Saturday, December 29, 2012

New Year! New Materials!


Simply Speech organized a sale and I'm joining in!  Head over to my TPT store and pick your favorites now!  Save 20% on the 2nd and 3rd of January!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Cariboo Cards!

Cariboo is a favorite with my students, and with the preschoolers that one of my coworkers work with.  If you don't have a copy, it's not currently in print and can get really expensive online.  I see it all the time at places like Goodwill and other thrift stores.  The balls are easy enough to replace if missing and these cards will take the place of any need for a complete set!  I have both the older and newer versions of Cariboo and they fit both versions of the game.

The cards are designed to fit the game perfectly so you don't have to do any laminating.  Just print on cardstock and cut out and you're ready to play!  Because Cariboo is played with a key and kids don't handle the cards the game doesn't really need to be laminated.


I have made both a Language set for Cariboo and an Articulation set.

Cariboo for Language!

Cariboo for Language has two versions - Categories and Action verbs and both games have several ways to play.

Check out Cariboo for Language in my TPT Store!

Ways to play categories:

Describing – students need to describe the item before they can open a door
Category naming – students need to name the category the item goes to before they can open a door (some categories can be divided into smaller categories – ie: fruits/vegetables from food
Category matching – shuffle extra cards and students match the card they draw to a door from a matching category and label one way they are alike.  
Naming Items in Categories:  Students draw one of the cards with the category labels on them, they need to match the category with an item in it.  For a challenge – what else can they name?

Cards for the labels of the included categories are pictured below.  Each category as three corresponding items.

  Action verbs can be used for several therapy targets (pictured on the game above)


  • Vocabulary Building
  • Is/are verbing
  • Regular and Irregular past tense verb practice (contains a mix but more than 15 of each to fill up the entire Cariboo board)
  • He/She/They Practice


Check out Cariboo for Language in my TPT Store!
I also made Cariboo for Articulation which is divided into two sets available for purchase on TPT.

  The Early Sounds set contains the sounds:  P, B, M, N, -NG, T, D, G, K, F, V and L  plus 2 pages of L blends.  

All sounds have 15 cards of each word position.  

Check out the early sounds set on TPT!




 The Late Sounds set contains the sounds: S, Z, R, TH, SH, CH and J as well as 3 pages of S-blends, 1 page of Z-blends, 2 pages of R blends and 8 pages of vocalic R sounds.

All sounds (except TH) have 15 cards (a full Cariboo game) of each sound in each word position.  TH sounds have 15 cards of voiced TH sounds and 15 cards of voiceless TH sounds across all three word positions.

Grab the late sounds set in my TPT store.



Make sure you check out all of these items in my TPT store.

I put 3 pages of the D sounds up as a Freebie on TPT so you can check out the cards!
Grab the D Freebie here!
So now the big question - What other goals do you want to work on while playing Cariboo?

Monday, December 10, 2012

My First Giveaway!

Giveaway is over!

Congratulations to:
Shannon G with a copy of my Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms monsters and
Amy C with a copy of Robot inferences! 

All items are still available for purchase in my TPT store.

I've decided to hold a giveaway for the items in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Comment below with your email and the product you want for a chance to win!  I'll randomly choose two winners and send you the PDF of the product of your choice!  If I get more than 50 comments I'll choose three winners!

Now all you have to do is think about what you want most!

 Asking Questions Monsters is an activity working on asking questions, answering questions and using following questions in conversation!
Past Tense Owls is one of my past tense decks using higher level vocabulary.



Past Tense Robots is another of my past tense decks using higher level vocabulary and has 100% different vocabulary than the owls deck.

 My third past tense deck has animals!  (Can anyone tell what I've been working on this year?)  Check out my Past Tense Animals here.

 I love my Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms Monsters!

 If you're working on inferences check out my Robots Inferences Cards.


This giveaway ends on Sunday December 16th!  So comment below to enter.  Make sure to include your email and the product you're hoping to win in your comment.  I'm planning on choosing two winners.  If I get more than 50 comments I'll choose three winners.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Higher Level Regular Past Tense Verbs

One thing I'm always worried about when planning therapy is making sure that I'm using a wide variety of stimulus materials.  I don't want my students to learn grammatical rules in a limited situation, or to apply them to a limited number of words.  Part of this is really varying that number words that I'm using in therapy.  Most of the past tense verbs activities use, and reuse the same, simple past tense verbs again and again.  I started thinking about using past tense verbs as a vocabulary building activity. The higher level vocabulary increases the number of verbs I'm presenting to kids to conjugate and makes the words more appropriate to the older students on my caseload.

I started writing words down and ended up with so many I made two separate activities.  The two different activities have completely different words!   I wanted to make two activities so I could vary the activity a little for my students.  When we get tired of robots we can move to the owls and vice versa. 


Past Tense Robots

The first activity is the Regular Past Tense Robots card deck.  It's available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

 The robots activity is divided into three levels and is 18 pages long.

