I have said this a million times and I will say it again. I LOVE HALLOWEEN! Okay, I love Autumn. I think it is my favorite season of all (well, that and Spring. Hmm… Summer is great too for obvious reasons)! I love seeing little dressed up in costume. I remember trick or treating fondly. Plus, I just love the change in colors. Halloween therapy week is always so much fun. The kids are excited and even the most resistant child to conversation typically becomes more of a social butterfly. I mean, who wouldn’t when you can talk costumes, favorite candy (chocolate!), and Halloween parties or community events. This week, I will be pulling out or continue to use the following materials to engage the kids in building their skills in articulation, language, and conversation.
This week I pulled out my Map, Mash, & Mark: Halloween Conversation Mats. My students love the Frankenstein Mash Mat the best. The pumpkin carving was second favorite because it elicited A LOT of conversation about how they like to cut their pumpkins, what they do with the seeds, and what they put inside the pumpkin for light (candle, LED light, or glow stick).
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| Map, Mash, & Mark: Halloween Conversational Exchange |
The Map, Mash, & Mark sets provides students with conversation flow maps to determine who their audience is, what they may have in common to discuss, map out a possible conversation, and determine if their responses and continue topic maintenance. All charts, conversation suggestions, and mats are provided in color and in low ink black and white (which is perfect to take home and practice conversations with parents, siblings, and friends). I typically use the Mash mats in therapy because it keeps hands busy with dough and doesn’t result in ink all over my table or space (I tend to always get the daubers that like to leak or else everyone who steps into my speech space simply does not know their own strength).
I used my new NO PREP SPOOKTACULAR pack last week over and over again. The kids loved using crayons to color in the potion bottles, cauldrons, and coffins. In fact, using the crayons and color pencils were just as much a win as using the dauber bottles typically are. Plus, once they finished working on their targeted articulation or language goal, they were able to color in the cute graphics. All that was needed was the necessary pages, dice, or a paperclip. It included a dice game, double dice game, and spinners game. I do not like hauling dice around with me. I tend to forget where I place them. So, I used my tablet and an app called Make Dice Lite. The kids liked seeing who could complete all 12 articulation or language tasks first. The pack consists of 106 pages and targets the following sounds in all word positions: k, g, f, v, s, s-blends, z, l, l-blends, ch, sh, th, r, r-blends, and rl words. The language section targets: verbs, pronouns, category, function, antonyms, synonyms, and homonyms.
To wrap up my week, I will also be using these SPOOKTACULAR NEW STORIES that I blogged about earlier this week with classes that I have not yet used them with. I also will continue to use these 5 FREE HALLOWEEN APPS that I blogged about earlier this week over at Speech Spotlight.
What will you be doing in speech this week? Do you know of any great new books? Do you have any favorite Halloween therapy apps? If so, please share.
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