Friday Rewind! {Highlights From Therapy This Week}

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T.G.I.F! We made it through another week! This week the kiddos and I went under the sea. I love the using the under the sea unit... it's so colorful and fun! This summer, all of my kids have been PreK age, but they each have different goals that they are working on. I have found that using themes allow you to keep some consistency in all your therapy sessions while giving you the flexibility to individualize the sessions at the same time. 

Here is a peek into my week....

 The Rainbow Fish and Ten Friendly Fish are a few of my favorites to read with the kids during  Under the Sea Week!

After we read the story, the kids and I participated in a few different activities. In the photo above, one of my students is completing a following directions coloring activity from my Under the Sea Thematic Unit.

We also made our own rainbow fish out of paper plates and construction paper scales. This activity is always a favorite and allows for a lot of language opportunities: requesting, naming colors, vocabulary, prepositions, etc. 

We also had a little fun with Under the Sea BINGO! What did you do in therapy this week?

PS- If you are looking for some festive activities to celebrate Shark Week with, check out my latest freebie here!

Under The Sea: A Thematic Unit {Giveaway!}

I just love using themes in my therapy sessions. Under the Sea is always one of my favorites to use while the weather is still warm (granted, that often goes until November here in Florida!) I love reading stories such as Ten Friendly Fish or The Rainbow Fish in therapy then following up with some fun sea related activities. I created this thematic unit to use in my therapy room and I would like to share it with you! 

This packet includes activities that target the following goals:

Vocabulary

Expressive/receptive language

Concepts of same/difference, big/small, plurals

Phonemic awareness

Prepositions

Colors

Articulation

The first activity included in the pack are sea creature flashcards. There are a total of 14 flashcards that can be used unlimited ways. My suggestion is to print out 2 copies and play a matching/memory type game with them. It's also fun to hide them around the room and have your students name the cards as they find them. 

The second activity included is a phonemic awareness activity. Each sea creature will only eat foods that have the same beginning sound as his/her name. Your students get to help the sea creature figure out what they should eat for lunch!

"This is my friend Watson Whale. He only like to eat foods that start with the /w/ sound. 

What should Watson eat for lunch?"

The third activity included is a preposition activity. Have your students complete the sentence that best describes the picture. Prepositions targeted include: under/below, over/above, next to, in front, behind, near, far. 

I have also included a BINGo game because who doesn't enjoy BINGO?! There are 4 different BINGO mats and calling cards included. 

Next up are 2 following directions coloring sheets.

Last but not least, 2 articulation homework sheets. One sheet targets the word level and the second targets the sentence level. There are no words pre-printed so you can use these worksheets for any speech sound!

You can purchase this activity in my store here! You can also try to win a copy below. If you cannot wait to purchase this activity, go ahead. If you win the raffle, you can choose any other activity from my store for free!

Good luck!

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Under the Sea!

The title of this post makes me start singing the song from The Little Mermaid! We have had a great two weeks under the sea! I wanted to share with you the activities we have done during this unit. There are two speech therapists at my school, I see PreK-2nd grade and the other therapist sees 3rd through 5th grade. So these activities were used with early elementary age students. I used the book The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister with all of my groups but used different activities to meet their different goals.

These are my articulation jellyfish! I cut out the jellyfish body and tentacles. The students wrote target words on the tentacles and attached them to the body. Then they decorated their jellyfish. I used this activity with all of my articulation groups. 

My PreK and Kindergarten groups made their own rainbow fish! Since PreK and Kindergarten were working on colors and shapes, I jumped on that vocabulary with this activity. Our rainbow fish had colorful triangles for scales. I used a piece of shiny wrapping paper for the one sparkly scale. 

materials

For my first grade and second grade groups, we focused on character and setting. They created a starfish with the setting in the middle and the characters on the starfish legs. I found the pictures through google image. (Bonus: If you use Story Grammar Marker, a star represents the setting!)

I also created an extra articulation activity. Click here to download it. Print, cut, and laminate. Print the first page a few times. Here is how I play:

Put all the pieces face down on the table

Have each student practice their target 5 times.

After they practice, they choose a card.

Sounds simple, but the kids love games like this and you get a lot of target practice!
Graphics from My Graphico

What are your favorite under the sea activities and books?