Fun ocean activity!

Here is great activity that we used in my classroom to accompany playing AB Seas during our Ocean vocabulary theme...it's A Blue Fishy Drink!

Here's what you'll need: a pitcher (see-through is best!), a spoon, blue powdered drink mix (maybe Kool Aid®), sugar, gummy fish candy and cups.
Since this is a great sequencing activity for students with speech-language delays, having sequencing pictures are very useful. You can do line drawings, cut out pictures or even use photographs. This is an example of what we used in my classroom, made with Microsoft Paint:The sequence is: Pour in the mix, pour in the sugar, pour in the water, put in the fish, stir and watch the fish swim, put it in a cup and drink.

The speech and language targets in this activity included:
sequencing-- we cut up the above pictures and reviewed them first a couple of times. Then, as we made our fishy drink, at each step, we had the kids pick the picture that came next. We were also teaching them the temporal concepts of first, next, then and last.

vocabulary--our vocabulary theme was ocean, so we talked a lot about water and fish. We also taught the action words of pour, put, stir, swim and drink.

turn taking--talking and conversation involve verbal turn taking, like a tennis match. Turn taking is also a basic skill preschoolers need to learn. So, when it came time to stir the fishy drink, the kids were guided to turn to their friend and say "it's my turn."

sentence expansion--my 3- and 4-year olds are typically still communicating using gestures, single words or very short sentences. My job is to get them to use longer sentences. So, as we were making the fishy drink, the students were encouraged to "use your words." We also do this through modeling and expanding-- in our own talking, we use the sentences we expect them to use (for example "I am stirring" or "The water is blue"). Then, when they say something using single words, we help them expand it into a complete sentence (for example, if they say "more," we model "I want more. Yes! You said 'I want more'").

and
articulation--I'm kind of sneaky with my articulation* therapy! (*articulation= how we form our speech sounds). Most of my students are leaving off sounds or changing sounds around, so we need to give them lots and lots of chances to say the words correctly. I chose to focus on the /f/ for Fish, and /s/ for STir. So, as we made our fishy drink, we over emphasized these sounds and encouraged the students to make these sounds. I also like to *show* the kids how to make the sounds by pointing to my mouth to make it obvious how the sound is made.

We also focused on pre-academic skills. (I love working in a preschool setting--we can work on so many things!). These included
counting--we counted the fish as we put them in

colors--we talked about the colors of the fish as we put them it. It also turned out to be a cool science activity as the clear water turned blue when it hit the powder. Magic!!

The students had a lot of fun with this hands-on activity! And, I was happy because there were so many things I could focus on in just one cool activity.
Leave a comment below to let me know if you've tried it!!

Happy swimming!!

What's happening in my classroom?

Just as a reminder, my day job is in a preschool classroom for children who have delays in speech and language skills.
Part of my job is to work on building my students' vocabulary skills. I do this through teaching new words in categories--this way, the kids can take the new words and put them in their "filing cabinet" under the right category. They continue to build on the vocabulary they know with words in the same category.
Another part of my job is to teach basic concepts that preschoolers should know, including colors, numbers, letters, etc.

So, what's a cool way to teach both these concepts within a vocabulary theme?:

Colors on the Farm

From DISCOVERY TOYS!

This month, we are working on FARM vocabulary, so, why not use the farm to teach COLORS?

"Colors on the Farm" is a Lift and Learn Book, making it interactive learning. Each part of this sturdy book has the name of the color written on the same colored page (yay for teaching literacy skills!!) with shapes (oooh...sneaky way to teach shapes, too!) surrounding the color on the opposite page. As you read with your child, the book gives you great questions to ask your child to encourage thinking skills and to help them answer questions. Then--they get to open the flap and see all the items of that color on the farm. And there are even more questions to help you talk about the book with them!

Can you think of some yellow things you would find on a farm?!? :)

So, remember, "Colors on the Farm" is a sturdy interactive book to teach farm vocabulary and colors!! And, it's available here!

And!!!...if you like Colors on the Farm, you'll also love Counting with Animals! (we're learning about Jungle/Zoo animals next month!).

Don't forget to visit my online store at www.discoverytoyslink.com/foxtoybox