Dr. Seuss DIY Activity

 New game DIY idea!  It has all of my favorite attributes of good speech games: cheap, easy, flexible and has cute pictures.  Really, what else are we looking for?

When I went to Target today, I was distracted by the dollar spot (as usual).  I found the cutest Dr. Seuss border.  Since one of my students with an ASD would probably spend most of the therapy session staring at the bulletin board (or tearing it down in excitement), using it as intended isn't a realistic plan for me.  My next idea was to cut it up and make a game out of it. 

 

Next I laminated all of the pieces and cut them out (again). 

I like fairly small edges on my lamination so I typically send my cards through the laminator again to reseal the edges.  It's also a great trick if after some student loving your edges open back up.  Pop it through and you're good to go.  I do this all the time and my laminator is fine.  Since the laminating sheet is stuck to your card, the plastic won't wrap around the wheel and destroy your laminator.  That's what happens when you put a page in backwards or cut the pouch first.  I killed one laminator that way and am not ever planning on repeating that activity.

I cut of 3 individual borders in the pack for 24 cards.

Finally, you have cards with cute Dr. Seuss pictures on one side and blank on the back.  I am planning on using these by writing on the backs with dry erase markers. 

I have so many ideas about how to use these cards:

1. Points games - write numbers 0-5 on the backs and see who ends up with the most points at the end of the session

2. Gotcha games - student collect as many Dr. Seuss cards as they can but if they get one with a star (sad face ect) on the back they don't get a card that turn and see who can get the most.

3. Articulation Word practice

4. Language activities with plurals and past tense verbs

5. Reusable reinforcer - students collect 5 or so pictures and then get to play a game or pick something from the prize box

6. Behavior visual, students start with three pictures and can earn and lose pictures throughout the session depending on their ability to follow rules

Dry erase markers make the possibilities are endless!  

If you don't want endless possibilities use a sharpie on a few games - you get enough border in one pack for 80 cards and still have only spent a dollar.

Of course the secondary thrill is in having plenty of Dr. Seuss cards left over to give to my one student as motivators/stims. 

How would you use these cards?

This is one of my favorite back to school finds.  Has anyone else found anything they're particularly excited about?

Favorite Games Linky Party!

Jenna from Speech Room News is having a Linky Party for favorite speech therapy games.  I've probably mentioned my top few on my blog before, but now might be the time to get them in one place.

My number one game is:  Race to the Roof

As much as I love my therapy card collection, and covet many additions, I also enjoy doing games that require no additional props. In this game students move through the house and there are entertaining pictures throughout.  The rooms in the house are not attached to the board so the house changes and it can be a different game every time.  If students roll a 1 on the dice they get to pick a special card and have to find the object in the house.

I work on so many therapy targets with this one:
Articulation: There are a huge number of S and R things in the pictures in the house, meaning that I can have sentence level articulation students describe the room they land on or for word level they can find a word in their room to practice.

Fluency & Voice: My fluency and voice kiddos can label objects and describe pictures using good fluency and voice strategies.

Language:  The best part ever!  I love this game for my 1st and 2nd grade language students.  We talk about what's going on in the house.  I get so much language, and even my most uncooperative friends work with me since, from their perspective, all we're doing is playing a game today.  I love sneaking the therapy part in, and that's one of those things that tends to get harder with older students and more complex goals.

*I pictured the new and current version of the game because of how much I want it.  Currently, I have the older version, which I liberated from my parents pile of games that my sister and I had as kids.  I you are going to invest in this one, get the new one.  As we all know, updated pictures are everything.  Someday I will find this in a thrift store or a garage sale, and there *might* be dancing.

Game number two: Feed the Kitty

I know I mentioned this game in my Games, Games, Games post where I discussed easily portable games so I'll be brief about the good stuff.  Super quick turns with a dice roll to minimize game time and maximize therapy time.  My kiddos love it.  I've used it in K through 6th grades, in fact I used it in ESY services today!

This was the hardest to pick.  I have so many games that I love to do with my students that I could have put any of 5 or 6 games here.  Lower to upper elementary is such a wide range of ages and interests that it's tricky to choose! So I went with one that is a standard in my therapy room and that I've used with a variety of grade levels.

Game number three: Cariboo

I'll admit I am not particularly in love with this one.  I just really don't get it, but it is like magic for my students.  They love it, they ask for it, some would play it every day if I let them.  They loved it so much, I made my own cards.  Check out the link for my previous post for my musings on the game and the cards.  The name of the game links to amazon, where the actually have copies in various condition for under $20 if you're still looking for one.

