branch in it, and then put some gravel from my driveway around it for aesthetic purposes.

What else could we hang on this?

Cookie's Week

Cookie's Week is a nice, short, low text book with one of the most captivating first lines ever:

"On Monday, Cookie fell in the toilet".

I have yet to see a straight face after that! Below is a link to a Google doc I made (hope it works!). It contains scans of parts of each page of the book (just for reference) and some of the 'wh' questions I use for each page. I made 2 sets of days of the week so we could do some matching. The kids can order the days, then move the Cookie portrait along as they try to recall the book. I also made a word document with "On Monday..." etc, so the students can make their OWN week with what they do, did, or would LIKE to do. I don't have a file for that, but it is easy to make.

Transportation and Cookie Sheets

Once again, I have to say that a unit study of "Transportation" is rich with ideas - both online, in your own toy box, and in the library. I just wanted to share one nifty idea pinched from Darci, one of our preK teachers. What I have here is a cookie sheet from the thrift store (with a background drawn with Sharpie markers), pictures of various vehicles, cut and laminated, double-faced tape, and a sheet of magnet. A great sorting activity!

Pizza!

Back to school and back to blogging! It always takes me a few weeks to 're-calibrate' as I leave summer vacation behind.

Everyone loves pizza and there are loads of activities to do with a pizza unit. Pictured above are 2 of my favorites. One is a math pizza puzzle - the kids assemble it as they make responses. It is such a simple thing, but kids love it! The other activity, Pizza Plate, works well for language or artic responses. I cut out rough - very rough, one might even say abstract - representations of pizza toppings from construction paper. Then I have the kids use red and brown crayons to put "sauce" and "crust" on the "dough". Then they request and glue various toppings. I also have a rolling pin they use to flatten the paper plate (roll the dough) before coloring.

I always like to have some literature tie-in and depending on the age of my group, I use one of the following books:


Pete's a Pizza by William Steig This is especially good for preK because they love to be 'rolled' like Pete.

The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza)by
Philemon Sturges

Curious George and the Pizza

Finally, I love to make little English muffin pizzas with my special ed preK class. We have a toaster oven in the class and I just use English muffins, sauce and preshredded mozzarella cheese. I have a Tech Talk set up for requesting ingredients.

If you have any other great pizza ideas, please leave a comment!

One Cut Books

Many thanks to Judy Kuster (who has a wealth of links on her site) for this link to One Cut Books. Kids love having little books they can hold and take home and these are a nice break from the cut-n-paste worksheets.

It would be so easy to make a word doc template for these and just go crazy!

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

Groundhog Day

This is my favorite book for Groundhog Day! There are so many great 'wh' questions and prediction questions.

After reading, there a are a few groundhog crafts and cut-n-pastes you could do. Or, doing a sequence activity (holiday or months) would tie in nicely with this book.

Here are the questions I ask through the book:

1. First I make sure they are somewhat familiar with what GH Day is all about. Then we talk about hibernating.

2. Why is GH reading "How to hibernate?". Sometimes we come back and review if that book helped him or not.

3. When is Columbus Day? Why is he brushing his teeth? What will he do next?

4. He set his clock for Feb 2nd. Is that how our clocks work?

5. Half past October - what will he see on the next page (I ask this preceeding every holiday shown).

6. It is Halloween- how do you know? (I ask this for each holiday).

7. After we've established that he gets a ride home, I ask for predictions about 'who' will give him a ride at each holiday.

8.Other questions - what season is it? how do you know?

9. What does "make yourself scarce" mean and why does the turkey want to do that?

10. Also after each line noting that "GH had never seen this before", I ask why not? We discuss how, for every winter before, the GH had slept through all the holidays pictured.

11. Why is he reading a book about gardening?

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.

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 to generate homework) then you just might love this book. Here is a link to the book on Amazon (#ad).

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.

Can you use Powerpoint?

Our school is very into using technology and each staff member has a tech cart. I shine this on the wall, but any ole' computer would work. It's just a new lil way to do carryover for /F/ - or any other sound. Email me if you want a PPT guessing game with a different phoneme. Glad to oblige ya!

Click here for F Game

Self Monitor with a Cool Bead Abacus

One of our wonderful SEIAs made these Sports Abacuses (Abaci?) for use with our kids who work for rewards. I managed to procure one to try with my artic kids who are able to self monitor. They can move a bead for every correct production and they love to move the beads up and down (and, frankly, so do I - take one of these to your next boring conference or meeting). The 2 minute video shows Chris making a 5 bead abacus, but 10 or even 15 work just as well. I use the 10'er pictured in the opening photo.