Asking and Answering Questions Cupcakes

I'm a big fan of using visuals with my students, it lets them start to feel independent and start to figure out things on their own.  There are so many great answering questions units with charts out there,  but not as many for asking questions.  This unit has identical but opposite charts for asking and answering questions to help students make connections between the two.

Asking questions

-          Question word chart formatted from answers to questions

-          How many questions card

-          Keep track of how many questions a student can ask about a topic using dry erase markers or tokens

-          4 and 6 Star Options so you can adjust the level of difficulty

-          Simple sentences for students to ask questions about

-          Some of the sentences might not be true for you, A blank sheet is included so you can add and remove as you need to!

Answering Questions

-          Question word chart formatted from questions to answers

-          Questions for students to answer

-          105 question cards!

Both asking questions and answering questions cards are shown.

Check it out on TPT!

Amelia Bedelia

I have been neglecting my blog lately with all the business that goes with the end of the school year.  I am looking forward to summer, but will be working with a few kids for ESY.  I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but everything else seems to have gotten in the way.  If you follow my blog at all, you probably know that I LOVE using books in therapy, and I also love sharing my favorites with you.  This year, I've been working on getting my collection organized by target language skill to help me plan lessons based on IEP goals.

These are just some of the books I have in the series.  There are tons of them!  You'll have to pick which ones are most practical for the skills you are trying to teach.

 Amelia Bedelia books are some of my favorites for working with multiple meaning words and idioms.  They are a great way to explore your students thinking when you start working on them.  I've had students who recognize that she's doing silly things, but can figure out the right thing to do.  Other students insist that she is doing exactly what is asked, and even though they can identify that some of the things are silly, they can't figure out why other people would get mad a her.  Still more kids can't define the words or idioms and realize that it's funny and why.  I like this peek into my students thinking because it helps me identify where I need to start teaching idioms and multiple meaning words.  Does my student just need to memorize the meanings and practice the words?  Or do we need to add the step of critical thinking to help the student understand that not everything is literal.

When first reading the books, I ask some of the following questions:
Is Amelia Bedelia following directions? Why or why not?
What else could she do when given that direction?
Does that make sense?
What would you do?
Is that funny?
Why is that funny?
Does that seem like something you should do?
Can you think of something that would make more sense?

After we've already done one book, I have students keep track of the words/phrases that Amelia Bedelia is getting wrong.  Depending on the level, my students keep their own list or we keep a list as a group.  Because many of the books were written years and years ago, I will chose some of the words to focus on for practice based on current use of words and practicality in their lives.

I have found that individual books in the series focus more on idioms and others on multiple meaning words.

The original Amelia Bedelia focuses more on multiple meaning words.

The book, Amelia Bedelia Bakes off has a lot baking related idioms, along with some multiple meaning words.

I do the Amelia Bedelia books with my 4th through 6th graders this year.  The reading level makes it easy to access for even my struggling readers.  There are even lower levels than the traditional books that have been written more recently.  These feature Amelia Bedelia as a kid.  I'm planning on doing these with one of my students who is going into 3rd grade next year.

Do you use these books in therapy?  What do you do?

National Geographic Easy Readers

I'm always looking for ways to connect my classroom to things that are going on in the general education classroom.   As every speech therapist knows, this can be extremely challenging - multiple grade levels, multiple needs/IEP goals, and different teachers doing different things at the same time within the same grade.   My school is also an IB world school, so there are themed units that build on each other from grade to grade as the kids progress through elementary school.

My latest find for connecting to the curriculum is National Geographic Easy Reader books.  I've been using the animal books to get the big ideas of habitat, predator and prey across to my second graders for the past few weeks.  There are also other non-fiction titles that would connect well to other units.  I've been using the books with my second graders, and lower third graders.  I don't have any first graders right now, but would also use the books with that grade level.

I love these books.  My kids are very interested in the different animal pictures (and they are great ones) and learning about non-fiction in general.  I also can get some great non-fiction comprehension questions as well as practice working on inference skills throughout the books.  One of my biggest inference areas is when the author talks about what certain animals like, we make inferences about what they don't like.  The books also have great vocabulary for targeted areas.  My second graders are learning about animals right now and some of their key words are habitat, predator and prey.  The key vocabulary words are highlighted in the text with a pop out word + definition, and then reviewed at the end of the book.  I really like this, since as we all know, our students need so many more times hearing and seeing a word to learn it. 

