Non-Fiction Learning!

The weather here has been amazing. I have been itching to get outside instead of working indoors all day. Some of you may not know this, but for the last 3 years I have been working as a private therapist since I left the school system. This gives me flexibility with my schedule and the ability to be home with my little ones so much more. Working privately also gives me the opportunities to take therapy outside of the home or therapy room and get some real life experiences!

Recently we have been doing a lot of work with non-fiction reading about wildlife, animals, and their habitats. What's a better way to teach about these things than to actually get outside and see them?! There is a local park here in St. Pete called Boyd Hill Nature Park. One of the families I work with decided to take our therapy session outside of our typical therapy setting and get some hands on, non-fiction learning!

During the session before our field trip, I gave each child a graphic organizer (pictured above) where they could make predictions about that they would see, hear, and smell while on the nature walk. Ironically, yes, each child had the word "poop" written somewhere in their prediction! Since not all of the kids I went on the trip with could write, drawing picture predictions was also an option. 

When we got to the park, I gave them back their graphic organizers so they could document their observations. It was incredible to see them applying vocabulary they learned to real life situations and not just a worksheet. That day these kids got to touch a snake, see birds, turtles, and so many other animals we had been reading about. All too often the kids we work with do not get to experience the things they read about in the classroom. I love being able to give the gift of hands on experiences to both my children and the ones I work with.

This was such a fun and educational experience. I highly recommend it.  I know it's not possible for all therapists to have field trips with their kids, however, I have a few suggestions:
1. Take therapy outside your typical setting. Go walk around the school. Learning about nutrition? See if you can visit the cafeteria. Completing a unit on bugs? Take a walk outside and see what you can find!
2. Bring in as many topic-related, real life items that you can when teaching a new concept. Kids learn more when they can touch and hold something. A real object will stick in their memory better than a graphic.
3. Volunteer to chaperonne field trips your students will be on. My principal always allowed me to join my students on field trips. I created entire lessons about the trip before we went and continued on the topic after the field trip. The more exposure to vocabulary and new concepts, the richer the learning.
4. Going on a trip this summer? Bring back photos, a jar full of sand, anything that will help put a real life spin on a typical learning experience. Your students will love learning about what you experienced.

Vocabulary Books For Your Little Ones!

Happy Thursday!! We are so close to the weekend I can feel it. This weekend by baby turns 2!! I cannot believe how fast these past two years have gone. It feels like it was just last week that I was writing a blog post telling you all that we were having a girl. Now two years later, here we are! I wanted to share a birthday gift Kenzie received that would make a great therapy tool!! 

Ever since I can remember, Kenzie has loved looking at pictures. Our wedding album, photo books, photo albums, yearbooks... you name it. She would turn the pages and point out "mommy!" "dada!" "pop pop!" Absolutely adorable. But unfortunately 2 year olds don't always know the meaning of the word gentle. As much as she loved looking at these precious memories, I was always nervous that she would end up tearing pages out. 

Last month my Aunt Debbie was visiting from AZ. She saw how much Kenzie loved looking at pictures, too. It was then that she had the brilliant idea of ordering Kenzie a board book of pictures that she could look at and not destroy! 

The book turned out adorable and Kenzie loves it!!

Pictures of mommy & daddy, Aunt Katie, and other family members are in the book.

Seeing Kenzie point out pictures and play mini photo hunt games with us made me realize that this could be an amazing therapy tool for our younger students and non-verbal children. No, you don't have to order a board book for each student... go pick up a little photo album at the dollar store. Have mom or dad fill it with family photos and bring it to therapy. Another idea is taking pictures of common objects, emotions, actions, or items that go with a thematic unit and making your own album!

You could use these albums for anything you would like to target and their children feel like it's their own! 

Kenzie's board book came from https://pinholepress.com

Operation: Recall! {A New Activity For Memory Recall}

Happy Wednesday (actually it's late, I should be saying Happy Thursday to most of you!) I hope you all have had a wonderful week so far. I wanted to write a post tonight to highlight a new product in my store. I have a few students on my caseload that have difficulty with auditory processing. We have been working on following multistep directions, but I wanted to create a fun activity that would also help with short term memory recall. 

Introducing.... Operation:Recall

This activity includes 3 pages of picture cards: 

Sea Creatures

Community Helpers

Colored Pencils

This is a great way to work on vocabulary while targeting memory and following directions skills. 

Also included in this packet are "Mission" cards. The way I play this game, I choose a card and tell the student, "Your mission is to collect- 1 yellow pencil and 1 crab." They cannot go get the item until I say "Go!" This prevents them from picking up cards while I am giving directions. Usually I have the students repeat what their mission is back to me to give extra reinforcement. 

If space permits, put the cards on a separate table or on the floor. This way the child has to move to go get the cards instead of searching for them as you are giving directions. 

I have included themed/related mission cards as well as unrelated cards. So if you only want to target community helpers, you can simply use the community helper cards. Eventually, move on to the unrelated cards for an extra challenge. 

Also included in this activity packet are blank cards so you can create your own missions!

Above is a picture of one of my little lovies on a mission. She insisted on wearing the hat to make it more official!

You can download a copy of this activity here! 

