Don't Throw it Away! Zoo Maps

Summer is the perfect time for visiting the zoo!  When you pay for your admission, make sure you grab an extra map or two because they're great for use in therapy!

Here's a map I grabbed during a visit to Southwick's Zoo:

Front

Back

Ways to use maps in therapy:

Life Skills Groups:  

• Have students figure out hours of operation, cost of admission, parking, etc.
• Have students brainstorm what they might need to bring with them if they were spending a day at the zoo (e.g., money for lunch, sunscreen on a hot day, etc.)
• Have students figure out how much money they should bring for the activities they want to do.
• Have students call and find out if there are shows that day/what time the shows will be.
• Ask questions regarding hypothetical events (e.g., What would you do if you were by the lions and you had to go to the bathroom?  What would you do if you fell down and started bleeding?)

Receptive Language:

• Following Directions.  Have students put their finger on a location on the map.  Give directions (e.g., "If you go south until you see the monkeys then turn to the left, what animal will you see?")
• Answering yes/no questions:  (e.g., Can you buy pizza at the zoo? Are the leopards at the zoo?)
• Answering wh- questions:  (e.g., Which animal is closest to the rhinos?, Where would you go if you wanted a drink?)
• Comprehension questions:  Read the information/rules section (if your map has one) to students or have students read the section.  Ask comprehension questions.

Expressive Language:

• Pick five animals from the map.  Have students describe the animals using as many features as they can.  (or grab your EET kit!)
• Give a student two animals.  Have them give directions from one animal to the other.
• Have students pick an animal they've never heard of (my map has animals like "Capybara," "Kookaburra," "Aldabra tortoise," "Muntjac deer," and "Patagonian cavy").  Get to your computer or iPad and look up the animal.  Have students report back to the group (or to their teacher) what they learned about the new animal.

Executive Functioning:

• Have each student tell you their favorite animal from the map.  Ask them to make a plan as to how they will see each of the animals by using the shortest route on the map.
• Provide a scenario where each student gets a certain amount of money and give students a list of costs associated with the zoo.  Have them make a plan regarding what they will spend their money on (rides, lunch, gift shop).

Articulation:

• Find animals and locations on the map that contain your target sound (e.g., lion, lemur, llama, leopard, reptiles, buffalo, turtle, eagle, etc.).

Voice/Fluency:

• Use any of the above activities for students to practice their strategies.

What do you think?  Do you use maps in therapy?

Don't Throw it Away! Newspapers

A few years ago, I was working solely in the preschool of a brand new district after working 5 years in early intervention and three years in another preschool program.  Because I was lowest on the seniority pole, I was  a "floater" (meaning I would help to cover if another SLP had to go on an extended leave).  Then I got a phone call that terrified me.  I was going to "float" over to another school to absorb part of another SLP's caseload while she was out on medical leave!  Her caseload consisted of preschool through grade five.  FIVE?!?  YIKES!  After spending so much time with little kids, I really had no idea what I was going to do with the big kids (grades 3-5).  Yes, she left me some ideas, but now that I had kids who could read and write, I wanted to do something really creative!  So, I grabbed a newspaper:

(I've been planning this post for a while now - check out the date!)

During my first session (after the getting-to-know-you stuff), I took out a newspaper.  We talked about the parts (title, headlines, stories captions) and the sections (local, sports, classifieds, etc.).  Then we talked about why a story might be on the front page versus the middle of the second section...why some stories had pictures and others didn't...why people put ads in the classified...and why there are other advertisements in the paper.

In subsequent sessions, we:

• read articles and answered wh- questions
• read 2 out of 3 panels of a comic strip and worked on predicting
• read articles and brainstormed appropriate headlines
• looked at pictures of people and discussed their emotions
• and had a newspaper scavenger hunt!

Today I'll be sharing the Newspaper Scavenger Hunt with you!  This was probably the favorite activity for the kids.  I split them into teams and had them work together (great way to incorporate executive functioning skills!) to find different categories of words within the newspaper.

I told students what they would be looking for before they were able to pick a section of the newspaper. I also gave them a few minutes to come up with a strategy before they began. They searched for proper nouns, common nouns, contractions, adjectives, verbs, compound words, a month of the year, and numbers (you may choose to do numerals or number words).  You may wish to pre-teach certain ideas early on in your newspaper unit.  For example, while checking out the sports page, you may mention that football, baseball, basketball are compound words, or you may draw attention to the location of the date within the newspaper.