I've found that both levels 1 and 2 are great for single speech session lessons, while level 3 books usually take 2 days with some review time on the second day.  I also don't read the books word for word, after a few trips through, I'm paraphrasing.  I skip over some parts and spend lots of extra time on other parts.

Summer Sun Negation Unit

It is now the 5th, and May 3 in Minnesota and it involved Snow, Rain and Sleet and Rain again in that order.  So clearly I had to take the time to finish and blog about my negation unit with summer fun pictures!   I was going to post this on Friday, but internet shenanigans and being sick means it has taken until Sunday to get it done.

This one comes from having discovered that several of my kids don't understand using negation, and needing more materials!  This huge unit has a total of 358 therapy cards, plus additional blank cards so you can add your own sentences.  Check it out in my TPT store.

This unit has both negative words and negative contractions.  Both units have two kinds of cue cards to use when working on the the unit.  An explanation of negatives and a negative word cue sheet.

The Negative words part of the unit has 2 Levels, and there are 40 therapy cards at each level.
Level One: Multiple Choice fill in the blank sentences
Level Two: Fill in the blank sentences (pictured)

Game cards are provided too!

You can start working on negative contractions by playing a match game!

The negative contractions included throughout this unit are:

Can’t, Won’t, Don’t, Doesn’t, Haven’t, Hasn’t, Isn’t, Couldn’t, Wouldn’t, Aren’t, Didn’t, Wasn’t, Weren’t,  Shouldn’t, Hadn’t

The Negative Contractions in sentences part of the unit also has 2 Levels, and there are 80 therapy cards at each level.
Level One: Multiple Choice fill in the blank sentences (pictured)
Level Two: Fill in the blank sentences

There is also an expressive language section for the negation unit!  Students are asked to tell about something they don't/can't/won't (ect) do.  Contractions included in this part of the unit are:

Don’t (8), Can’t (8), *Aren’t [am not] (8), Didn’t (8) Won’t (8), Hasn’t (4) Doesn’t (4), Haven’t (8), Isn’t (8), Shouldn’t (8), Couldn’t (8) and Wouldn’t (8)

*some of the responses to the Aren’t questions go to “I am not” and it is noted on the cards with a hint

 

Game cards are also included for the sentence creation cards.

At the end of everything, I made a 2 page board game you can print and use with your students while they are working on all levels of negatives!

So if this looks like something you can use - head over to TPT and check it out!

More on Kleenex Boxes

Many of you probably saw this post about the cute little kleenex boxes that target has and how I use them for following directions with manipulative activities.  I am happy to report that the cute little farm animal boxes are back!  I got a new piggy since mine has been so horribly abused and a new cute little rabbit box!  (I didn't see the sheep this time around, but the cow and chick were there)

So if you wanted them you need to follow the directions:
 go forth
find a big red bulls-eye
look for paper products
select cute animal boxes
blow your nose vigorously, and frequently
and have fun!

If I could I would invite you over to catch my spring cold or to my parents since my mom has the flu... but both kind of suck so hopefully your students can get through the kleenex fast enough for your taste!

Popsicle Pronouns

I've worked on pronouns with some of my students for most of the school year.  Some of them have done a great job and are using and understanding pronouns.  However, some of my students, notably the ones on the autism spectrum, can tell me that she goes with girls and he with boys and replace words in sentences, but can't identify what pronouns mean when they find them.  I do as picture book lesson, come across a pronoun, and they can't figure out who it is referring to.  This activity is designed to start bridging the gap between knowing about pronouns and applying that knowledge.

I picked popsicles to have a fun summer theme, but am feeling dismayed by the 7 inches of snow we got on Friday...  Happy April in Minnesota.  So fun summer theme for those of you who are there, and lots of wistful thinking for those of us who aren't. 

Subjective, Obective and Possessive Pronouns are all included.
Subjective: He, She, They, We, It, I, You
Objective:  Her, Him, Them, It, Us, Me, You
Possessive: His, Her, Hers, Its, Theirs, Their, Our, Ours, Yours, Your, Mine, My

Check it out in my TPT store!

Cue Cards for switching pronouns and nouns are included.

The cover sheet for each unit has an optional "cover card" for your card decks to make organization and finding things later much easier.  The types of pronouns are also color coded for easy sorting for when they get mixed up. (We all know it's going to happen at some point!)

There are 7 sentences and questions for each pronoun, and a game card on each sheet.

Grab it over on TPT!

The winner has been picked!  Looking for Carly who left the comment: I love this idea! Pronouns seem to be a challenge for my students right now and this looks like it has an approach that may help!  Email me at eahaider84@gmail.com or message me on facebook!

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.