Using Quizlet for Learning at Home

Quizlet is a website that allows students and teachers to create study materials that they can use to reinforce vocabulary or classroom content through flash cards, games, and activities. I have created a few sets of vocabulary cards for my students...you can access them here:

Synonyms Set 1

Irregular Verbs Set 1

Antonyms Set 1

Idioms Set 1

Verb Tense Sorting

Here is a game that you can download and print to practice irregular past and present verb tenses.  Have fun!

Verb Tense Sorting Activity

Math Language

I just found this great website that students, teachers and parents can use to access lots of "virtual" math manipulatives. Math is full of language concepts! Words like before, after, below, around, more than, less than...and don't forget those math word problems!

The website has items arranged by grade level (preK through 4). The "help" button at the bottom of the screen gives a good explanation of how to use the tools. There are a couple of ways that I can see this as a fun teaching/practice tool for language...

 Under the PreK to grade 1 "manipulatives" tab, click on Bears in a Boat. Click and drag the boat onto the work and have your child follow your directions to put bears into the boat. Use position words, "Put a purple bear in front of (next to, behind) a red bear;" or time concepts, "Put a red bear in the boat after/before you put a blue bear in." You could practice following directions with quantity concepts such as, "Make all but one of the bears in the boat yellow;" or "Make some of the bears in the boat green."

Under the manipulatives tab, choose calendar.  Help your child fill in the calendar for the month, clicking and dragging the numbers, days of the week and name of the month.  Talk about the day that is after Monday, or the week after Valentine's day.  Use words like before, after, next, last, first.  Write in special days or appointments with the text tool and then print the calendar for your fridge.  Try some real-life word problems such as, "We are going to the dentist on the last Friday of the month.  How many days until we go to the dentist?"

There are many more ways to use these tools...explore and have fun!

CLICK HERE for the website.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here is a Valentine's Day game for students who need to practice spoken following directions. Just click on the  PowerPoint to begin.

Click Clack Moo

Some of my second grade friends are reading this story in class next week.  To listen to and watch this story read aloud click here.  Then discuss your child's answers to these questions:

What was the problem that the cows wanted to solve?
How did they attempt to solve their problem?
How do you know that this story is fictional (not a true story)?
Duck helped to solve the problem.  Do you think the farmer was happy about the solution?  Explain your answer.
Do you have a pet, or know someone who does?  What do you think that pet would say if it could type?
Can you tell the story in your own words?

Connective Words Clean Up

Here is a game that I created to help my older students (grades 4-6) improve their use of connective words in speaking and writing.  The leaf cards have phrases/words that are used to connect thoughts in complex sentences.  Students have to "clean up" by sorting the cards into the bag they belong in according to the function they perform.  For example, the phrase "such as" would belong in the "illustrating" bag, because we use that phrase when we want to illustrate or give examples.  As the students become familiar with the phrases/words and their functions, we will practice formulating sentences with them.

Halloween Antonyms

Today, some of my students used this game to work on learning antonyms pairs.  One little guy requested that I put it on the blog so he could play at home, so here it is! (I also included a print version in case that works better for you).

Halloween Antonyms (print version)
Halloween Antonyms (to play on the computer)

How I became a Pirate!

This week I am using the book, How I became a Pirate, in some of my language groups.  It's a fun book to read, and the children really enjoyed joining in and pretending to be part of Braid Beard's crew!  Here are some links to activities that go along with the book so you can have a little more fun at home  :-)

Activity Pack
Irregular Past Tense Verbs and Antonyms Practice

Pirates!

This month our theme is Pirates and Other Characters.  Here are two games to print or play on the computer with our Pirate theme.  Start with a pile of pennies, or other small items (cheerios, fish crackers...) to represent "coins".  As players complete the directions on the cards, they collect coins (in the vocabulary game they get one coin for each direction they follow).  If a player gets a card that says "Boom!", they have to put all of their coins back.

Pirate Articulation
Pirate Vocabulary

October Home Practice

Here are the October home practice sheets to download and print.  I also included a board game for this month.  Our theme is pirates and other characters.

Grade 1 language home practice
Grade 2 language home practice
October board game for articulation practice

September Home Practice

I'm going to try something a little different with home practice this year.  I am sending home a "Home Practice Log" for parents to initial, indicating that they practiced with their child 5 times during the week.  Home practice sessions should not take a lot of time...5-10 minutes per day, and all the work should be done out loud (nothing needs to be written--except for a drawing sometimes).  All the children should have received a speech folder to keep in their backpacks.  This folder has the Home Practice Log and will have a copy of the homework page for the month.  The language homework pages (grades 1 and 2) have a list of activities--parents will choose 2 to practice each week.  Please contact me if you have any questions!!

Click here for Phonological Awareness home practice activities for September
Click here for grade 1 Language home practice activities for September
Click here for grade 2 Language home practice activities for September
Click here for Articulation home practice activities
Click here for the September board game for articulation practice

Bugs that Boogie!

Here's a language activity for this week.  Watch this video for the book "Bugtown Boogie" and then encourage your child to discuss his answers to these questions (taken from the website.)

1. What does it mean to “boogie?”
2. What are some of the bugs you recognize enjoying the Bugtown Boogie? What sounds do some of those bugs make?
3. Do you think any of the bugs noticed the boy watching the festivities? 
4. What happens to make the music halt and each and every bug go silent?
5. How does the Queen Bee react?
6. How do the bugs know when it is time for the party to end?

For articulation practice, after listening to Bugtown Boogie, print out this "Connect the Dots" page.  Have your child use his word list to practice his sound, and after he says 10 good productions he can connect two dots.  Encourage him to continue practicing his words and connecting dots until his picture is finished.

Imagination!

Have you seen this video?  It's about a 9 year old boy in Los Angeles, who created his own arcade out of used cardboard boxes.  It is amazing!

Here's the challenge...

Our first theme when we get back to school in September is "At the Fair."  Now, if you've ever been to a fair, you know that there are lots of games like the ones Caine created.  Your summer homework is to create a game (it doesn't have to be as big as Caine's games) and be able to explain how you made it, and how to play it.  If it's small enough, you can even bring it to school and we can use it in our speech group!

I can't wait to see what you create!

Listening Comprehension--The Rainbow Fish

Here is an activity to practice the skills of listening comprehension and answering questions.  Click here for a link to the Storyline Online website, which is a website that contains videos of famous actors reading  children's stories.  Then at the top of the list, click on The Rainbow Fish, read by Ernest Borgnine.  After listening to the story, click on the "Related Activities" button and have your child try to answer the questions about the story, or to retell the story.  If necessary, you can go back to the story and replay parts to help your child remember what happened.  Another technique you can use to help your child answer the questions is to give him/her choices of answers.  For example, if your child has trouble answering what was special about the Rainbow Fish, say, "Was the Rainbow Fish special because he had shiny glittering scales, or because he was very strong?"

Listening to stories and answering questions such as these are important skills that children need to have in school.  Practicing activities like these at home will help your child to become a better listener, and to improve his/her communication skills.

Story Time

Visiting the library for story time offers great opportunities for improving your child's communication skills over the summer--listening, peer interaction, following directions, answering questions, and vocabulary.  There are story times for children of all ages and books are chosen to be developmentally appropriate--there is usually a craft available, too.  Click on the link here to check out the website for times and dates.

Did you say Pirates?

If you are looking for a fun way to practice following directions and understanding concept words, you might want to try my Gold Giveaway PIRATE game.  It's best if played with more than 3 players (although it will work with 2).  I have included a printable version and a PowerPoint version.  The links are below...

Gold Giveaway (PowerPoint)
Gold Giveaway (printable version)

I've also added another version of The Krabby Patty game on the My Games page.  You can use it as a motivator and to keep your child's interest in articulation practice (I hope!).

Have a wonderful weekend!

SpongeBob goes to Speech

We sure plunged into summer this week!  I hope you were able to find a cool spot to beat the heat.

My two sons were watching SpongeBob the other day, and I thought of a game that you might like.  You can print it and play it at home to practice several different skills such as articulation, vocabulary (synonyms/antonyms), and grammar (plural and verb tenses).   I will also be trying to think of a way to adapt it for the computer.  Hope you like it!

The Krabby Patty Game

The Ocean

Last week most of my groups got to watch a short video that showed lots of creatures that live in the ocean.  After that, they were able to add their artwork to the big whiteboard in my room.  I had already drawn an ocean scene on it, with a few fish and rocks and shells.  This is what it looks like now!  There are shrimp, horseshoe crabs, coral reefs, sea turtles, sharks, whales, squid and many other creatures!  Activities like these help students organize language/vocabulary into categories, which makes learning new vocabulary easier, and helps with word retrieval.

We have had fun sequencing and retelling the story, "There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Shell."  To print out the characters/objects that we used, click here for page 1 and here for page 2.  Have your child try to retell the story to you (hint:  the sequence is shell, crab, fish, gull, pail, sand, and wave.)  After she swallowed the wave she burped and made a sandcastle.  Model complete sentences and have your child repeat, if necessary.

Jellyfish

We have been busy!  My language groups (Kindergarten through Grade 2) made these cute jellyfish.  While working on them, we practiced following directions and used words like: long, short, wide, narrow, half, front, back, decorate, attach and tentacles.  Tentacles, decorate and jellyfish are all 3 syllable words, so we practiced clapping the syllables and repeating them in the correct order.

When they were finished, we hung them up in the room.  As we admired our work, we took turns retelling how we made them, using the words: first, then, next, and last, along with past tense verbs (e.g. "First, I cut the circle in half.  Then I decorated it.  Next, I taped on the tentacles.  Last, I hung it on the wall.")

There are some great simple craft ideas available on the internet.  Here are some links for you to try at home...don't forget to practice retelling how you made your projects.

Seahorses
Rainbow Fish
Octopus

Buggy about Speech

Our theme for the past two weeks has been Bugs.  We have practiced retelling stories and sequencing skills (concepts first, last, before and after) with the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  The kids really enjoyed watching this video of the story.  Try it at home by having them draw or write the words for the items the caterpillar ate on index cards and then retell the story.  Ask questions like, "What did the caterpillar eat before he ate the plums?" or "What did he eat after he ate the strawberries?"  Encourage and model complete sentences with the proper verb forms.

You can also try the same activity with The Very Quiet Cricket

Articulation
Here is a game to play while practicing articulation.  How many butterflies can you catch?

Following Directions
Click here for a PowerPoint activity to practice following directions.  You will need PowerPoint on your computer or PowerPoint viewer.