Or if you are feeling lucky, you can enter below to win a copy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Love It & List It Linky: Vocabulary Activities!

It's that time again.... Love It & List It linky party! This month we are listing our favorite vocabulary activities.

If you follow my blog, you already know about this little gem. If you don't, you will be very glad you read this post. I have found a super fun and easy way to assess vocabulary with kids....

The Toddler Games Toys app by Photo Touch!

This app is for working on young childrens' receptive language/ vocabulary skills by identifying toys. The reason I like LOVE this app so much is that it allows you to create your own albums! If you go into the settings of this app, you can create an album. I usually create an album for each story or thematic unit.You are able to take a photo (I usually just take a photo straight from the story we are reading) and record the prompt. You can pre-make this in just a few minutes before a lesson or create it with this kids. They usually love recording themselves and it gives them extra exposure to their target words. 

Below is a screen shot from my Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See album.
"Touch the green frog."

This is a screen shot from my There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books album.

"Touch the pencil case."

I also have created albums specifically for certain students. In these albums, I have included familiar items and people in their lives. The screen shot below is of an album I use with a little girl that has Cerebral Palsy and Apraxia of Speech. We went around her house and took pictures of items and family members!

"Touch Mrs. Kristin!"

There are probably 100 more ideas that can be used with this app, but right now I am loving the ability to make my own vocabulary lessons. Plus, it's on the iPad so I hardly ever have kids not wanting to participate!

You can click here to download this app in the iTunes store for .99... yep only .99! 

Community Helpers: A CCSS Thematic Unit! {Giveaway!!}

July isn't even over yet and the stores are screaming "Back 2 School" already! Part of me hates the fact that summer is coming to an end but the other part of me secretly loves this time of year. I get overly excited about notebooks and new crayons. At the beginning of each school year, I organize my year based on thematic units. Thematic units help keep me organized. I feel that if I know the theme that I am going to be using, I have more direction for therapy. I have a clear idea of what stories I will be reading and what kind of activities we will be doing in speech. I have created a series of thematic units and I would like to introduce my first of the series... Community Helpers!

This activity pack is full of language based activities that also help you hit those common core standards. This year, my state is taking the common core head on, so I want to be prepared. I try to always keep those standards in mind now when creating actives and planning for therapy. 

Let's take a little tour inside this activity....

First up are vocabulary posters. I have created a poster for 8 community helpers:

Firefighter

Baker

Crossing Guard

Police Officer

Doctor

Farmer

Dentist

Veterinarian

Next up, I have included a community helper matching game. These cards can be used many ways, but I indented them to be used as a matching game. Print out 2 copies and play a concentration/memory type game with them. You could also hide them around the room and have your students name the community helper as he/she found them.

For our little ones working on patters, I included a pattern worksheet. This worksheet includes AB, AABB, and ABC patters.

The picture above is of my game board. 

These inferencing cards can be used on their own or as game cards with the game board. Have your kiddos answer a question before the take roll the dice to move across the game board. 

These pronoun cards could also be used with the game board or on their own. 

Bonus cards for the game! Print as many copies of this page as you would like. 

There are 4 venn diagrams included prompting students to compare and contrast:

Firefighter vs. Police Officer

Dentist vs. Doctor

Baker vs. Farmer

Veterinarian vs. Doctor

I love a good writing prompt! After your kids have learned about community helpers, encourage them to choose what community helper they would like to be and draw a picture!

Last but not least, attribute cards! Let students show off all they have learned about community helpers!

I am very excited about this activity! You can download this activity in my store or try to win a copy below! If you can't wait for the contest to be over and want to purchase it now, go ahead. If you win the contest, I will give you another free product of your choice from my store. Good luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My New Favorite App!

Happy Friday y'all! I wanted to share an app that has become so useful for me lately. This is not like one of my normal app reviews. The company that makes this has not been in contact with me or given me a code to download this. I actually found out about it from one of my private clients and I paid for it myself (it's only $0.99!!)

 

 Toddler Games Toys by Photo Touch is a receptive vocabulary app all about identifying toys. The app prompts the child to "Touch the tractor"or "Touch the puzzle" which would be a great vocabulary app for young kids, but that's not why this is my new favorite app. This app allows you to create your own library or pictures to be targeted. You may remember, last week I read the story, In The Tall, Tall Grass with my PreK kids. I used this app to create a vocabulary lesson to go along with the book. To do this, go into the settings part of the app (the orange gear box in the top right corner of the main page), then choose Customize Items, then Add list name here. I titled my list In The Tall, Tall Grass so I would know what story the list went with. After that, you create items to go on the list.

You can record your voice saying the word or a prompt to go with the picture. I used actual photos from the book with my iPad. Taking real life photos of the little critters would be great to add into the list as well. 

Below is a screen shot of the vocabulary items in my In The Tall, Tall Grass list. 

Once you complete the list, make sure you have the story list(s) that you want to use turned ON. You can add as many lists as you want. This would be ideal if you wanted to review vocabulary from multiple stories or thematic units. 

"Touch the caterpillar."

The family that I learned about this app from was using it with their child to learn names of common items, objects, and family members. There is so many options with this app... and it's only $0.99!