paper bag books make great take-home activities for your students
WOWZA! April really turned into a crazy wack-a-doo of a month, and I have been pretty absent from posting on the blog. I've been taking lots of pictures of the activities we've been using lately, but just have not had time to write up any blog posts. My apologies. That changes now!
My number one most favorite activity of the past couple weeks has been making paper bag books. Once the prep work is done, these are quick to put together during a session and are adaptable for many student goals.
I found this idea on Teacher Mom of Three, and you can read her post for more instructions on assembling your books. I did use ribbon instead of pipe cleaner for the handles because I felt they attached better.
My students made books containing their target speech sounds. I made an assortment of covers and black/white pictures ahead of time. We also included a few blank pages for them to draw and add their own pictures.
We also made some story retell books. This student was working on identifying story elements for The Wolf's Chicken Stew. As my preschoolers described the story elements and plot events, I helped them write in the books, and they drew the pictures. Pretty good illustrations for a 4-year-old if you ask me :)
You could use these for ANYTHING! Let me know how you'd use paper bag books in your speech sessions.
========== Abby is so glad May is here! Only 21 work days left in the school year!
a book companion to accompany one of my favorite picture books
What's the one food you enjoy more than anything? I used to say creamy pasta, but I am really loving pizza all the time now. I'm pretty sure I could eat it multiple times a week. Every week. In The Wolf's Chicken Stew, the wolf loves to eat more than anything. And one day he gets a hardcore craving for chicken stew. This book is adorable, has a simple plot, and really hits all the story grammar elements really well. Come see what I came up with to help use this book with my students!
A large chunk of this book companion is dedicated to story comprehension. Question cards are included to check comprehension with picture prompts, and another sheet has questions without prompts:
Large pictures for sequencing events in the story and for story retell activities:
A mini-book for students to color, take home, and practice telling others the story of The Wolf's Chicken Stew:
Story grammar elements and story retell can also be addressed through these story maps and elements cube:
This packet also has lots of vocabulary activities, including a matching game, quick vocab check, compare/contrast graphic organizers, and a vocabulary web:
Articulation skills are also addressed through a cut-and-paste activity targeting /s/ blends! Students add the /s/ blend pictures into their Silly Stew!
There's even more in this packet that isn't pictured here: word webs, writing prompts, and open-ended game board! I'm really excited about the way this packet turned out - I think it's my favorite book companion yet!
You can enter to win the packet using the rafflecopter below! If you don't want to wait and see if you win, you can take advantage of the Teachers Pay Teachers sale going on now and buy the packet here! Don't forget your promo code: TPT3
strategies to make your teaching more effective and efficient
A couple weeks ago I touched on the importance of teaching narrative language and story retelling skills. These are vital skills that have an impact on a student's reading and writing skills and build the foundation of literacy skills. And we all know that literacy skills are crucial for a student to experience academic success. Now let's discuss some instructional strategies you can use to make your teaching time more effective and efficient.
What it is: Structured repetitions and expansions upon student utterances.
Who to use it with: Everyone!
Main ideas:
- There are different forms of language facilitation.
- Form Recasts increase the length/complexity of a child's utterance:
Student: She throwed ball.
SLP: She threw the ball really far!
- Content Recasts add new information to what the student said:
Student: Throw ball.
SLP: Throw the red ball!
- Vertical Structuring is a way to ask questions that elicit various pieces of information, then model the utterance as a whole for students:
SLP: How does our character feel?
Student: Sad.
SLP: Why does he feel sad?
Student: He dropped his ice cream.
SLP: Yes! He feels sad because he dropped his ice cream.
What it is: Use simple stick figures to generate and help students retell stories.
Who to use it with: Students in grades
1 and older can usually draw their own pictures to help retell stories. For
younger students, you can draw your own pictures for them to dictate.
Main ideas:
- Keep drawings very simple. The focus should be on the story retell, not the artwork.
- Provides support for language development.
- Assists students in remembering and organizing their ideas when producing oral narratives.
- May need to teach students to emphasize the main points by keeping their drawings quick and easy.
- Set a timer if needed to help students focus and make their drawings quick.
Who to use it with: Students who can identify each story grammar element in a story.
Main ideas:
- Icons are a great way to help students remember which story grammar elements need to be included.
- Co-Telling is meant to be supportive, so point to and use your picture icons frequently.
- Encourage students to "assist" you in telling the story.
- The SLP leads the story-telling and points to the icons as they come up in the story to cue the students to add that element.
What it is: A chance for students to practice developing and retelling stories which contain all the story elements.
Main ideas:
- Students can develop their own story as a group with the support/guidance of the SLP.
- Story boards, grids, story maps, and icons are excellent tools for parallel story development.
- Once each part of the story is developed, give each student the opportunity to retell the story.
