Image – Page 21 – In Spontaneous Speech

3 Sentence Sequence Task Cards

16 Aug

August 16, 2013 Cindy 0

I decided to update the 3 Sentence Sequence Cards that are in the Expressive Language Section. This activity is for students who are able to make complex sentences from 2 given sentences and are ready for a little more difficult task. It requires the student to hold the meaning and sequence of 3 sentences in their memory and condense it into one complex sentence. This is a prerequisite skill for getting the main idea and useful for taking notes in class. I have used the task cards mainly with 5th and 6th graders so I tried to make pictures less childish. I also added a backside to the cards that provide example sentences. However, One of the sentences is not correct so students will need to decide which one it is and correct it. If your students are motivated by technology you can use the QR codes that are provided to check their answer. You can read a QR code with an app you down load on one of your electronic devices. There is an answer sheet if you are unable to do this. I’ve also thought of using my pen with the invisible ink to highlight the wrong answer. Because I appreciate the feedback I get from my blog readers, I am putting 8 free double-sided cards here so you may try them out.

free 3 sentence sequence cards

If they work well for your students and you would like more, there are an additional 12 pages for a total of 32 double-sided cards at the TPT store. You can click on the button at the top of the page.

Welcome Back to School Bulletin Board

2 Aug

August 2, 2013 Cindy 0

It is August and the back to school sales are beginning. It is time to get ready for another school year. I will be returning to the same room which has a bulletin board outside my door. I won’t have time for students to decorate it before the Back to School Night so I usually keep this one pretty simple. I will probably have students add to it later on. This is not the most original idea but I like the sentiment for starting a new year, “Welcome Back to the School”

Here are places for the fish origami directions.

http://www.origamiway.com/easy-origami-fish.shtml video directions for this fish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcyIz4E1wJw

http://www.origamiway.com/origami-fish.shtml

http://www.clickacraft.com/origami/animals/origami-angelfish-folding-instructions

http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-fish.html

http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-goldfish.html

http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-dolphin.html

http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-angelfish.html

The Value of Playing Cards

20 Jul

July 20, 2013 Cindy 0

playing cards

Before we had smart phones and iPods many of us remember playing cards when waiting any length of time with a group. Sometimes it is good to look at the old traditional card games because there is a reason why they had staying power. Children still like playing them. Card games such as Go Fish, Rummy, Old Maid, Crazy 8 and UNO can meet a lot of different therapy needs as well as provide a recreational activity for disabled students to mix with non disabled students. You may remember we used a game of UNO in our “Circle of Friends Group” to work with a student who performed on academic grade level but was severely impacted socially by Autism. http://cjmonty.wordpress.com/category/circle-of-friends/.

Card games have the advantage of engaging a number of students of different ability levels within a structure. They provide lots of opportunity for modeling by peers in predictable interactions. The use of card games provides a training ground to reinforce social skills some students need to develop in order to participate in a group and have a conversation. It also allows the peer group to interact with a disable student and see them as a person they can develop a friendship and play with.

Our high needs students benefit from some preparation such as communication boards, video modeling and visual cue cards. Many of my students I work with in the Life skills Programs are working on skills such as maintaining focus with a group, staying on topic, realizing their turn, the turn of others, perspectives of others, and appropriate emotional control with unexpected events. In addition, they may be working on vocabulary and following directions.

I have collected free downloads of some traditional card games. I hope this will make it easier for some of your planning for next school year. Some of these have the advantage of using specific themed vocabulary.

UNO

There are some creative variations on the internet. However this particular game is under copyright so I didn’t feel I could post them. The regular game is very useful for working on following directions.

This is a board that is a tech speak overlay but I just use the board without the device for my less verbal students. http://www.boardmakershare.com/Activities/Search?SearchText=uno

Old Maid

I have used cards that come in pairs such as opposite cards, and plurals. Just add a blank card that does not match with the others for the old maid.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Opposite-Sort-Freebie-702983

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Ocean-Plurals-Freebie-670212

I Have, Who Has

This is a fairly recent card game that seems to have a lot of potential for small groups. Students need to maintain focus to stay with the group and participate.

