Oh for the Love of Target Brand Kleenex Boxes!

I have been using Kleenex boxes frequently in following directions activities this fall.  I've been thinking about doing a post on this but hesitated becuase most of my boxes were purchased months ago.  I almost did since there are many things about decorating Kleenex boxes on Pinterest, but my latest find takes away all denial for the need for this post!   Yesterday I was in target and found the holiday edition to my following directions activities, and conclusive proof Target is continuing to provide us Kleenex boxes for speech therapy.

These of course are all still full of Kleenex.  I never thought I'd hope for some seriously runny noses!

 I have been using a group of four farm animal boxes that I picked up last spring.  I have a cow, pig, chick and sheep.  This fall I added an owl, so cute animal boxes seem to be a theme at Target.

I couldn't quite get all four boxes in a picture without major florescent bulb glare in the speech room, but you can see how cute they are!

Even the butts are cute.

My kids were excited to see a new edition to our animal family at the end of October.

Alright, alright.  You didn't come here to see cartoon animal butts, cute as they may be.  So on to the therapy we go.

I use these animals for basic following directions tasks.  I have most frequently been using my Attribute Apples set as my objects to work with directions.  For some directions it gives the kids the feeling of feeding the animals which they love.  I won the Attribute Apples in a giveaway from Speech Room News over the summer, and I love them.

My kids have been working on 1-2 step directions.   They give a green apple to the pig and a green apple to the sheep or put a wormy apple in front of the owl and a red apple in the cow.  We put apples between animals, behind them, put them on top, put them in, take them out and more.  The attributes of the apples give another optional level to the directions which some of my students really need.  I usually use 2-3 animals at a time and rotate out which ones we're using to vary the task a little.

Overall, the activity is so simple and doesn't take much planning.  I don't have cards on my table and I'm not reading things.  My students really love interacting with the different animals.  The ultimate favorite is "helping" the teacher dump out all the accumulated items inside each box at the end of the session.  I'm feeling a little nervous-excited to see what happens when Santa hits the table!  I probably should start looking for some toy cookies....

 Once you take the plastic out the holes are the perfect size for little hands to reach in and take things out!

One note, is that my students with poor impulse control can be a little rough with the animals.  The poor piggy box has even been spit in.  My school was been out of laminate for a while and just got more this past week.  I bought extra owl boxes to experiment with dissection, lamination, and reassembly.  I'm a little unsure of how I would reattach everything with the plastic - any suggestions?

Also - in shopping for boxes of your one, one thing I noticed in my quest for experimental owls, was that I couldn't find them at the Super Target store near me, and only at the smaller one.  I don't know if it's because they already sold out there, or if they carry them at all since I didn't even see a spot on the shelf.