Curriculum and Homework - Winter

*Please note that language activities are differentiated to meet each student at his/her current level of linguistic performance and to focus on each student's individual IEP goals. Therefore, I am constantly engaging the students in a wide variety of activities throughout the week. The activities listed below reflect a general theme of each week--an activity that I modify multiple ways to meet multiple levels of skill and objectives. Whenever possible, I have tried to include some variations in each activity to give parents a better idea of what their individual child might have been expected to do within each activity. If the activities described below do not seem to be a reflection of your child's abilities and/or goals, please feel free to contact me with questions. I'd be happy to describe the specifics of a given activity as it relates to your own child.

(**I created this page last Winter by adding each week's lesson to the site. It was a lot of work, but I loved being able to share each activity week to week so parents would have the opportunity to learn all about their children's activities in the Speech Room. Since the preschool classrooms tend to center their lessons around similar themes from one year to the next, I tend to use the same stories/activities to target my students' speech and language skills. Therefore, I decided to leave the page as it looked at the end of last Winter, as opposed to re-inventing the wheel!  This way, you will be able to have a preview of upcoming lessons, as well as seeing what we have done in past weeks. Rest assured, if your child worked with me last year, as well, he/she will not be bored by the repeated activities. The children love to re-visit old favorites and I love having the opportunity to increase the difficulty level of the skills targeted while using similar activities and materials. It helps me to see how far my students have come in a year's time!)

Winter - Welcome

We spent time this week talking about all of the fun events and activities that take place during the holiday season.  We used pictures from catalogs (I especially love the Pottery Barn Catalog) to practice Noun/Pronoun + auxiliary verb + present-progressive verb sentences (He/She is _____). We used the sentence strips that can be found in the Printable Handouts section of this website to give students a visual cue to help them create their sentence. This is an easy activity to practice at home.

This week we practiced expressive and receptive identification of color and shape concepts within the context of a gingerbread man game. Students took turns being the "Teller" and the "Listeners." The Teller would describe the color and shape of their gingerbread man's buttons, while the rest of the group listened to see if their gingerbread man matched that of the "Teller." This is a game that could easily be carried over at home. Try printing out a few copies of these blank gingerbread men: Ginger Bread Page and draw a couple of "buttons" on each using different colors and shapes. Have your child take turns describing gingerbread men and also identifying gingerbread men based upon the description you give.

In preparation for the holiday break, we read There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bell. The students used seasonal vocabulary such as "bell," "bow," and "sleigh" and practiced using the irregular past tense verb form "ate." As always, the students particularly enjoyed taking turns feeding the Old Lady puppet all the different items named in the story.

 

The snowy weather inspired us to read the story The Mitten.The students practiced identifying the animals in the story, many of which were previously unfamiliar to the students (ex, badger, hedgehog, mole.). We used a mitten cut-out and pictures of the various animals to act out the story.  Students took turns moving each animal into the mitten, in sequence, and practiced producing complete sentences such as "The_______ crawled into the mitten." Click on this link to print out your own mitten and animals to use at home for a The Mitten story-sharing activity with your child. Put the Animals in the Mitten

We had fun with our "Old Lady" friend once, again. This time we read There Was A Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow. The students practiced vocabulary such as "scarf," "coal," and "stick." The students fed the Old Lady all of the different vocabulary items and helped to assemble a snowman at the end of the story. They are really making progress in their ability to recall target vocabulary and sequence events.

 

We celebrated Valentine's Day by "mailing" Valentines to our loved ones. Students practiced their color and size vocabulary by taking turns giving and following directions such as "Put the big, pink heart in the mailbox" or "Put the small, blue heart in the mailbox." This is an activity that could easily be carried over into the home. Just grab some construction paper and cut out hearts of different colors and shapes and have fun. An alternative to this activity for students who are working on their articulation or vocabulary skills would be to cut out pictures from magazines and glue them onto the hearts. Have the child label each picture before putting it into the "mailbox" (an empty shoe or tissue box works well for this game).

The Old Lady strikes again! This time she was celebrating Valentine's day in the story There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Rose. The students took turns feeding the old lady puppet Valentine's day themed vocabulary items such as hearts, candy, glitter, and lace.

 

We returned from February vacation to a snow-covered Willett school, so we decided to focus on snowmen that week. The students practiced talking about and listening to color and shape vocabulary by describing/listening to descriptions of snowmen's buttons. Depending on their linguistic level, students either used full sentences (ex, "My snowman has blue, diamond buttons,") or single words, or some even used the speech therapy iPad's voice output app to select the icon that matched the buttons on their own snowman. The other students in the group were required to listen carefully to the speaker's description and to determine whether their snowman matched. Both the expressive and receptive language components of this activity were very challenging to the students. This would be a great activity to practice at home! Use the following link to print out a few copies of blank snowmen. Decorate them with 2-3 buttons each. Make sure to make 2 sets of each snowman design (2 snowmen with blue square buttons, 2 snowmen with red heart buttons, etc). Take turns with your child being the "Teller and the "Listener." Snowman. You may also want to show this video to your child a few times during the month of February in order to give them a preview of the rules and procedures for this game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE9VO8nXaoQ

We celebrated Dr. Suess's Birthday by reading books like The Cat In the Hat and Hop On Poppaying careful attention to all of the fun rhyming words. We then hid pictures of rhyming words under Cat in the Hat cut-outs and scattered them across the floor. The students took turns tossing a beanbag onto the hats while their partners repeated the rhyme "Throw the bean bag on the hat, then we'll see what rhymes with that."  Each time the beanbag landed on a picture, the students would identify the picture (expressive vocabulary skills, articulation skills) and determine whether or not it rhymed with the any of the other pictures that had already been revealed (pre-literacy skills). Rhyming is an excellent activity to practice at home. Make up silly rhymes at the dinner table or in the car. Remember, nonsense words are acceptable for children to use when they're practicing generating their own rhymes!

We began preparing for St. Patrick's Day a week early in speech therapy since it is one of Ms. Michelle's favorite holidays!. Since the students continue to work hard on their descriptive vocabulary and their listening skills, we played a leprechaun description game that is very similar to the gingerbread man and snowman games described above. Depending on their linguistic level, students were expected to  take turns describing/listening to a description of: the leprechaun's hat color, beard color, clothing color, and/or shoe color (a single descriptor for our younger students or a combination of all four descriptors for our older students). They were then tasked with finding the matching leprechaun. Try printing a few copies of the black and white leprechauns in the attached link. Color a few matching sets (feel free to color only one or two of the leprechaun items (hat, beard, clothes, or shoes) if your child is not yet ready to manage all four). Take turns being the "Teller" and "Listener" to help your child find the leprechaun twins.Leprechaun Page   You may want to watch the following video in the weeks leading up to St. Patrick's day in order to provide your child with a preview of the rules and procedures for playing the Leprechaun matching game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWueqzti42s

The Old Lady and her leprechaun friends made all sorts of mischief this week. We read There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Clover. Thematic vocabulary included words such as "gold," "fiddle," "rainbow," and "daisy." The students enjoyed dancing an Irish jig with the Old Lady puppet after she had eaten her fill of St. Paddy's day vocabulary items. Click here for a Google Doc of pictures you can print out to help your child re-tell the story.