We're Goin To The Zoo!

How About You?

For the past couple of weeks, we have introduced the theme of zoo animals. Animals are lots of fun--the kids can practice imitating different sounds by making animal noises (I *love* snakes because it helps to teach the "SSSSS" sound to kids who have trouble!) and they can move like animals (stomping like elephants or hopping like kangaroos are fun ways to transition the students from centers and activities).

Some of the vocabulary items are also great for articulation skills! (Articulation is basically how we form our speech sounds). Many of our students leave off whole syllables in words, so "elephant" becomes "ephant," "kangaroo" becomes "kagoo." The zoo theme is an awesome time to model these multisyllabic words and to have the kids practice!! Do this by emphasizing the missing syllable-- "e-LE-phant" "kan-GA-roo" or clapping out the different syllables. 

The room is all set up for the theme.

Our bulletin board is set up with vocabulary pictures

we are learning: monkey, elephant, giraffe, tiger, snake, bear, zebra, panda, lion, kangaroo, crocodile (or alligator), camel.

Our library is chock full of zoo books

Our kitchen table has a zoo animal table cloth.

We've also got some posters up around the room and lots and lots and lots of toy animals and puzzles for the students to play with.

During circle time in the first week of our zoo theme, we read one of the zoo books, "My Baby," in honor of Mother's Day :)

We also sang the song "Going to the Zoo" by Raffi, which is a fun song that talks about a couple of zoo animals, plus Mama took us to the zoo--another nod to Mother's Day!

The zoo theme brought lots of fun activities, including fun books and games, making zebras, lions and giraffes, and lots more!!

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Down On The Farm!

Our theme for the last couple of weeks has been the Farm! We did lots of fun activities and our room was set up to help expose the kids to the vocabulary as much as possible.

First, we set up our vocab bulletin board with our words:

barn, farmer, tractor, dog, pig, horse, duck, sheep, cow, chicken, goat, rooster.
We reviewed the words every day.

Our library was stocked with farm books

including "Colors On The Farm."

Our kitchen area had a farm tablecloth

We also had posters around the room

At circle time, we sang songs like "Grandpa's Farm" by Raffi and our own "Cow, Cow, What Do You See."
The kids also had lots of chances to play with farm toys!

The Farm is always such a fun theme for the students! Lots of fun vocabulary, plus animal sounds to make!

St. Patrick's Day

We are getting ready for our St. Patrick's Day vocabulary theme.
Our vocabulary theme sheets are being sent out, which include the vocabulary words, pictures, some tips on talking about colors and a parent article about using all the senses to learn.

Our vocabulary bulletin board is up with our pictures. These are the same pictures sent home to families.

 Our library has several St. Patrick's Day books set aside for the students to read. Lots of green and lots of leprechauns!!

 Our kitchen table even has a St. Patrick's Day table cloth.

 We also have some fun hats for the students to play with set aside at our experiential table.

 The students have oodles of opportunities around the classroom to be bombarded with the vocabulary items. We even have bunches of shamrocks and rainbows around the room, too.

We'll be doing a lot of fun activities in the next week, including  making gold coin counting books,  leprechaun hats, squish bags and a rainbow. Enjoy your St. Patrick's Day and watch out for leprechauns!!

House Letter "B"

It was kind of hard for me to choose what letter to pick for this theme. I try to choose letters based on our vocabulary words, so it helps when there are a lot of vocabulary words that start with the same sound! For our house theme, we looked at the letter B.

Targets
Vocabulary-- bed, bathtub, brush/brushing, broom
Letter recognition
Sound-Symbol relationship ("B" says /b/)

First, we gathered our materials. We cut out our letter B and the pictures from abcteach.com or are just clip art I found. And, of course, glue.

Next, we looked at the pictures to give the students a chance to identify and label the vocabulary items. We also emphasized the /b/ sound in each word and talked about how the "B" makes a /b/ sound.

Then, the kids requested each picture (I want a bed, etc) and glued them on!

 

The letter "B" was also a good choice for some of our students who aren't making many sounds yet, or who have trouble with multiple sounds. It was helpful just to give them the practice of saying "buh buh buh."

 

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Welcome to Our House!

We have started our new theme,

Rooms of the House. 

We will be focusing on this theme for the next 3 weeks or so. Our classroom is all set up and ready to go!
We've got our vocabulary bulletin board set up.

There really are a lot of words to focus on! I tried to set it up by room to make it easier--in fact, we will focus on each room on different days. The vocabulary pictures are the same that were sent home with students to practice and reinforce at home. They are also the same pictures I use during my vocabulary activities (like matching games, etc.) during small group rotations.

Other posters are hung up around the room showing different houses or rooms.

