Scented Play Dough Recipes with Visuals

Hi Everyone!  I have to apologize for being a bit absent lately.  I have been absurdly busy since the middle of February.  I'm hitting a little break in the craziness, but things are going to pick up again come April.  Until then, I'm going to try to get in a few posts for you.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you may remember that my current school district does not allow teachers/therapists to use food products (other than those that come from the cafeteria).  Well, I was going through some of my files recently and found some recipes for scented play dough that I used a few years back (in another school district) and I thought I'd share them with you!

Because I used this activity as a whole-class language lesson in a preschool classroom, I used visuals in the recipe:

The recipe above is the large quantity version.  There is also a smaller quantity version to be used with one or just a few students.  I used the smaller quantity recipe with my son after work today:

I only had one packet of red Kool-Aid (watermelon), so our play dough turned pink rather than red.  He didn't mind though!  I think we played with the dough for about an hour and a half!  We made snowmen, pancakes, birthday cakes, hot dogs, snakes, Easter eggs, and an Easter basket!


I really do miss being able to use recipes (play dough and food) in my therapy sessions.  They really are a great way to target so many different language objectives.  With this recipe, you can target:

• Vocabulary (ingredients, recipe, flour, measuring cup, squishy, scented, etc.)
• Sequencing (First, next, then)
• Verb tense (I am pouring the water, I poured the salt)
• Following directions ("find the salt and pour it in this cup," "make a play dough snowman")
• Executive functioning/pragmatic language (use with a group of students. Have them make a plan, give each other instructions)
• Expressive language (have students describe the procedure after you are finished; students describe what they make)
• And so many more!

If you'd like a copy of the recipes, you can find them HERE.  Do you use recipes in your therapy session? If so, what's your favorite thing to make?

Book of the Week: Don't Wake Up the Bear

We all love Jan Brett books, right?  "The Mitten" and "The Hat" are amazing books for this time of year!  I find, though, that when I bring these books into classrooms, most of the kids will tell me "My teacher already read us that story!"  Some will have no problem listening again (and even need the repetition), but others will complain enough that I usually DON'T use those books in therapy (even though I absolutely love them).  Here's my solution:

"Don't Wake Up the Bear!" by Marjorie Dennis Murray parallels "The Mitten" in a few ways:

• First, most of the animals are also in "The Mitten."

                "The Mitten"
                        mole, rabbit, hedgehog, owl, badger, fox, bear, mouse
                "Don't Wake Up the Bear"
                        bear, hare, badger, fox, squirrel, mouse

• Second, the animals are all seeking a nice warm place - a mitten, or a bear's cave.

• And probably most significantly, in both stories, there is a big SNEEZE!  In "The Mitten," the mouse's whiskers tickle the bear's nose.  He sneezes and all of the animals are scattered out of the mitten.  In "Don't Wake Up the Bear," the mouse (who is sleeping soundly in the bear's ear) sneezes, waking up the bear.  The other animals are afraid he will eat them, so they run away.  

When I introduce either of these stories, I typically review the animals first.  How many of your kids have seen/heard of a badger?   So, I do a quick image search on my iPad using Google Images and save pictures to my camera roll and create an album for the book.  (Don't know how to do this?  Click HERE for instructions).

Once we're done with that, I read the story.  There is a repetitive line in this one:  "You may come in said the hare.  But don't wake up the bear!"  I have the kids say this line, usually 2-3 times - until I know that ALL the kids are trying!  While we're reading, I either use my story stick or another visual:

The images for my story stick were created with Boardmaker.  I wish I could tell you where the other pictures came from.  I loaned my copy of "Don't Wake Up the Bear" to a colleague last year and she returned it with the pictures...colored and laminated!!!  (Have I mentioned before that I really do have some awesome colleagues?!?)  When we're done with the story, we work on sequencing and story retell using whichever visuals we used during the read aloud.


What we do next depends on whether or not they have already heard "The Mitten."


If they HAVE, we usually compare the two stories....Which animals were in both stories, what elements were the same/different, etc.  I created this simple diagram to sort pictures of the animals from each story:

You could also do a hula hoop Venn Diagram with the actual book in each hoop!  (Missed that post?  Read more HERE).  Need more portability?  Do a paper/pencil Venn Diagram!

If the students HAVE NOT read "The Mitten," I've tried a couple of things.  For the younger ones, I assign them each an animal and ask them to act out the story (They ALL want to be the bear!).  I also have a bunch of kids working on sentence formulation (Subject-is-Verbing is a big one!).  So, I used the Make Dice App ($2.99 in iTunes) to create a die of the animals in the story:

I made another with action words.  The students took turns "rolling" the two dice and saying the sentence.  I wasn't sure this would make sense for them since there is an animal and then a human completing an action, but they did great!

Then, in another session, we might read "The Mitten" and complete the other activities listed above.  Have you read this story?  What do you think?  Which story do you prefer ("The Mitten" or "Don't Wake Up the Bear")?

App Review: Language Empires

Hey Everyone!  Back with another FABULOUS APP by Smarty Ears!  And here to review it for us is my friend and colleague, Stephanie.  Stephanie works in the same school as I do, servicing students in grades K-5.  Take it away ...