Animals created by Ashley Hughes

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-Have-Who-Has-Animals-197698

Food by Ashley Hughes

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-Have-Who-Has-Food-30-Cards-198322

Winter vocabulary by Kindergarten Squared

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-Have-Who-Has-Winter-Vocabulary-Freebie-460163

Synonyms by Dee Bibb

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-haveWho-hasSynonyms-587727

Halloween Vocabulary by Mandy Neal

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-HaveWho-HasHalloween-360098

Back to School Vocabulary by Simply Speech

http://kcummingsslp.blogspot.com/2012/07/back-2-school-i-have-who-has-freebie.html

Go Fish

http://www.boardmakershare.com/Activity/1729317/Go-Fish-Cue-Card communication board

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pronoun-People-Go-Fish-570158 (pronouns)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Go-Fish-for-Irregular-Plural-Nouns-230009 (plurals)

http://www.filefolderfun.com/Pages/PreschoolPictureMatch/GoFishGame.html (Feelings)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pet-Shop-Go-Fish-Card-Game-230710 (Pets)

http://bogglesworldesl.com/cards.htm (a variety of flash cards for vocabulary building.)

If you need help remembering the rules this is a good place to look them up.

http://www.webterrace.com/family/games.htm

Bad Thing, Good Thing; It is the perspective you take..

13 May

May 13, 2013 Cindy 0

I imagine some of you are wrapping up your school year and ready for a break. We still have 4 weeks to go here. I am still doing lesson planning in the middle of all those end of the year IEPs and progress reports. I can’t help thinking about last year’s contract negotiation issues which caused an unplanned for week off. This year is going much better. Looking at the bright side, I developed some strong relationships with my fellow teachers with all that walking. It paid off in my interactions this school year. This got me thinking about how bad things often have a silver lining, and how that carries us through to a better future. My inflexible thinkers often have difficulty seeing this possibility and have difficulty making a recovery when things go badly. It may be one of the most important life skills to develop. If you are using a Social Thinking Curriculum by Michelle Garcia Winner, www.socialthinking.com, it fits in well with determining “The size of the problem.”

I decided to address this ability to turn a bad thing into a good thing more directly. We’ve been using cards I made called “Bad Thing Good Thing’. I started using them with my 3^rd and 4^th graders who are part of a social skills group. That was tough. The inability to think flexibly was very apparent and they needed a lot of prompting to think otherwise. The 5^th grader did better. I was worried that I might have created something too difficult for the age range so I brought them out for my articulation students working on sounds in conversational speech. The 3^rd graders through 5^th graders were able to do them without prompting and pretty automatically. I concluded that these cards were very telling about a deficit area.

I am putting the full set of 32 cards on TPT. You can reach it by clicking on the button at the top of the page.

I am listing the first 11 cards here Good Thing no. eleven cards. I would love to get your feed- back on how they work for your students.

Game Adaptation for Crocodile Dentist

12 Apr

April 12, 2013 Cindy 0

Here are two adaptations for the game Crocodile Dentist. This is a plastic crocodile that has a spring loaded mouth. The mouth closes when a certain tooth is pushed down. Kids enjoy the suspense of seeing who is going to get bit. The trigger tooth changes location each time the mouth is opened. Some of you may already use this game for reinforcement. I thought you might like to know how you can expand its use a little further. I use it to expand a student’s verbal output to 2 to 3 word phrases using a communication board and to review prepositions when following directions.

Using permanent markers, I colored the teeth alternating colors. I used pink, green, and orange because I already had a die that had those colors. If you don’t have a die you could make a spinner or use colors for a die you have.

For my students with limited verbal abilities, I use the communication board along with the die in a plastic jar. I have the students shake the die to get the color of tooth they need to push down. I then model phrases using the communication board while playing the game. The game creates a lot of opportunities for repetition of phrases such as “I have ….” or “push down green tooth”. I also reinforce saying “your turn” and “my turn.” After repetition the students start to say the appropriate phrase when you point to the correct icons as a prompt. Finally, they may prompt themselves by pointing to the icons and verbalizing. This is a good way to break up an imitative pattern that often happens when training non-verbal children and uses a natural context for turn taking.

The colors are used in the direction cards also. Cards were made using the concept vocabulary: next to, beside, between, right, left, colors, not, side, front, either/or. Children take turns drawing the cards and following the directions for the tooth to be pushed down. We play a variation by giving each child three poker chips. They feed the crocodile a chip if he bites. The person who feeds all three chips is the winner. I provided a word program down load because I thought people may need to adjust the color words for their needs. If you have any difficulties with this, leave me a comment. Print out the cards and have the students pull them out of a bag and then follow the directions while playing the game.

card download here