The kids all got one of these sheets plus pencils.  They were instructed to circle the words they found in the newspaper (so I could make sure they were really finding the words) and to copy the words onto their worksheet.  I have to say, this activity drew out their competitive sides!

One more thing I want to mention, I decided early on that we would write a newspaper for the SLP who was out so that she could know everything important that happened while she was out.  The kids worked together to decide a name for the newspaper.  Each week, I asked them to tell me what happened during the week.  Toward the end, we picked a few topics about which we would write articles.  Once we had topics, we brainstormed key points that we would make about the topics, created sentences for the points, and put them in a logical order.  Then they came up with titles for their articles.  I even brought in my camera so they could include photos.

The kids wrote about picture day and interviewed the school secretary to find out the date and the name of the company.  One of the students was planning on moving the following week, so they interviewed him about where he was moving and how he felt about the move.  They wrote about MCAS (our state wide achievement testing) and a field trip.  Here's one of their articles:

Field Trip

The third and fourth grade went on a field trip to the Zeiterion Theater on March 18th. We went there on a bus. There were other schools at the Zeiterion. We saw a friend who moved to another school and her name is Lakeira. We saw an orchestra playing the violin, drums, strings, flute, tuba, clarinet, and harp. Kaidyn raised his hand to go on the stage and got picked. He played a trumpet and it didn’t work for him because he didn’t do it right. It made a funny noise. We came back from the Zeiterion in time for lunch.

Not bad, right?!?  If you like the idea of using the newspaper in therapy, you'll want to check out Speech Room News for Jenna's Newspaper Companion.  I had the chance to preview the companion and it is awesome!  Now I know exactly what to do if I ever get called to "float" again!  :)

You can download this activity HERE.  Do you use the newspaper in your therapy sessions?  What are your favorite activities?

Don't Throw it Away! Paint Sticks

Last year my family moved to a new house and we painted pretty much every room in it!  (Ok, so my husband and brother-in-law did the actual painting...).  Needless to say, after many, many trips to Home Depot, I ended up with a ton of extra paint sticks.  

Being the hoarder I am creative and thrifty, I saved them!  If you have extras, you should save them too!

First up, I used to work in a class where most of the kids had communication books.  Once the kids started to learn to put symbols together, we used the paint sticks rather than sentence strips.  We attached velcro to each side ("hook" Velcro on one side and "loop" on the other).  The child would create their sentence on the paint stick, take it off of their book (which also had Velro on the cover), and hand it to an adult.  The paint sticks are much sturdier than anything else we have tried for the purpose of combining picture symbols!

Next, I have a group of students who are, for lack of a better word, blurters!  They spend my entire session talking over each other!  To alleviate this, I created a "Talking Stick" using a paint stick and some colorful duct tape:

It's not very fancy, but it WORKED!  They started waiting for other children to finish speaking and asking for the stick so they could have a turn talking!

Similar to my talking stick, Maureen from The Speech Bubble created these cute "Sticky Sticks." These are similar to my Talking Stick, but you add a suction cup to one end and you can use them to pick up articulation cards!  Head over to her post to find out  more.

And finally (thank you Jenn from Crazy Speech World for reminding me of this one!)...Story Sticks!  For my version, I just attached Velcro to one side and created small images using either Boardmaker or LessonPix.  You can use these to sequence events in a story or for story retelling.  This is the one I use with "The Gingerbread Man":

Check out Jenn's much cuter version of a story stick HERE.

Do you have any other ways of using left over paint sticks?  I'd love to hear them!!

Don't Throw it Away! Milk Bottle Caps

I've been saving the caps from my milk bottles for a while because I wanted to make those cute ladybugs that are all over Pinterest.  Well, I tried and had a Pinterest FAIL!  Basically, I tried drawing the dots on with a Sharpie, but the color didn't stick.  So, what to do with a whole bag full of milk bottle caps?

Make a therapy activity!

First, you'll want to wash your milk caps and let them dry.  Gather the amount you want - the number doesn't really matter.  More caps = longer activity, less = shorter activity!  You'll also want some circle stickers.  I used the kind used for labeling prices at yard sales.

I wrote the numbers 1, 2, and 3 on each...

Place one sticker on the underside of each cap and you're ready to play!  You can use this simple game as an open ended reinforcer for just about any target.  Once a student completes targets, they can turn over a cap.  They get the number of points indicated on the sticker.

The student with the most points at the end of the game is the winner!

If your kids aren't fans of "point" activities, there are other variations you could use.  You could hide one "target" (Dora, Spongebob, a star, etc.) and the person who finds the target is the winner.  You could also play similar to "Lids & Lizards" by Super Duper - place stickers under only some of the caps.  The student who found the most stickers at the end of the game is the winner.

There are some other cute ideas for using milk bottle caps on Pinterest.  Here are a few:

1. Alphabet Stamps
2. Hungry Caterpillar Activity
3. Counting Game
4. Magnet Boats
5. Word Families Activity

Do you re-use milk bottle caps?  What are you using them to do?

Don't Throw it Away! Wipes Containers

Today's "Don't Throw it Away" post features baby wipes containers.  This one might be a no-brainer - that you should be saving these for storage - but I had to share on the off-chance that someone out there is actually recycling their wipes containers!

(Click picture for link to product on Amazon)

What's not to love about wipes containers?  They're sturdy, have a removable lid, and come in a fairly standard size.  If you're lucky, you can find some that have a flat top.  The containers below are from the generic wipes that my district purchases for the preschool classrooms.  One teacher was kind enough to actually clean and save some containers for me (after she had saved some for herself as well)!  You can see they stack neatly on my shelves:

They're great for storing crayons, articulation cards, small toys/objects, etc.  In one of the boxes, I keep the materials that go with the following directions data sheets I use for screenings and baseline data (follow the link to download):

Want more ideas?  Check out Pinterest for inspiration!

Do you use empty wipes containers for storage?  What do you keep in them?

Don't Throw it Away! Parmesan Cheese Containers

This is kind of a simple one, but I love parmesan cheese containers for storing small objects!  You could use them for sorting bears, stick pegs, lacing beads, etc.

The best thing about using these containers is the lid.  You can use the "sprinkle" part for placing pegs in.

You can use the larger opening for pouring small toys out.

Or you can unscrew the top and use the cap itself to hold the objects.

Do you use parmesan cheese containers?  What do you store in them?

*After posting this to Pinterest, another pinner commented that her daughter, who has a severe milk allergy, broke out when she attempted to use these containers to store toys.  If you have children with severe milk allergies, you may not want to use these containers!

Don't Throw it Away! (Calendars)

I probably should have posted this back in January!  However, on the off chance that you haven't gotten around to throwing out your old calendars, DON'T!  They're another great resource for DIY therapy materials!

Here are some examples from calendars I had:

How cute are these puppies?  Aside from being adorable, check out their faces.  You can use them for describing emotion, describing how you think they would/should feel in different situations (remember, you have 12 pictures!).  You could use them to teach adjectives as well:  sleepy, playful, spotted, etc.

I found the calendar above at the dollar store.  In each picture, some of the friends (a giraffe, bear, duck, and bunny) are pictured doing different actions.  These pictures are great for sentence formulation, describing a scene, describing weather, etc.

Have you re-used calendar pages in therapy?  Tell us about it!

PS, If you have an awesome "Don't Throw it Away" tip that you'd like to share in a guest post, send me an email at cmanchester57@gmail.com

Don't Throw it Away! (Magazines)

I have a confession to make....

I'm a pack rat!  

I have a hard time throwing things away.  I very often think, "I can use that!"  I'm guessing that some of you might be the same way.  So, here's what I'm thinking.  Once every-so-often (I'd like to say once per week, but I'm not sure I'd be able to stick to it!) I'm going to post a way to re-use/recycle things you already have into therapy activities!  Here's the first - 

Magazines!

You've probably seen posts about re-using your magazines for the pictures and stories.  I save them for the Ads!  

Why?  Well magazine ads are LOADED with higher level language concepts!  What you're likely to find in the ads:

• figurative language
• idioms
• similes
• metaphors
• multiple meanings
• humor
• and language that requires the reader to take a different perspective/point of view and/or use inferencing skills!

In case you can't read the captions, here's what some of the ads say:

The first picture:

• Jelly Belly Jelly Beans:  Music to your mouth.
• Aussie Hairspray:  Don't be hard headed.
• Excedrin:  Migraines so bad I want to take my head off.
• Juice:  A full serving of vegetables inside
• Chewing Gum:  Survive a snack attack

The second picture:

• Mr. Peanut:  He's famous for two things - Planter's nuts and winning staring contests (Go ahead, try him!)
• Fresh Step:  It works so well, your cat will need help finding the litterbox.
• Chips Ahoy:  They go fast!
• Meow Mix:  Yes, it tastes that fresh!

Do you use magazine ads in your therapy sessions?  What do you use them to target?

PS, Have a great idea for re-using/recycling what you already have for therapy? If you're interested in writing a guest post to tell us about it, send me an email to cmanchester57@gmail.com