Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Open-ended, Resources, Seasonal, Technology, Therapy Tools

Valentine’s Day Activities

I stopped at the store today to buy goodies and cards for my own kids to give their friends on Valentine’s Day. Our home is now equipped with pre-made cards and card-making supplies (for one child with a bit of artistic ambition,) treat bags and several kinds of candy doused with liberal amounts of pink and red. We are just days away from the holiday, and almost all of my kids are getting pretty excited. (Did you know that middle schoolers are now “too cool” for Valentine exchanges, even casual ones under the pretense of spontaneous candy-sharing?? Hmmmph.)

I am not necessarily a huge Valentine’s Day fan, but I do enjoy the chance to mark the swiftly passing days with entertaining, theme-related activities and the chance to celebrate with the people around me. I have popular, favorite Valentine’s Day activity set to share.

Valentine Bingo Boards – The term “Bingo” is used loosely, due to the fact that I use games like this to target almost every speech or language skill possible before we actually get to any of the “Bingo.” During a typical game, each student’s goals are addressed through differentiated activities involving speech production, identifying vocabulary given verbal descriptions, sentence formulation to respond to wh questions about vocabulary, or following simple and multi-step directions using unique ways to mark the square (no Bingo chips or dotters in my groups…we usually mark our squares by following directions like, “Draw a blue square next to the valentine card.”) We also use related vocabulary to highlight critical attributes and identify similarities and differences. Children often spontaneously share background experiences with the theme-related vocabulary and we take a few minutes to “turn and talk” to relate a past event or experience to a peer or peer group. What might look like a simple “game” to the casual observer is unquestionably a language-rich, engaging experience with opportunities for differentiated instruction tailored to meet multiple learning styles. Made with Boardmaker software, Bingo Boards are cinch to replicate for multiple versions using the “shuffle” tool. This 14 page set includes six unique Bingo Boards (all containing the same words, but in different positions). The set also includes 6 black and white Bingo Boards for students to color themselves, as well as a page of colored calling cards (I live to print two sets of the calling cards and then I also have an instant matching/memory game!). Enjoy this activity set, and feel free to let me know how you used them!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentines-Day-Bingo-Activity-Set-7703306
Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Technology

Valentine Video

Did you know youtube is a wonderful resource for educational videos that can be used in speech-language therapy? I am fortunate enough to work in a school with interactive white boards in most of the classrooms. Often, I will create a lesson with a youtube video embedded into the flipchart. The students love the multi-media presentation!  This video below worked especially well to increase attention and engage students in the lesson. I used this video to target  receptive/expressive language tasks for lower level students working on descriptive concepts and sentence formulation. The visual stimuli paired with the repetitive, scripted sentences served as a wonderful model to elicit imitation and spontaneous language from the students. As a follow-up to the video, we “re-enacted” the story using our own colored paper hearts placed around the room. Students chose a colored heart and then formulated their sentence using the model from the video. Lower level students filled in with the name of the color or produced/ imitated a two word phrase, e.g., “red heart.” The students also practiced receptive language skills as they placed their heart in a special bag when their color was named. Here is the video that built the foundation for this interactive, holiday-themed lesson: