Book of the Week: Sneezy the Snowman

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

It feels like FOREVER since I've actually had the chance to sit down and share with you what I've been doing in my speech room!  Before Christmas, my son came home telling me about a book that his preschool teacher read to him.  It sounded fun!  The next week, a co-worker had it out in her pile of snow themed books and I had to check it out.  Sneezy the Snowman is now one of my all-time favorite snowman books!

I encourage you to head over to Amazon and use the "look inside" feature. You won't be disappointed!  In the story, Sneezy keeps looking for things to make him less cold.  The first thing he does is drink hot cocoa. Many of my students can relate this...it is a fairly common activity post-snow play!  If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that we used Hot Cocoa Speech (a very fun freebie) by Lauren over at Busy Bee Speech:

I used cotton balls because we're not supposed to give food to students...well, technically there is a loophole. A permission slip must be signed by the parent of EVERY student in the group.  It just so happens that one of the teachers with whom I work had already sent home a permission slip for marshmallows!  So, after reading the story to that class, we discussed ways to warm up and what we like to eat with our hot cocoa.  The kids made this craft (the pattern is from Mailbox Magazine) to bring home:

Every January, I target /s/ blends with my articulation students.  Why January? Well, it's the perfect opportunity to target the sound in a naturalistic way!  There are just about 100 ready-to-go target words!  Here are just a few:  snow, snowman, snowball, skate, scarf, sled, slide, slip, slippery, skid...You get the idea!  So, with my articulation groups, we made this snowman craftivity:

For the snowman, I used a printable page from Tales of a First Grade Teacher.  I got the photos from Phonology Roundup by Super Duper (I got the book that comes with a CD ROM). I printed 2 pages per sheet of paper so the pictures would be smaller.  We glued the target words on and, in some cases, added some bonus words (sticks, snowflakes, scarf)!

And that pretty much sums up my week last week!  I'd love to hear from you.  Have you read "Sneezy the Snowman"? If so, what do you think of it?

Mitten Mania!

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

BRRR!  It's been so cold all over the country this week that I bet even in the south kids are wearing winter clothing they've never seen before!  This week in my speech room, we've been doing activities related to MITTENS!  Here's the run-down:

The Mitten:

In many of my groups, we read "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. Who doesn't love this book?!? Believe it or not, I drew the animals from the story when I was in college (in the mid to late 90's) and they are STILL hanging in there!  This still shocks me because I didn't even think of laminating them at the time!  

Here's a closer look:

We worked on sequencing the order in which the animals went into the mitten and I found this printable emergent reader take-home book from Jamie Mayas on Teacher's Pay Teachers. What a great way for my preschoolers to practice the vocabulary from the book!

Noisy Story:
In some other groups, we read the Noisy Story "The Mitten." (Click HERE to see more information on the Noisy Stories program).  This story is about a lost mitten.  I begin the story by wearing one mitten and telling the kids that I'm going to tell them a story about something you can wear in the winter.  Believe it or not, they don't ALL clue in that the story will be about a mitten! Once they do figure it out, I tell them that there is a BIG problem in the story (mind you, I'm still wearing ONE mitten).  Eventually someone infers that there is a missing or lost mitten in the story...

At the end, the mitten is found on a snowman! My preschoolers love when I pull out my snowman (above) with the mitten stuck to his belly.  (Sometimes they make me feel like a magician!)  The younger kids worked on same/different using real mittens (see photo below) as well.

PS, If you want a similar type story for older kids, check out "The Missing Mitten Mystery" by Steven Kellogg.

EET: Mitten style!

I have rounded up a ton of mittens over the years.  I usually pick them up at the end of the winter in a clearance bin. We focused on the "eye" bead of the EET strand and described what the mittens look like.

I don't know if I mentioned this before or not, but I'm doing my Student Learning Goal for my Educator Evaluation on the EET.  Based on my mid-year data, my kids are just NOT getting the eye bead!  Here's an example of a very typical response from my kiddos during mid-year data collection:

Me:  What's this?
Student: A carrot.
Me:  Right! {shows green bead}Green-group. What group does a carrot belong in?
Student: Food group.
Me: Nice! {shows blue bead}Blue-do. What do you do with a carrot?
Student: You eat it!
Me:  You're doing great! {shows eye bead} Eye ball!  What does a carrot look like?
Student:  It looks like a carrot!
Me: {face-palm!}

We spent about 2 weeks on describing appearance, but I guess we need some more time with that!  So, we grabbed the EET strand and worked on describing the appearance of the mittens.  If you don't have a ton of mittens like I do, you can always make them out of paper.  

I used a pattern similar to the one below and printed them on letter size scrapbook paper, then cut them out.

Want a copy of the mitten patterns? Click HERE.

And there you have my week of Mitten Mania!  What are your favorite Mitten activities?

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")?

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?

Snowman Glyph

My sample...Yeah, I know, I'm not 7!

I found an adorable Snowman Glyph on Freebielicious (see it HERE) and knew that I wanted to use it in therapy.  However, I knew that the original activity would be too difficult for many of my kiddos, so I adapted it slightly.  Here's what I came up with:

I printed the worksheet in black and white (I don't have a color printer at school) and colored it in.  I cut out all the pieces from Freebielicious in advance and used my Glyph to give the students direction.  They were required to answer the questions using complete sentences and follow directions to make the craft.  The finished product came out cute, don't you think?

Some of the students let me display their work!

Here are some close-up:

Finished snowmen!

I also wanted to create a sheet that would go home with the craft so the parents would understand what we did.  To save trees, I put two copies on a page:

Visit Freebielicious to download the snowman parts.  You can download my glyph visual HERE and the take-home sheet HERE.  Let me know what you think.  Have you used glyphs in therapy before?