Final note on games for today:
I'm a little bit of a nerd, and I hate to get doubles of things at thrift stores and garage sales, especially since they are non-refundable, so I do have a complete game list I can take with me.  Check it out in Google Docs here.

Flying for Cause and Effect

Cause and effect is one of those skills that many of my students have a lot of trouble understanding.  Cause and effect is so important for cognitive organization and to help students understand concepts that are happening in their classrooms.  I want to continue working on this, and have a variety of stimulus activities to work on with different students. Thus I needed more materials! We always need more materials.  How does that commercial go again? "We want more, we want more!"

Anyway I broke the cause and effect into two sections.  The first takes out the actual vocabulary "cause and effect" and uses the phrases "what would happen if?" and "what will happen next?"  The idea behind this is to get students to start thinking about how different events are related.  Next there are cards that ask students to identify possible causes and effects.  Both multiple choice and open answer cards are provided.  A cause/effect cue sheet is included!  Check it out on TPT!

Both types of predicting outcomes cards.

"Gotcha" or game cards are provided for the open ended response cards for both levels of difficulty.

Two kinds of cause and effect cards.  Both cause/effect prompts are included in each format.

I also made a flying in the clouds game to go with this activity.  Students roll a dice and go to the next biggest number.  If they land on an airplane space, they follow the dotted line to either go ahead or backward.

If you're interested make sure to check this one out on TPT! 

Also make sure to like my Facebook page.  As of this moment, we're 21 likes until a flash freebie!  Like me and comment below to vote for what it should be!

Spot It

In my portable games post, I mentioned that Spot It was in my Amazon cart.  Well it's here and I'm loving it.  I bought both the standard version and the junior version. I've been doing lite therapy sessions for my older students since state testing started this week and I want to continue routines but not add stress.  (in a related story, due to missed sessions for testing, as of this moment I'm caught up on MA billing and am feeling very accomplished (and starting to search for other signs of the apocalypse).

I played the standard version with a mixed R and S articulation group.  I varied game rules a little presented two cards to the group of 3 students.  The first person to spot the similarity gets a point, and then I picked a student or two to practice a word with their speech sounds in it.  We didn't have a single turn where there wasn't an S or and R involved.  There are also plenty of L sounds for those kids too!  I love the variety of pictures and it's always a bonus to be able to use the same materials in my mixed artic groups.  It was a really fun session where I get kids practice their sounds and they feel like they are just playing a game.   They also got points, and no matter how arbitrary, we all know that points are VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS and much loved.

I did the junior version with my DCD second and third graders, and as a game reward for one of my lower LD groups.  They worked on finding the differences (the concepts same/different), labeling the animals (we didn't have them all), and big/small (also bigger/smaller) since the item sizes vary so much.  With these kids we took turns finding the difference, since one was able to find it right away, and the other was either taking more time or being his contrary self... (Either way he had to do the work.)  I see myself adding over and under to our concepts when using this in the future.

Spot It is a super fun and easy activity.  I highly recommend these if you don't already have them.  As a bonus, they meet the criteria for small and portable and if you travel it will be a great lightweight addition to your bag.

Games, Games, Games

This is the first year I've not had to travel from one school to another.  As a result, many of my favorite games are small and portable.  I thought I'd post about some of my favorites since I know many of you are still traveling and and need to consider weight limits!

Lunch box games by Fundex are loads of fun.  They have simple rules, and typical turns go quickly because they don't involve strategic thinking.  The games are stored in small tins, but most are comprised of a card deck that can be removed from the tin and made smaller, or the plastic bit can be removed from the tin and multiple things can be on the same tin.

There are more lunchbox games than these, but this is what I have.  My students love playing these.

You can easily remove the plastic and have a standard card deck to play and travel with.

Next up is a Cranium Bingo game - Bingo Bunch.  I have 2 complete sets that fit into a sandwich sized plastic baggie.  The game itself is great as a reinforcer for students since they can turn over bingo cards on their turns, and other students turns if they are paying attention/being respectful.  In a 25 minute therapy session, we usually play for blackout.  Additionally, it can be used to compare and contrast the difference kinds of people.

Bingo cards are arranged in a 4x4 grid and turned over when gotten.  This way you don't have to manage locations of bingo chips.

One thing I caution with this game is that you might want to shellac the dice since the little faces and bodies have a tendency to wear off over time.  If you have fidgety kids who like to rub and handle the dice, you'll want to confiscate them after each turn.  

If students roll a star on the dice then they just have to match either the head or the body.

 

The dice are a great way to call bingo points - I don't do a lot of bingo because it can be difficult to manage calling.  This is a great way to do it, and that way my kids get to play a game they love.

