Happy October, Friends!!
Thought I would pop in with some literacy ideas for the remainder of this month. It seems like every year, I start my Halloween theme a week earlier and I still cannot seem to get in all the books by the end of October!! There are a few tried and true ones that I prioritize both in my home office sessions and in Teletherapy. Hopefully, the ideas below offer some new material/activities to your collections! Enjoy!!
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Comprehension Questions:
- What is dad's job?
- What is at the window?
- What did the boy climb down?
- What is the boy wearing?
- What is the boy doing now?
- Are there a few or many monsters waiting?
- What is the boy standing on top of?
- How does the boy feel now?
- Are they all laughing?
- Where is the boy going?
Arts and Crafts:
Last year, I came up with an idea to give our own monsters haircuts in speech. I printed an image of Frankenstein onto green paper and then glued long, vertical strips of green streamers the length of the face. You can use this as a listening task by having clients trim a piece each time they hear a target sound or word. Recently, I used this with my Teletherapy clients working on the concept: IN FRONT OF. We talked about how the monster's hair was IN FRONT OF his chin, mouth, nose, eyes, and eyebrows, so we trimmed a little at a time to reveal these facial parts. You could also work on future tense verbs by having clients express what they WILL cut next.
Articulation:
It seems that I always have someone working on the /ch/ sound and this book is perfect for a listening activity of /ch/ final. Clients first listen to the story and then we create a foam witch craft for take home. I scored a packet of six foam sets for a dollar at the Dollar Tree this year and paired it with this book. Sometimes, I grab things as I see them at the store and later figure out how to blend materials into themes.
Verb tenses:
I love this story for regular (searched) and irregular (flew, found, blew) past tense verbs. Here is a fun link that I found for my online clients. Whether you want to add this to your teletherapy, school, or private practice sessions, simply pause the video and ask clients what happened.
A couple years ago, I purchased some props to act out this story with my moderate to severe population. While I would not do this for every book that I own, I am happy to have these materials for one of my Halloween treasures!
Language:
The pictures in this story are perfectly positioned to work on the concept: NEXT TO. I also use the story to talk about the regular past tense action: swallowed. You can always focus on story re-tell and sequencing using pictures like the one that I purchased from Speech Room News. Remember those witch foam crafts from the previous story? Well, I found a packet of six bat ones too at the Dollar Tree and paired this craft with the old lady story.
Articulation:
Even my youngest clients enjoy these simple, old lady stories! This past week, I targeted CVC words with an almost three year old to practice: bat, cat, ghost, bone, and hat.