Level One has students working at the word level.  48 verb cards are provided with 16 verbs with a D voiced -ed ending, 16 with a T voiced -ed ending and 16 with a ED voiced -ed ending.

Students draw cards and changed the words to past tense verbs.  This is the time I discuss any unfamiliar vocabulary words.

I've also included a mat to show the spelling for the ending and the three different kinds of voicing.  I've found that this helps some, not all, of my students learn the voicing rules for past tense verbs.  Students can sort the robot cards by what kind of sound the -ed makes.

Level Two has students work in sentences.  Sentences are provided on the robot cards with the target verb underneath in red.  Students need to change the verb and put it in the sentence.
Level Three requires students to make their own sentences using the target verbs and uses the same cards from level one.

Game Cards are also included.  Students can draw robots from the deck and collect them.  If they get a "gears are stuck" card they must put one robot back.
Grab the Past Tense Robots in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.


Past Tense Owls

My second past tense activity is my Past Tense Owls.  This card deck contains 48 verbs that are completely unique from the robot deck and also have 16 verbs with each voicing of the -ed ending.  The structure of the activity is the same as my Robots one.

The owl activity is divided into three levels and is 18 pages long.

Grab the Owl Verbs activity in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Level One has students working at the word level.  Students draw cards and changed the words to past tense verbs.  This is the time I discuss any unfamiliar vocabulary words.


I've also included an Owl mat to show the spelling for the ending and the three different kinds of voicing.  I've found that this helps some, not all, of my students learn the voicing rules for past tense verbs.  Students can sort the owl cards by what kind of sound the -ed makes.

Level Two has students work in sentences.  Sentences are provided on the owl cards with the target verb underneath in red.  Students need to change the verb and put it in the sentence.


Level Three requires students to make their own sentences using the target verbs and uses the same cards from level one.

Game Cards are also included.  Students play by attempting to collect as many owls as possible.  Cards with two owls are worth two points.  Special cards have sleeping owls and suns on them.  If students draw a sleeping owl one of their owls fell asleep and they lose one owl.  If they draw a sun card, all of their owls were caught out in the sun and they lose all of their owls.

Grab the owl activity her in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms

Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms are things that I've always had challenges finding good activities for.  This year I've got more students with goals for these tricky things than ever before so I set forth to create something that I will use.

My synonyms, antonyms and homonyms packet grew and grew as I worked on it.  I ended up with a massive 80 page document that should keep my students and me occupied for some time.

Grab it in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

2 levels of Synonyms
- 27 synonyms at each level
3 Levels of Antonyms
- 27 Antonyms at each level.
3 Levels of Homonyms
- Level one has two groups of 21 pairs.
- Level two has 12 sets of triplet homonyms

I edited the original download to include a "monster cheat sheet" to show which monster is pictured at which level.  Each level has a single monster picture on the card to prevent mixing of the different levels, or to allow for re-sorting when we mix them on purpose.
Synonyms
 The Synonyms have two levels.  They are loosely divided by the vocabulary level of the words included.  Each level has a total of 27 word pairs on 54 cards.
Synonyms Level One
Synonyms Level Two
Antonyms
Antonyms are divided into three levels loosely by vocabulary level.  Each level has 27 word pairs on 54 cards.
Antonyms Level One
Antonyms Level Two
Antonyms Level Three

Homonyms
Homonyms are divided two levels.  Level one has two levels of double homonyms with 21 word pairs on 42 cards and sentence strips.  Level two has 12 triplet homonyms on 36 cards and included sentence strips.   Homonyms were not divided according to vocabulary level.

Homonyms Level One, group one pictures

Homonyms Level One, group one sentence

Homonyms Level One, group two pictures

Homonyms Level One, group two sentences
Homonyms Level Two, pictures and sentences

I put a lot of time and work into this one, so I hope you all like it as much as I do!

Grab the Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms packet in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Robot Inference Cards

One thing I always need more of is simple inference activities.  Many of my students have a lot of difficulty making inferences, and this has been highlighted by our new school wide reading assessments.  I have many inference activities, but wanted to make another one because I don't want my students to simply memorize the inferences on the cards I have, but I want them to work on making connections.

This need was highlighted after an inference-making therapy session with one of my students the week before Thanksgiving.  After our fourth consecutive session on inferences, we're talking about the holiday.  She mentions that her favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the mashed potatoes.  I state that I too love mashed potatoes, but am sad, and using a sad voice say "Guess what my mom's not making this year."  She excitedly says "What?" *facepalm*  We really do need more practice and work on making inferences, and to do that we also need more things to practice with.

I was already working on this activity, but this moment, really stands out in my mind as the reason I hurried to finished it.

This activity is available for purchase in my teachers pay teacher store in my teachers pay teachers store.

 Each card has a short 1-2 sentence story and a basic inference question about the story.

While playing the game, students draw a card and collect robots.  If they get a gears are stuck card, they have to put one of the robots back.  The student with the most robots at the end wins the game!


Available for purchase in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.