Smarty Ears has recently released a new app called Language Empires ($29.99 in iTunes).  This app targets 8 different aspects of language:

• Figurative Language
• Vocabulary
• Inferencing
• Which questions
• Why questions
• How questions
• Sequencing
• Predicting.  

As you open the app, you will notice that you have a few options listed at the bottom.  Visit the City and Quick Play get you playing the game immediately.  The Support button leads you directly to the Video Tutorial for the game.  The video is a comprehensive overview of the app, narrated by one of the app developers – who is also a speech pathologist.  That’s always a bonus!  Who better to develop an app for speech pathologists?  I would recommend running quickly through the tutorial because it’s a fast way to understand all the features and settings of the app for those of us who just want to take and go. 

When you decide to visit the city, you will be prompted to enter in your student’s names.  You can choose an avatar or use a real picture to represent your students. 

Once you have chosen your players, you are presented with a map of the empire.  The empire consists of little areas devoted to each of the 8 target skills.  Simply drag the players into the area you would like to them to target.

You can further customize their play by selecting a level of difficulty within each target area.  There are 2-3 levels of difficulty per area. 

Once everyone is in the right location, you can move right into the questions.  Students will immediately begin answering questions regarding their language target.  These questions are read aloud to the students and feature a small coordinating picture and multiple choice responses. 

Inferencing: 

Figurative Language:

Vocabulary:

Which Questions:

How Questions:

Why Questions:

Predicting:

Sequencing:

After you have finished playing, you may go back to the home screen and find the Report section.  You are able to view, share or email students results.  Students might like to see all of the trophies they accumulated along the way. 

Pros of the app:

• I like the fact that you can work on so many different language targets all in the same place!  It was great for those groups of kids that all have different goals. 
• The idea of levels within each skill area provides allows for greater customization.
• The graphics and music were engaging enough to keep the interest of my students.

Future app update recommendations:

• It would be great is there was a sense of “game play” between the different players.  Once you are playing, the questions are asked back to back with no feel of moving from one area to another for the next players turn. 
• When the questions are on the screen, all players are listed at the bottom, with no indication as to whose turn it is.  I would love to see only that player’s avatar at the bottom, so that I didn’t have to remember who was in what area.   

Bottom line:

My student’s and I definitely enjoyed playing this app.  Everyone was happy and engaged - which is a sign of an effective and productive speech session in my book!  I feel like this app is best suited for Grades 3-5.  However, you could use it for slightly younger children as well, if you take more time to explain every question and really talk it through.  I would definitely recommend this app to anyone looking to add a versatile language tool to their iPad toolbox!

I would like to personally thank Carrie for being a wonderful colleague and friend.  It was so sweet of her to pass along this app for me to review with my older students. 

DISCLAIMER:  Although a copy of this app was provided to me in exchange for my review and another for the giveaway, the thoughts and opinions are my own.  (Thank you Smarty Ears!  I love all of your apps!)

Stephanie

Another disclaimer:  I did not pay/compensate Stephanie in any way for the kind words!  :)  If you would like to enter for a chance to win a copy of Language Adventures, you can do so using the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book of the Week: The Jacket I Wear in the Snow

This week's Book of the Week is "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow" by Shirley Neitzel.  I was introduced to this story by another one of my fabulous co-workers (Thank you, Linda!).  The majority of this book is a run-down of the clothing the little girl wears to go play in the snow.  Toward the end, she is shown sitting on her sled crying and you (or your students) must infer the reason she is crying.  Since her sled is right next to a broken snowman, you might assume that she's crying because she broke it or because she got hurt in the crash.  This has lead to some interesting discussions between the kids!

So, here's how I use the book:

Making Learning Fun has a ton of free activities to accompany this book.  I used the Story Retelling Pieces (photocopied on Zoom, but I'm not sure exactly how much because Linda gave me these as well!) and attached Velcro so we can get the girl dressed:

I show the students the girl.  (Insert snickers and super-mature underwear jokes here.)  I also get a lot of "She's NAKED!"  I take this opportunity to inform the students that, since she is wearing a shirt and undershorts, she is NOT naked!  In hindsight, I should have colored her t-shirt and underpants pink or something.  Oh well, hindsight is 20/20, right?  I explain that she wants to go play in the snow and ask if she is ready to do that.  No?  What does she need?

I bring out the clothing items as the students name them.  My intention was to dress the girl as the story progressed, but the clothes aren't named in the order you would get dressed, but probably a reversed order (e.g., the jacket is first, socks and long underwear come last).  So, I ask them to sequence the order in which she should get dressed (as if she was just getting out of bed in the morning).  In almost every group, I was told that she should put her jacket on first!!  I have to say, this surprised me.  With cueing, we've been able to get on her clothing:

And finish up with her outer clothes:

After the story, I see if the students can recall everything that the little girl wore.  Then we do a little more with winter clothing vocabulary...