The last game is a new thrift store find, Feed the Kitty.  Once you have the game, you can fit the bowl, mice and dice into a baggie and leave the box behind.  Kids get 6-8 mice to start with and the point of the game is to get rid of them.  They roll two dice on their turns and then determine if they put one in the food bowl, take one out, do nothing or give one the the person on their left.  I've used it to reinforce Left and Right with some students, and you can easily switch the left rule, to pass right for different sessions.

The bowl can hold all the mice and the dice.  It's about 1/2 the size of the inside of the box.

Some of my students don't like the idea of feeding mice to the cat, and others do it gleefully, so some groups have mice and others have mouse-shaped cat treats.

Spot It is on it's way to me from Amazon right now and I've played it before so I know it's a great portable game.  There are lots of educational variations of that game too!

What are your favorite traveling games?

Frog Game Find!

I was browsing the Target game sales over the holidays and found a great new game to use in therapy!  The best part is that it was only $5.  It's also available on Amazon, but it's a little more expensive there, so I'd check the Target store first (and its not up on Target.com). 

The basic premise that you jump the frogs and try to get them to land on the lily pads.  The blue part at the bottom is work 10 points and the point totals increase to 50 in the flower at the top.  It has been so much fun to use!  My kids love jumping the frogs, and absolutely anything to do with getting points.  It's such a simple game, and I can work in an element of suspense by making my students wait for all the frogs to jump to count their points.  There are four colors of frogs so up to four can play!

As a note of warning you may get a frog in your hair and several on the floor, but it seems to add to the fun.  

My little bonus is working on other needs areas in therapy:
Fine motor: pushing down to jump frogs and trying to aim them.
Basic math: this really is only motivating for some of my kids when trying to find out how many points they have.

One great thing about this game is the challenge to jumping the frogs means that kids want to play it more than 1-2 times before they want to find out whats next.  I have lots of games and stuff to do for students but my few who want constant NEW games make things challenging.

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?

Pinterest Inspired Legos Game

I saw this idea on Pinterest and after 20 minutes or so of trying was unable to find the original link.  I loved this idea so much that I just had to make one for myself.  I love Legos, my students love Legos and who couldn't love a Lego game?

The picture on Pinterest didn't come with rules, so here are the rules that I've made up:
Every student starts with a Lego person.  The roll a dice (either a standard 1-6 dice and a 1-3 Super Duper dice work great) and see how many Legos they can collect as they move through the game board.  Once every student finishes the game, or we run out of time, they count to see who has the most Legos to see who wins the game!

My students have been having so much fun with this one!  They love seeing how tall their Lego towers can get and using the Lego people as game pieces.  I love it because it's a great way to work in some basic math skills (you had two Legos and picked three, how many do you have now?) and fine motor skills of (connecting and separating Legos) into what we are doing.   An added bonus is that it's been loved by 1st through 6th grade students, allowing me to leave the same activity on my table all day long.

Believe it or not the hardest part of getting this game together was convincing my mother to part with a small amount of my childhood Legos!  I have three Lego people, and 35 blocks (4x2 bumps on top) for stacking.  I have yet to run out even in groups of three.

The Google Doc is Here! Comment if you grab it.

Lakeshore Find

At the beginning of May I won a lovely gift card during Teacher Appreciation.  More recently, I made it to Lakeshore Learning to spend it.  After picking up some laminating sheets, I had 30 left to spend.  In the clearance pile at the front of the store, I found 2 games on sale for 14.95 each!  As it's the end of the year and I've been trying to wrap up things that we've already been doing and I keep missing kids, just last week I was able to play both games to see what they were really like! 

I can't find them online as they are being discontinued - so if you want them - check a Lakeshore store near you - soon!

Adjective Silly Circus

Adjective Silly Circus is a Mad Libs Style game where kids go around a game board they collect adjectives to fill one of 8 story cards.  There are adjectives around the game boards to choose from or kids can pick their own adjectives.  I played it with one group and noticed a few things.

1) Kids need to be readers to be successful.  I played it with a fourth grade group of several different reading levels, and my lowest one really had a hard time getting into the game while others were having fun.  I helped with all reading tasks, but he was too frustrated by the reading to get into the silly adjectives.

2) This should be a way to practice adjectives but this isn't an introduction.  I have a group of four kids who were combined later in the year to accommodate a move in who can't be seen in a group.  Two of them have done a lot of work on adjectives and really thought about their choices and seemed to be using their skills.  The other two have been introduced to adjectives but we haven't delved deeper.  These two really struggled with the concepts and didn't get into it as much.

