Valentine's Day Speech Therapy
Alright, it's February, so you can BET we're all about Valentine's Day in my speech and language room.
I see nothing wrong with celebrating this chocolate-filled holiday a little early, so let me offer you a glimpse of what we've been up to in my speech room this past week.
I stopped at my local library and found this gem of a book, "Valentine's Day Is..." by Gail Gibbons. I'm a huge fan of utilizing the library and books in therapy.
Buy this book, borrow it, do whatever you need to do.
"Valentine's Day Is..." is seriously cool. It's perfect for my students who have goals to answer comprehension questions about informational text. It doesn't just talk about passing out candy and all that. It goes into the history behind the customs and beliefs. I'm a bit of a history nerd, so I was excited to learn about the connection between ancient Roman traditions and how we celebrate Valentine's Day today. I had a list of comprehension questions ready, and I checked in to make sure my students were understanding the text as I read aloud. We also discussed any tricky vocabulary. At the end, we made heart decorations. My students had to tell me one cool fact they learned from the book. I've had a few teachers stop by my room and tell me how much they enjoyed the responses my students came up with after I displayed the hearts in the hall.
Next, I have some students working on describing skills. Specifically, we were focusing on naming items in categories.
I'm a huge fan of the Expanding Expression Toolkit by Sara L. Smith. Multi-sensory learning? Yes, please. I have a few girls on my caseload who ask me over and over again, "Can we sing that song?" They love the EET song, and if dropping a beat in speech therapy is going to help them remember language elements, I am all for it. I combined the EET with my open-ended Super Duper game boards. Let me just tell you that the promise of even 3 m&ms can be very motivating. As a matter of fact, I found myself hoping that we'd land on the "eat a chocolate" piece. One for you, two for me...(I'm not affiliated with either of these companies, FYI, and am not being compensated for blogging about the use of their products.)
I mentioned before that I like to incorporate the use of multi-sensory tools in my speech and language therapy sessions.
Enter my Valentine's Day sensory bin.
My kids really enjoyed scooping out the spatial concepts cards. My Oh, la, la! Locations cards were perfect for celebrating this lovey-dovey holiday.
For my students working on higher level language, I pulled out my newest Valentine's Day Language packet. Many of these students are also working on spatial concepts. This one is perfect for your upper elementary/ middle school speech therapy students.
Dry erase markers + no prep for the win.
We also enjoyed reading about Cupid and Psyche, and then answering comprehension questions following the story.
What are you up to this month in therapy? I'd love to hear in the comments!
I see nothing wrong with celebrating this chocolate-filled holiday a little early, so let me offer you a glimpse of what we've been up to in my speech room this past week.
I stopped at my local library and found this gem of a book, "Valentine's Day Is..." by Gail Gibbons. I'm a huge fan of utilizing the library and books in therapy.
Buy this book, borrow it, do whatever you need to do.
"Valentine's Day Is..." is seriously cool. It's perfect for my students who have goals to answer comprehension questions about informational text. It doesn't just talk about passing out candy and all that. It goes into the history behind the customs and beliefs. I'm a bit of a history nerd, so I was excited to learn about the connection between ancient Roman traditions and how we celebrate Valentine's Day today. I had a list of comprehension questions ready, and I checked in to make sure my students were understanding the text as I read aloud. We also discussed any tricky vocabulary. At the end, we made heart decorations. My students had to tell me one cool fact they learned from the book. I've had a few teachers stop by my room and tell me how much they enjoyed the responses my students came up with after I displayed the hearts in the hall.
Next, I have some students working on describing skills. Specifically, we were focusing on naming items in categories.
I'm a huge fan of the Expanding Expression Toolkit by Sara L. Smith. Multi-sensory learning? Yes, please. I have a few girls on my caseload who ask me over and over again, "Can we sing that song?" They love the EET song, and if dropping a beat in speech therapy is going to help them remember language elements, I am all for it. I combined the EET with my open-ended Super Duper game boards. Let me just tell you that the promise of even 3 m&ms can be very motivating. As a matter of fact, I found myself hoping that we'd land on the "eat a chocolate" piece. One for you, two for me...(I'm not affiliated with either of these companies, FYI, and am not being compensated for blogging about the use of their products.)
I mentioned before that I like to incorporate the use of multi-sensory tools in my speech and language therapy sessions.
Enter my Valentine's Day sensory bin.
My kids really enjoyed scooping out the spatial concepts cards. My Oh, la, la! Locations cards were perfect for celebrating this lovey-dovey holiday.
For my students working on higher level language, I pulled out my newest Valentine's Day Language packet. Many of these students are also working on spatial concepts. This one is perfect for your upper elementary/ middle school speech therapy students.
Dry erase markers + no prep for the win.
We also enjoyed reading about Cupid and Psyche, and then answering comprehension questions following the story.
What are you up to this month in therapy? I'd love to hear in the comments!
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