Product Review: Pirate Talk by Super Duper

Oh that red box! Who doesn't love coming home to find one of these at their door?

When the nice folks at Super Duper contacted me about reviewing one of their products, I was happy to do so!  First, I'd be foolish to say no to an awesome product from Super Duper (yes I knew it would be awesome before even opening the box!). Second, I love getting new materials for my kids.  Third, I know many of you look to bloggers like me to find how what we really think of products and apps!  Here's what was in the box:

The Details:

Pirate Talk: Receptive & Expressive Language Game.
Created by: Sarah Michaels and the Super Duper Staff.
Grade Level: K-5
Description (from Super Duper's website):  Your students are about to embark on a swashbuckling adventure as they sail the high seas with Pirate Talk, the receptive and expressive language skills game! As students respond to each prompt, they move from island to island on the colorful game board and collect gold coins. The prompts reinforce seven essential communication skills:  Sentence Repetition, Answering Questions, Following Directions, Categorizing, Inferencing, Describing, and Social Skills.
Includes:  Game Board, 150 Color-Coded Receptive and Expressive Language Cards(5 subject areas, 30 cards each), Instruction Sheet, 6 Pirate Player Pieces, 100 Gold Coins, and Electronic Spinner (1–3)


A Closer Look:

My son has learned that a box at the door equals something fun.  So when we came home, he begged me to open this one right away!  We opened the box, took out the game board, and checked out the other items:

Notice M's foot anxiously waiting to play!

I skimmed the directions because I prefer games that allow you to fly by the seat of your pants.  I believe that if the directions are too long and complicated, the kids won't want to play the game.  Am I right?  Anywhoo...you can see that the game comes with basic directions and game variations!  This is great for changing things up and using the same materials for multiple sessions, but in new and exciting ways!

After that, I organized the cards.  I think it's a personality requirement for SLPs to love organization and clearly Super Duper is a company of SLPs! The box has a tray that holds your cards and the cards come color coded and with dividers:

The cards have different scenes on the front.  The scenes depict scenarios from 5 different categories:  activities, community, home, school, and people.  Here's a sample card from the "activities" section:

Super Duper really does have great illustrations, don't they?  On the back of each card are the prompts for each target area: Sentence Repetition, Answering Questions, Following Directions, Categorizing, Inferencing, Describing, and Social Skills. I found that we could use the pictures as conversation starters as well.

Notice that some cards allow children to earn "bonus" coins!

Instead of dice, Pirate Talk comes with an electronic game spinner! How cool is this?!? I love that you only have the option of spinning a 1, 2, or 3 and I may just have to use this with other games as well!  The kids loved pushing a button instead of rolling a game die and NOTHING fell on the floor!! :)

What may just be the best part of this game is that it comes with 100 gold coins! I didn't count them, I'm going to take Super Duper's word for it!  Boys and girls were thrilled to play this game and to earn these shiny coins!

Trying it Out:

My son was in love with the game and didn't really want me to bring it to work.  Once he got over that, I brought it to school and tried it out with my kids.  I used it with kids in Preschool and in Second Grade.  We played the traditional version, nothing fancy.  The kids LOVED it! I loved that I could use it in a mixed group and target different objectives with the same cards!  I did find that with larger groups of kids, we weren't able to "finish" the game by returning our pirates back to their home bases, but none of the kids minded. They were happy to count their coins to find the winner.  If you're wondering, 2nd grade loved it as much as the preschoolers.

Bonus Activity:

My super-observant friend Stephanie was quick to make this observation...There are 100 gold coins. New information suggests aiming for 100 articulation trials/session.  See where I'm going with this?  You can use the coins for motivation in an Articulation Challenge!

I made a quick "bank" out of a butter tub, but how much fun would it be to use a treasure chest piggy bank!?!?

The Take-Away:

Pros:

• As a receptive/expressive language game, Pirate Talk has it all.  You can look at a picture scene and ask each type of question, in addition to targeting inferencing and pragmatics.
• Versatility!  The game cards themselves make Pirate Talk versatile, but the adaptability of the game goes beyond that. (See description below)
• Fun! Who doesn't love a pirate theme?!?
• The description on the box says that this game is for Grades K-5, but the box itself says that you can use it with Grades K and up or Ages 4-10.  

Cons:

• I can't think of a single one!

The Bottom Line:
Pirate talk is a fun, engaging addition to your therapy supply closet.  According to the game's description, you can use it to target 7 areas of communication. However, I have found that you can use it for so much more than that!  The game board can be used for an open-ended activity, the spinner can be used to make your game boards (like those from TPT) more fun, and the gold coins can be used to get 100 trials during Articulation Burst therapy!

If you have Pirate Talk, what's your favorite game variation?  If not, what's your favorite product from Super Duper?

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links to Amazon.com for your convenience.

Avast ye mateys! Thursday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day...There really is a day for everything! I may be one of the few SLPs NOT doing anything in my speech room to commemorate this day. I just started seeing kids on Monday and am very busy collecting baseline data. Since we end the year later than other states, I typically reserve the "fun themes" (Pirates, Super Heroes, Dinosaurs, etc.) for the end of the year.

I digress! I figured I would share some Pirate themed activities, books, and games for those of you who do plan on celebrating!

Favorite Pirate Books:



I wrote a blog post about how I use "There Was an Old Pirate Who Swallowed a Fish."  There are free printables included.  You can find that post HERE.  I also wrote a post on Pirate Pete and a Pirate themed pronoun activity (FREE), which you can download HERE.

