Summer Themed Preschool Language Pack

I've been seeing lots of SLPs across the country posting their countdowns on Facebook.  "___ days left of school!"  My district starts AFTER Labor Day and, instead of one week off in March, we get two weeks off (one in February, one in April).  Add to that the number of days we've had to take (Hurricane Sandy, the Blizzard, etc.) and I will literally be in school until the end of June.  But, like the rest of you, I'm counting down the days until my summer vacation.  So, I was very inspired by some clip art I got from Scrappin' Doodles to create a new packet!

This packet targets the most common speech and language objectives I work on with my preschool-aged students.  Here's what you get:

Subjective Pronouns (6 pages).  Students will describe pictures using the words “he,” “she,” and “they.”

Yes/No Questions (4 pages).  Students will answer yes/no questions about the pictures.

Possessive Pronouns & Is/Are Verbs (2 pages).  Students take turns giving small tiles (20 total) to the boy and girl and completing the sentences (e.g., “The dog is his” or “The glasses are hers.”)

WHO Questions (3 pages).  Students will answer the questions about the children in the pictures.

Describing Action in Pictures (2 pages).  Students will describe the pictures using verb +ing and S-V-O formats.

Plurals (2 pages).  Students will use the correct plural form to describe the pictures.

WHERE Questions / Prepositions (4 pages).  Students will use prepositions to answer WHERE questions.

Game Board (1 page).  You can use the game board on its own or in conjunction with the activities in this packet.

And there you have my "Summer Themed Preschool Language Pack!"  You can access this product in my TPT store HERE.  I'm giving away 3 copies!  You can enter to win using the rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book of the Week: The Gingerbread Girl

The book I'm using this week in therapy is "The Gingerbread Girl" by Lisa Campbell Ernst. In this twist of the classic tale, a lonely old woman and lonely old man decide to make a gingerbread girl to keep them company.  They figure a sweet girl would never run away from them as her brother did in the past.  A chase ensues!  The gingerbread girl proves more clever than her bother, and more clever than the fox that got the best of her brother!  The book ends with all of the "chasers" getting together at the home of the old woman and old man and having a get-together (even the fox)!

While the gingerbread girl runs, she chants:

Run, Run

With a leap and a twirl.

You can't catch me.

I'm the Gingerbread Girl!

For this story, I used Lesson Pix again to create icons for my story stick:

I'm also using the Gingerbread Pronouns activity from my Gingerbread Speech and Language Unit.  We're targeting the pronouns "He," "She" and "they.  

We also are using Starfall's Gingerbread app ($.99 in the App Store).  This app allows you to create a gingerbread boy or girl while practicing shape/color concepts.  When you are finished, you get to see an animation with the gingerbread rhymes.  You can also do this activity on the Starfall Website free of charge.  If you're wondering, the app does have an additional activity that is not available on the website - Shapes Maze.  Also, you can save your cookie creations on the app.

Starfall Gingerbread screenshots

Have you used "The Gingerbread Girl" in therapy?  What s your favorite Gingerbread variation?

Gingerbread Speech and Language Unit

Phew!  Just finished up a new Gingerbread Speech and Language Unit.  I wanted to have this done in time to participate in the Teachers Pay Teachers Cyber Monday plus Tuesday sale.

All items in my TPT store will be 20% off.  If you enter PROMO CODE: CMT12, you will get an additional 10% off the discounted price, resulting in a total of 28% off!


Now... Here's my new Gingerbread Speech and Language Unit!  This is a 26 page document with four different games (5 if you count synonyms/antonyms as two games).


For starters, we have Gingerbread Synonyms and Antonyms:

In this game there are 20 synonym pairs (gingerbread boy/gingerbread house) and 20 antonym pairs (gingerbread boy/gingerbread girl).  I've included blank sheets of each set so that you can add your own words to expand the game.  You can use the cards in a few different ways:

• Provide several cards to a student as foils.  Read a card and ask the student to find the best synonym/antonym match.
• Play as you would play "Memory."  When a student finds a synonym/antonym pair, they get to keep the pair.  The player with the most pairs at the end of the game is the winner.
• Play as you would play "Go Fish."  Have students request "Do you have an antonym for 'girl'?" or "Do you have a synonym for 'town'?"

Synonyms

Antonyms

Next we have Gingerbread Pronouns:

For this game, there are large pictures of a gingerbread boy, a gingerbread girl, and a boy and girl together.  I like to attach these images to a small gift bag.   There are also 50 object cards in basic categories (shapes, colors, numbers, letters, animals, vehicles, toys, and food).  You may wish to have students use the object name or object category (e.g. “He has an apple” or “He has a fruit”).

Game play - Receptive:  Place object cards on the table.  Give instructions to the children – “Give a number to him,” “Give a ball to them.”

Game play - Expressive:  Have students take turns giving an object card to the boy and the girl. 

There are sentence strips included for students who omit those little words!  These include:

• “He has the ___” 
• “She has the ___” 
• “They have the ___” 
• “The ___ is his” 
• “The ___ is hers” 
• “The ___ is theirs” 

The third activity in the packet is a Gingerbread Barrier Game:

You can use this for simple following directions (e.g., "Put the girl between the trees") or as a true barrier game.  To play as a barrier game, you will need two copies of the background and two copies of the objects.  Put a divider (open file folder, large book, etc.) between two players/teams.  Have one player/team set up a scene using the game pieces.  Then they describe their scene to the other player/team, who tries to recreate the scene exactly.  The more specific the descriptions, the more accurate the recreation.  Once completed, you can remove the barrier and discuss what is correct or incorrect, discuss where communication breakdowns occurred, and brainstorm what the students could have done to improve the outcome.

Last, but not least, we have Beware the Gingerbread Pirate! Open-Ended Card Game.

Use with any target objective.  Place cards in a pile in the center of the table.  Have students take turns drawing cards.  If the student selects a gingerbread boy or girl, they get to keep it.  If the student selects a Gingerbread Pirate, they must return all of their cards to the table.  The player with the most cards at the end of the game is the winner.  There are numbers in the corner of the card game as well.  This way, you can choose to use point value rather than total number of cards to determine the winner.

I hope you can use this Gingerbread packet!  You can find it in my TPT store!  Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Pronoun Practice

Today I'm going to share with you one of my favorite activities for targeting pronouns.  I've been using this activity for years and I wish I could take credit for it, but sadly, I cannot!  A few years ago, I found this activity on the Speaking of Speech Materials Exchange page (It's the first activity listed under Pronouns - "Pronoun Game").  It comes with large pictures of a boy and girl with sentence strips below the children and a page of items.  Here's how it looks:

It fits nicely on a file folder, and those store quite well!  However, I have a lot of kids who have been working on "they" as well.  So, I updated the version from Speaking of Speech to include "He," "She," and "They":

This does not fit quite nicely on a file folder, so I taped together three sheets of oak tag, glued the pages on, and laminated everything together.  Then I attached my velcro.  Here's a close-up so you can see the target sentence - "He has the ___."  

"They have the___"

I do have some younger students who are working on "he" and "she," but are not ready to work on "they."  For these students, I simply folded the "they" page to the back.

I placed the item pictures in an empty (clean) wipes container with the top oval (the part where you pull the wipes) cut out.  The students can reach into the container and pull out an item for each section.  We typically say the sentences together for the first round, then I have the students read the sentences themselves.


What activities do you use to target pronouns?