I found this great freebie from Learning and Teaching with Preschoolers.  It's meant to be a pocket chart activity, but I used it as a sorting activity.  The students each picked a card and answered whether or not you should use that clothing item to go play in the snow.  I have to say, some items were hotly debated!  (Some students thought socks should go in the "No" hoop because you wouldn't wear socks ALONE to play in the snow...Oh my, we can be so literal at times!).

Looking for other resources for this book?  Miss Speechie from Speech Time Fun has a companion pack for this book that can be found for $2.25 in her TPT store.  In fact, if you search for "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow" on TPT, you'll find a bunch of materials! (See them HERE).

Do you use this book in therapy?  What is your favorite activity to reinforce the story?

Back to School Week: There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books

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

I don't know of very many SLPs and educators who do not like the "There Was an Old Lady" series by Lucille Colandro.  These are predictable stories are great for targeting rhyming, sequencing, cause/effect, vocabulary, etc.  The latest in the series does not disappoint.  If you don't have it yet, you can find it for $6.99 on Amazon.

"There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books" features the familiar old lady who eats some bizarre things.  In this version, you can expect her to eat some school themed vocabulary including:  some books, a pen, a pencil (case), a ruler, a folder, some chalk, and a bag. 

Because of the vocabulary in this book (and skimming the pictures), you could easily use it to work on bilabial sounds (/p/, /b/, and /m/):  books, pen, pencil, and bag.  Words containing bilabials sounds are also easily found in the pictures:  bus, puppy, bird, bone, bench, butterfly, bugs, bunny, park, boy, backpack, and mouse (yes, that was the only /m/ word I found!).  I created some picture cards using Custom Boards that contain these bilabial sounds.

 

When I'm working with preschoolers, I like to use visuals and/or manipulatives with stories.  When I use the "Old Lady" books, I typically draw a large picture of the Old Lady (she tends to look different in each story) and the objects that she eats.  I attach the old lady to a container...shoe box, tissue box, milk carton.  Whatever works for the size of the lady.  Then I have the students "feed" the lady as I read the story.  Here's my Old Lady for this story:

I wish my scanner was large enough to scan her for you, but it's not.  I was able to scan the objects though. 
Here are some of them in black & white and color.  (Excuse my drawing/coloring...I'm not much of an artist!)

 

Check out Pinterest for some other cute ideas for this series.

1. I loved this idea from The First Grade Parade using the writing prompt "If I were the old lady, I would eat..."
2. Here's another great one from Eberhart's Explorers.  It's designed for "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover," but could easily be adapted to this story.
3. Head on over to Teaching Heart Blog for more printables (story telling pieces and dice game).

These are just a few ideas for the "Old Lady" books.  There are too many great ideas out there for me to post all of them!

Are you a fan of the "Old Lady" books?  Which one is your favorite?  How do you use the books in therapy?

 

That concludes Back to School Week on Carrie's Speech Corner.  Hope you found something you could use!!!

PS, Check out these other "Old Lady" Books on Amazon:

Yummy Apple Trees!

Fall is coming and I thought I would share one of my favorite oral motor activities.  I know that the link between oral motor movements for speech vs. non-speech tasks is controversial.  However, when I was in grad school, oral motor exercises were thought to benefit speech development.  In my practice, I have seen children show improvements in articulation, expressive language, and feeding abilities after participating in an oral motor program.  With that said, many years ago, I started using this activity in preschool classrooms as a Christmas activity.  I figured I'd give it a fall twist!

If you're not a strong proponent of oral motor tasks, you can use this activity to target sequencing, following directions, color concepts, etc.  For this activity, you will need:  large bowl, stirring spoon, paper plates, marker, popsicle sticks or plastic knives, frosting, green food coloring, and circle shaped cereal (e.g., Froot Loops).




To start, you draw an apple tree on a paper plate (or you could draw a Christmas tree).









 



Next, you need to make some green frosting!  When I did this as a class activity, I mixed the frosting ahead of time. Since I was doing this activity with just my son, I had him mix the frosting (1 tub vanilla frosting + several drops of green food coloring = enough for about 10 trees).













Now you can "paint" your tree.  We used plastic knives.  Popsicle sticks work great too!

Once painted, you can add your apples (or ornaments if you are doing a Christmas tree).  Since we are doing an apple tree, we picked out just the red Froot Loops. (WH questions! What grows on an apple tree? What color are apples? Where do the apples grow?)













Voila!  We have a very cute apple tree:















Now comes the fun part...You get to eat your apples!  I have my students hold the plate out in front of them and use their tongues to lick the apples off the tree.

Matthew loved this activity (even though he's not a huge fan of frosting) and he literally licked his plate clean!



On a Side Note...



We ended up with a ton of extra frosting, so we decided to make apple tree cupcakes as well.  We used M&Ms for the apples on our cupcakes.  While the cupcakes were in the oven, we did a color sort activity with the M&Ms:











Once cool, we frosted our cupcakes and put on some "apples."

 In the end, they looked (and tasted) great!

Since there are different colors of apples, we made a variety of apple tree cupcakes (though they probably look more like apple bushes!):

Do you use oral motor activities within your therapy sessions?  

Do you feel they are beneficial to students?