Overall this game is a great way to practice adjective skills and show how a story can change when you add adjectives - especially if you read the card first skipping over all the blank spots.

Verb Volcano

Very volcano is game that works on verb tense and verb agreement within a sentences. 

I tried this game with a group of third grade girls (who I didn't know were coming, so I just grabbed the game to try it).  We have done no work on verbs in my room, so these were new language concepts in this environment.  I read the cards saying "blank" omitting the verb, and read the sentence 3 more times inserting each choice.  The students then selected their guess.  I had the student who's turn it was pick first, and then I had the other two agree or disagree with the answer.  The girls had fun and really were thinking about their responses.  As we haven't worked on verb skills, I was surprised by what they knew and didn't know.

One thing I really appreciated, was that all the cards were focused on a Volcano Explorer theme, so it would be easy to use along with a explorer's or nature unit from the classroom.

I could really see using this games in two different ways:
1) As a check to see what verb tenses my kids know and don't know and what they need to work on.
2) As a way to practice verb tenses that we are working on.  It would be relatively easy to sort on the four main verb tenses shown in the game: present, third person singular, present progressive and past tense and focus those kind of cards with a group.

I would recommend both games, but can see my self using Verb Volcano more often.  If you developed a list of adjectives containing target sounds - the Adjective Silly Circus Game could be a fun way to work on reading in Articulation Therapy.


**these are games I own and Lakeshore Learning has not asked me to review them and I am not being compensated in anyway.

New Find- Marvel Heroes Game

I found Heroes Unite Marvel Lunchbox Game game a few weeks ago at Joann Fabrics in their new teacher/kids department.  It has been an instant hit!  I believe it was 11.99 there, but with a 50% off coupon it's comparable to the amazon price - with immediate gratification! (The link will take you to amazon). 

I've always been a fan of the Lunchbox games by Fundex (if you ever see the out-of-print Wormy Apples, get it!  It's my favorite...  Cookin' Cookies is also great.  Not to mention the fact that the spoons pick up picture cards!)  Anyway, Lunchbox games are great because of their small size and easy portability.  This is the first year I've not been split between three schools, and I'm still in two.  These games are small and will easily fit into the single drawer you've commandeered or your travel bag with out adding a lot of extra weight.

I've used this with kids in first through eight grade - even one of my least participatory EBD kids is getting into it!  (Girls, including myself, also love it!)

The premise of the game is fairly simple.  Each student gets one of each super hero (Spiderman, Captain American and the Hulk).   Three villains are placed in the middle of the table.  They have 1-3 superheros on the bottom that are needed to defeat the villains.  On their turn they roll the dice and use the dice + their cards to beat a villain.  Once they use a card it's removed.  The person who defeats the most villans at the end is the winner.   (one of my groups wants to count who needed to use the most superheroes to determine the winner by counting the bottom of the villain cards).

The deck also comes with cards such as double punch, and wilds which I eliminated from my set.  I was worried about all the "not fair" complaints for one kid getting and not others.  It also decreased the game explanation

I also found some Marvel stickers at Michael's for a dollar so my kids are immersed in super-heroes and loving it!

Dice Dice and more Dice!

Yesterday was a dice-filled day.  I was playing a newly created dice game (getting things together for you - stay tuned for my next post!) and my children were spending an unfortunate amount of time chasing dice around my office.   I found a great dice idea on pinterest and was hopefully to be able to implement something.  After fruitless searching at several stores I was still unable to find small snack containers to put the dice, and had no idea where any of the little toy machines were for the plastic bubbles.  The last stop of the night was the Dollar Tree.   I take a quick browse through the toy department and low and behold - there are the giant dice I've always wanted.  They even had six colors.  Feeling slightly pragmatic I limited myself to four - on the idea that I'd use one color at a time.  Since chipper chat and other Super Duper activities have long since taught me that childern + foam dice = limited life span.

2.5 inch cubes

I can't guarantee that a Dollar Tree near you will have such dice, but they typically carry similar items so it would be worth a shot to check!

I finally have giant dice and am so happy!  One of the other SLPs brought a big wooden dice back from a weekend trip and I have been jealous.  Her giant dice may be fun, but I'm also excited that mine will be quiet!

An as excited as I was about my big dice, I was feeling depressed about my lack of ability to contain the little ones.  And there - right behind the Cash Register it was.  A machine with Zombies in little plastic bubbles.  Not only are dice contained, I've got lots of little Zombies to attach to a friends present.  I ultimately want a fourth dice bubble, but I ran out of quarters for that trip. 

The dice slip and slide on the round inside of the container and it's actually kind of fun to shake them!