Favorite Pirate Games:



I know that Cariboo isn't necessarily a pirate game, but because there's a treasure chest, most of my students call it "The Pirate Game."  I have the old version and frequently swap out the images to target seasonal/thematic vocabulary, articulation, SVO sentence structure, etc.  Also, if you're looking for a fun way to increase trials in articulation practice, what could be more fun than counting out 100 gold doubloons and having students place them in a treasure chest bank for each correct trial?!?

Looking for more pirate themed activities?  Check out my Pirate Pinterest Board!

Have a swash-buckling great day!

PS, I haven't checked out Pirate Talk from Super Duper yet, but it looks amazing! ;)

More Pirates, Matey! {Freebie included!}

Disclaimer:  This post contains affiliate links to Amazon.com for your convenience.

During the last two weeks of school, I've been using a pirate theme in my sessions.  The kids have been having lots of fun with it!

Here are some of the books I've been using:

• There Was an Old Pirate Who Swallowed a Fish (If you missed my post about this book, you can check it out HERE)
• How I Became a Pirate
• Pirate Pete's Talk Like a Pirate
• Pirate Mom
• Pirate Pete
• (The Pirate Who Couldn't Say Arrr! is still on my wishlist!)

Of all the books, Pirate Pete was probably the favorite of the week!  I bought this book after reading this blog post from Jenna at Speech Room News (the cover is different, but the book looks to be the same).  

This book has pop-out pieces that you insert into a slot to tell your own version of the story!  Here's my son having fun with the book - he's adding a party hat to the girl pirate's head.

There are six pop in the slot pieces per page (I laminated them to make them more sturdy).  My kids each got to pick a different object/page and then they had to "read" the page with their object (e.g., "She had a party hat on her head!").

We played a few games this week too.  I used a variety of activities from some of my favorite SLP bloggers, including some from these packets:

• Pirate Reinforcer Activities - by Carissa of Home Sweet Speech Room
• Arr Matey! Pirate Categories - by Lindsey of Word Nerd Speech Teach
• WH Question Pirates (English) - by Lauren of Busy Bee Speech

In addition, I created these adorable boy/girl pirates with my Cricut Expression (They're from the Paper Doll Dress Up Cartridge).  I also created some pirate-themed object cards.  We took turns giving objects to the pirates and practicing pronoun use (e.g., "She has the spyglass" or "He has the map").

Don't have a Cricut?  No need to worry!  Here's a printable version of this activity that I created:

You can download this activity HERE.

If you download, leave me a comment!  What are your favorite pirate-themed activities?

Book of the Week: There Was an Old Pirate Who Swallowed a Fish (With a FREEBIE)

If you're an SLP or a teacher, you probably have a "There Was an Old Lady..." book or two.  If you like those books, you'll want to hear about this week's Book of the Week!

There Was an Old Pirate Who Swallowed a Fish follows the familiar story line of the Old Lady (maybe they're related?).  In this story, the Old Pirate eats:

a fish

a bird

a map

some gold

a chest

a plank

a sail

a mast

a ship

When I read this story, I started by showing them the cover.  They all guessed that the story was about a pirate.  Next, we talked about how they knew it was a pirate.  Some of the kids needed a bit more scaffolding for this (e.g., "How did you know he was a pirate and not a firefighter?").  Next I read them the title and waited for someone to draw the connection to the Old Lady stories we had read earlier in the year.  Inevitably, someone did!  I asked what they thought a pirate might eat (e.g., what objects do you associate with a pirate?).  Finally, we read the story.

My kids really liked this story, especially one line "Yo-ho-ho! Watch his belly grow!"  I told them it was their job to say that line each time it occurred in the story.  Is it making sense now why I wanted a tag for the ProxTalker to say "Yo-ho-ho"?  (Missed that post, check it out HERE.) 

Since my kids get to feed the old lady whenever I read one of her stories, I had to create a pirate that could be fed! (What is it about feeding things that's so motivating to kids?!?).  This Old Pirate doesn't look a whole lot like the pirate in the story, but he is old:

Not a fan? I added this cuter pirate if you prefer:

And here are the items to feed to the pirate:

You can grab this freebie HERE.  If you download, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think!  Have you seen this book before?  What's your favorite "There Was an Old ___ Who Swallowed a ___"?

Book of the Week: "The Gingerbread Pirates."

Thanksgiving is Thursday and the stores are already decked out for Christmas.  That means December is right around the corner!  I have a few students who do not celebrate Christmas (or Hanukah for that matter).  Because of this, I tend to do a Gingerbread theme in December.  Some of the books I have do have Christmas elements, so I don't necessarily use all of them with each group.

To kick off the Gingerbread theme, and to join up with Lauren's Linky Party at Busy Bee Speech, I'm sharing my Book of the Week a little early (since I won't actually be using this book in therapy for a couple of weeks).  One of my favorite variations of the Gingerbread Man stories is "The Gingerbread Pirates" by Matt Tavares.

In this story, a boy and his mom bake cookies for Santa.  (If you do have kids who do cannot participate in Christmas activities, this book may  not be the best choice.).  The boy, Jim, makes a pirate crew and wants to save "Captain Cookie" and some of his mates.  The book tells of the adventure of Captain Cookie, who is trying to save the rest of his crew from being eaten by Santa, the cannibal.

The book definitely has some higher level vocabulary, including:  cutlass (sword), cannibal, prison, cliff, astonish, wounded, glittered, mantle, etc.  You can simplify it for the little ones, or expand on the vocabulary with the older students.

To accompany the book, I've created this open-ended game board:

I've also created some WH- question cards (2 pages) related to "The Gingerbread Pirates."

You can download both activities from my TPT store.  The graphics for both activities are by Scrappin Doodles.

Hope you like them!