Guest Post with FREEBIE from Lindsey at Word Nerd Speech Teach!

I'm excited to have another guest blogger sharing her work and her blog with you!  Today we have Lindsey from Word Nerd Speech Teach. Take it away Lindsey!

Hello Carrie's Speech Corner readers! My name is Lindsey and I am very thankful to be guest blogging for the very first time! About a month ago, I started a blog called Word Nerd Speech Teach and began making materials to share. In my blog posts, I try to incorporate a free, limited prep time activity that can be used for a variety of different goal areas. I hope that you can use the activities that I blog about or are inspired to make a variation that suits your needs!!

I LOVE "snow" activities. Honestly, I could spend the whole month of January relishing the wonderfulness of snow, so I've decided to share an activity that can be used for a whole bunch of language goals and/or as a reinforcer for articulation. I started to make my own snowman for this activity, but then realized that a fabulous SLP in my district had made and distributed snowmen to all of the SLPs in our district last year, so I used hers (since she has way more artistic talent than I would ever have)! First, start by making a few snowmen of different sizes.

Next, create the "accessories" in different sizes, shapes, and colors. These accessories are made out of milk filter paper, but you can always make them on regular paper and laminate them for durability. You can also use items you already have in your room - random buttons, extra scraps of fabric or felt, ribbons, cotton balls, etc.

I picked up a few baking sheets from my local dollar store and attached one snowman to each. Then, I put tape in the corners of the pan and attached contact paper UPSIDE DOWN (so that the sticky side is facing up). This increases the "magic" of the activity. You can do anything you want to the pan and the parts never fall off because they stick to the contact paper!

Ta-da! Instant snowman work surface!

Here are three different size snowmen, ready to be put to work.

As I mentioned before, this activity can be used for a multitude of goal areas. I thought of nine different ways to use this activity, but I'm sure you can even come up with more!

• attributes/modifiers (e.g. "one, round, green button")
• same/different (e.g. "The snowmen are the same because they both have red buttons but they are different because mine has black arms and hers has brown arms.")
• 1, 2, 3-step directions as well as conditional directions (**This would be a great activity to target "before" and "after" directions.)
• giving directions (**Have the students practice giving directions to each other.)
• prepositions (e.g. "on top", "on the side", "above", "below", etc.)
• pronouns (**Give each snowman a name and have the student talk about what "she" has or what items of clothing belong to "him".)
• possessives (**Give each snowman a name and have the student talk about "Jane's hat" and "Bob's button".)
• story retell (**Talk about what happened "first", "next", "then", and "last" while making the snowman.)
• reinforcer for artic

Here is a look at the final product after it's all "dolled" up!

I've also created a FREEBIE that you can access at my TpT store. Introducing: Snowman Language Round-Up! This activity includes: 16 same and different pairs

12 describe with attributes cards,

and 18 multiple meaning word cards.

You can access this activity at my TpT store here. You can also follow my blog or "like" my Facebook page in order to stay up-to-date with new products and freebies!

I hope that you find these activities useful and that they save you a little bit of time as far as planning and preparing are concerned! Thanks for reading!

Thank you so much Lindsey!  Reminder: if you download Lindsey's freebie, please leave her a comment!! Also head on over to her pages and show her some support :)

Book of the Week: Thomas' Snowsuit

About this time last year, a co-worker of mine introduced me to the book "Thomas' Snowsuit" by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenco (Thank you Ana!).  This book is hilarious!!  I can pretty much guarantee that the kids will love it, but I will add this warning:  Do NOT read this book to kids that are prone to giggle fits when underwear is mentioned! ;)

I have searched Amazon and bookstores on and off for about a year and hadn't been able to find a copy.  I did find it on Amazon in the "Annikins" version, which apparently is tiny (always read the reviews before you buy something!!!).  A few weeks ago, it showed up in my Amazon recommendations as a Kindle book!  I bought it immediately!  Here's the link to the Kindle Edition and the Paperback Edition on Amazon (again, I don't know if the Paperback edition is "real" sized or the very small edition...the reviews say that it's tiny, the dimensions say 8x8).

Back to the story...Thomas has a new snowsuit, but he doesn't like it.  He is super dramatic, the illustrations are pretty funny, and I think it's relatable to kids who live in areas that get snow.  Pay attention to the facial expressions in the screenshots ...you can use them with kids who have social deficits for identifying emotion.

screenshot - I probably should have retaken w/o the SongPop notification!

As you can see, Thomas puts up a huge stink putting on his snowsuit for his mother, his teacher, and the principal, but quickly puts on his snowsuit when one of his classmates calls for him to come outside.  Throughout the story, the characters end up swapping clothing in the "enormous fights" that occur.  Prepare for the giggles!

Around the same time that I was introduced to this book, I was also introduced to Speech Room News.  The first of Jenna's awesome activities that I saw was this one:

Jenna had her students sort articulation words by sound position in her version (read the full post here).  I loved the idea, but didn't have kids who would be able to do this.  So, I adapted the activity for one of my language goals.  First, I summarized Thomas' Snowsuit.  Then I printed my sentences on yellow paper and cut into strips.  I had the kids sort story events:  Did that event happen in the beginning/middle/end of the story?

As much as the kids loved the story, they were super excited to play the French Fry Game.  They actually requested playing this game again with other stories!  I ended up doing one story a month with this activity and it was always a hit!  Want a copy of my story summary?  You can download it HERE.

Some tips:  Get clean containers from McDonald's.  If you go in to ask for them and tell them you're a teacher, they will most likely give them to you.  Get the medium sized.  These are the large ones and they're a little too big...you can't see some of the strips and you probably wouldn't be able to see a popsicle stick if you do Jenna's version.

Have you seen this story before?  What do you think?