- Parallel story retell can also be done using previously developed stories that students are familiar with and making a very slight change for the student to retell (for example, change the types of animals in the story).
What it is: Visual aids to assist in story development, comprehension, and retell.
Who to use it with: Everyone!
Main ideas:
- Story maps guide students through the story retell process.
- Story maps and storyboards can be as simple or as complicated as the student is ready for.
- Use pictography on your storyboards to help students remember the story (see #2).
- As students' skills develop, move away from using graphic organizers so they have to internalize the skill of story retelling.
Some of these strategies are things I think we inherently do as speech-language pathologists. Pat yourself on the back! Feeling overwhelmed by the others? Just take on one strategy at a time. Implement it until you are comfortable, then add in another. Thanks for reading!
========== Abby is grateful pictography is meant to be simple. Stick figures are about all she can artistically handle.
a review of Just a Snowman book companion from Let's Talk
Well, that groundhog predicted winter will never, ever, ever end, and he was right! We're in the midst of a blizzard as I type. School let out early Tuesday due to the snow, and a Wednesday snow day is pending today school is cancelled thanks to 6 inches of snow. I did get a couple days this week, thankfully, to use this book companion from Whitney over at Let's Talk with my students, and it is great!
Just a Snowman, by Mercer Mayer, is such a wonderful book for preschoolers during the winter time. It's full of winter vocabulary and activities, adorable Little Critter pictures, and it's not too long in length. Whitney creates super great book companions, and I especially love her Just a Snowman packet for my preschoolers. Here's what we did with her activities:
There are two versions of story comprehension questions included in the packet: one version with picture choices, and one without. For my preschoolers, we used the questions with picture choices. These were easy to use as during-story questions (see above), or as recall questions after the story was over. Tip: Write the page number the question cards coordinate with for easy sorting.
There are also picture cards included for detailed story sequencing, which makes it easy to adjust tasks for each student's ability level. For instance, I used just three pictures for one of my kiddos so she could unscramble and identify beginning, middle, and ending events:
A sorting activity targets winter clothes and summer clothes:
I did end up drawing a sun and a snowflake onto the sorting mats to help my littles out remembering the difference between summer and winter. Tip: attach to a file folder and laminate for easy storage/use. The clothing items were also great for targeting vocabulary. There was a regional vocabulary difference in the label for the hat (the picture is labeled 'toboggan', but here in Iowa we know it as a 'stocking hat'), but my students never knew since they can't read. We used them while reading the story to identify the clothing Little Critter and his sister were putting on to go play outside:
Additional sequencing activities include Building a Snowman and Making Hot Chocolate:
we also used these during story reading
I love barrier games, and this one has amazingly fun pictures to go with it!
For my articulation students we used the Snowy Speech sheets after reading and identified words from the story with target phonemes:
The packet also includes awesome story maps, vocabulary sheets, and writing prompts! Since my caseload is of the preschool variety, I used the writing prompts as conversation starters, then wrote their answers for them, then had them draw pictures of what their answers would be. It was fun!
Additional activities include winter coloring pages, a snowball fight board game, compare/contrast pages, and What's Different cards:
I chose not to print these differences cards out, and instead we used these pages on the iPad. I am going to attach the snowball fight board game to the back of the clothing sort file folder to keep everything in one spot.
Overall, I highly recommend this book companion! It has adorable graphics, a wide variety of activities, and it's very detailed and well made. Get your own copy here. Let's Talk has a ton of other great book packets to check out. She's super thorough with her activities, and creates them specifically to coordinate with Story Grammar Marker. Be sure to browse through all her activities on Teachers Pay Teachers.
You can also find and follow Let's Talk around the web:
a round-up of resources for teaching narrative language skills
There are so many resources out there for us to use when helping our students improve their narrative language skills! Yesterday I touched on Sandi Gillam's SKILL program, and today I thought it would be nice to corral a bunch of useful resources in one place. Here we go!
Story Grammar Marker (MindWing Concepts) - Complete program using icons to help children learn to tell and retell stories, improve comprehension, writing, and social communication.
Strong Narrative Assessment Procedure (Carol J. Strong) - Uses wordless picture books to assess
narrative skills. Includes instructions for how to elicit and analyze story retelling samples, and how to develop an intervention program based on the results.
---------- FROM SCHOOLHOUSE TALK:
First off, a plug for my newest packet because I am just SO excited about it! I was so enthused after participating in some narrative language trainings recently, that I created an update to my Story Grammar Prompts packet. It's a complete overhaul!
This packet is jam-packed with goodies! Here's what's inside:
This might be my favorite packet yet! You can read more about it on Teachers Pay Teachers.
---------- ACTIVITIES/INFORMATION from other SLP BLOGGERS:
