Here is an oldie but (updated) goodie! Lots of messages from all you Bingo lovers out there — and there are a LOT of you! So I thought I’d share this open-ended favorite for a fun St. Patty’s Day week activity. Use this no-prep (just print and go!) activity to target a variety of receptive and expressive language skills — object identification/labeling, visual discrimination, auditory processing at the word/phrase/sentence levels, comprehension of WH questions, seasonal vocabulary, language formulation, use of vocabulary and related descriptive concepts — and also articulation/phonological skills. These open-ended boards are perfect for differentiated instruction and always a favorite it seems. Enjoy!
Who is excited about the 2022 Winter Olympics?! ME!! With the opening ceremonies happening today, I am really excited about sharing my Olympic love with my students. I plan on using lots of Olympic-themed therapy ideas from the amazing Home Speech Home page, as well as some of my own personal faves. Here’s one thing that seems to be a universal favorite — Winter Olympics Bingo! You all probably know how much I love open-ended activities that can be differentiated to meet the needs of a variety of students (hello, time-saver on planning! Side note: I used to tell my graduate students that if you you know your students well and know their goals and current levels of performance, then you can create meaningful therapy with an empty pizza box!) Fortunately activities like this Winter Olympic Bingo are a lot more fun and relevant than an old pizza box.
This Olympic-themed set is perfect for introducing winter sports that may be unfamiliar to your students. Events like curling, ski jumping, biathlon, or skeleton…say what??? I like to introduce these events and the corresponding Bingo board pictures by reviewing information on Olympics.com site. You just click on the sport you want to learn about, and you can learn about the history of the events, updates on the events taking place, and even see videos.
Skeleton event
Once we’ve reviewed the vocabulary, then the Bingo fun starts. What a wonderful way to celebrate winter and a world-wide tradition while targeting everyone’s speech-language goals? How are you highlighting the Winter Olympics for your students? I’d love to hear!
I’ve been having SO much fun creating more seasonal resources! With time to create, I’ve been dreaming up big and little ideas, which I am always happy to share. Here is a quick, little idea I had that I have actually been using in my own therapy room. I work with children of all ages and ranges of ability, so the variety keeps me thinking. I am seeing more children now who present with subtle language difficulties — they are verbal, articulate, and at first glance seem to be on track with their peers. But when you get to know them, you quickly realize that they need organizational language support and practice with both comprehension and expression. So I created this Halloween-themed activity set to provide scaffolded supports and practice with understanding and describing seasonal vocabulary. In this 7-page NO PREP set, I’ve included:
Formulating Descriptions Visual/Graphic Organizer
24 unique picture stimulus cards to:
elicit verbal descriptions of attributes
elicit formulated sentences
target wh question comprehension and formulation of responses
you can also print doubles of the cards to use as a matching/memory game! Always fun practice and extension opportunities.
10 WH question prompts to support verbal descriptions
24 WH questions to be used as stimuli for targeting of wh question comprehension and formulation of responses.
I’ve been having very good success with this set and with variations I’ve created over the years. The visual stimuli, graphic organizer, and structured wh questions appear to be a magic combo! Feel free to check it out if you want:
With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I’d share another fun resource I created – these Halloween-themed motivation sheets! Use these motivation sheets to elicit repeated trials in your therapy session — perfect for articulation and phonology goals or for building momentum in any given skill. My students are always more motivated to complete lots and lots and LOTS of trials when I pair the task with a fun visual and make it a game. These visual incentive sheets will keep your students on track and help to build metacognitive awareness of their progress as they strive to mark off all 50 items on the page (hence the name NIFTY 50!). These motivation sheets can be used with dot markers, highlighters, crayons, colored pencils, or whatever tool you choose! You can also color these yourself and laminate, and then use the pages as visual token boards with bingo markers or magnetic coins. Side note: My students all love using a magnetic wand to pick up the coins after their trials! I got mine from Super Duper Inc but you can find them other places as well.
Anyway, hope you enjoy this resource. More Nifty Fifty sets to come in the not-so-distant future!