Our library has books about the House set aside for the kids to read.

We've even got our House table cloth out in the kitchen area.

We've got lots of fun activities planned for this theme, including playing with dollhouse furniture, a house shapes puzzle, art activities and lots more!

Valentine's Day Vocabulary!

I like to do a sort of pre-test/post-test with my students at the beginning and end of a theme to see how they have (or have not) learned the vocabulary words. I try to do it in a fun way whenever I can to keep the kids motivated. For Valentine's Day, we took the pictures out of a mailbox.

Targets
Vocabulary
Turn Taking
Basic concept- out

First, to get a quick baseline of the vocabulary words that they know, I do quickly go through the pictures with each child and collect data on the words they know. The, the playing begins!

The students need to take turns--turn taking is a basic conversational concept; I say something, you say something. A verbal tennis match! As they choose a picture, we talk about how they are taking the card out of the mailbox.
Then, they get a chance to label what they got! If they get it right away, we *high five,* reinforce the word by repeating it, and move on. If they get stuck, I give some cueing. For the basic words, I may just say "it's a /h/" and then pause for them to say "heart" after I told them the first sound. For harder words, or for kids who have a really hard time, I may give a choice--"Is it a dog or a cupid?" That's right--cupid! *high five!*"

We repeat the activity over and over again to reinforce those words.

I tend to see the kids who are simply late-talkers learn the vocabulary words more quickly than those who have fundamental difficulties with speech and language--just an observation ;)

Happy turn taking!

Winter Letter "S"

Another activity we did this week was also inspired by No Time for Flash Cards. She has a weekly Letter of the Week craft where she takes an upper case or lower case letter and makes a craft with words that begin with that letter.
This craft inspired me to make a special bulletin board in my classroom that displays similar Letter of the Week activities. Once per theme, we choose a different letter to focus on from vocabulary words in the unit. The purpose of this activity is to increase alphabet awareness, as well as to increase sound/symbol relationship (in other words, knowing that "R" says /rrrrr/). Hooray for phonemic awareness!

For our Winter theme, I chose the letter S, using the vocabulary items snowflake, snowman, scarf and skates.

Targets:
Learning Vocabulary
Pre-academic skills- letter recognition; sound-symbol relationship
Articulation- /s/ blends

We started by reviewing the vocabulary and having the students try to label the items. We also were sure to over-emphasize the /s/ sound, as many of our students leave of the /s/ when it's with another sound in a word, like saying "no" for "snow."

Next, they needed to request a letter "S" that was already cut out of construction paper and they had to request each of the items they wanted put on their "S." They were able to put whatever pictures, stickers or stamps of the vocabulary words onto the "S" wherever they wanted to, which is also nice for developing fine motor skills, too. Throughout the activity, we talked about how "S" makes the /sss/ sound and all the words started with the /sss/ sound.

The kids enjoy looking at their "S" on the bulletin board while they eat breakfast and lunch. They especially like to find thier own letter, which helps us reinforce their ability to recognize their name.

Happy SSSStamping!

Winter Fun! Week 1

Last week, we returned from a fun and fabulous winter break and jumped right into our winter theme. We'll be focusing on "Winter" for about 3 weeks. Here's a brief run down on what we did last week!

We introduced our winter vocabulary. All throughout the theme, we have pictures of our vocabulary words, along with the written word, up on our main bulletin board.These are the same pictures that are sent home with families for practice at home. Our winter words include snowman, snowflake, hat, ice skates, scarf, mittens, boots and jacket. Hot cocoa, penguin and cold are some other fun words to talk about!

I try to have a lot of fun activities that we do when we are really focusing on teaching vocabulary. One way I try to bombard the students with vocabulary during this theme is by having them "feed" the pictures to our well-loved, yet hungry, penguin.Students take turns (I want my turn) picking a picture and labeling it. We also talk about the object--for example "where do you put a hat?" "on your head!" *high five* Then, the child feeds the penguin (and gets to practice the sentence "he is eating!").

Our penguin friend also got a chance to eat when we fed him snowmen with articulation cards on them so students could practice their /s/ sound (SSSnowman) and saying Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words like cat, bat or boat.

This is what our library looks like:We have several books about winter for our students to read!

For each theme, we also incorporate math activities. As the students learn pre-math skills, they are also continuing to focus on the new vocabulary words. The also have to request everything they want!
We had one activity that focused on size concepts of big, bigger and biggest.
Students sorted according to snowball size and talked about the sizes. Did ya notice that a snowman has a big snowball, then a bigger one and the biggest at the bottom?
Students also made a counting book counting buttons they put on their snowman.

We use the concept of Touch Math to reinforce counting.

There are so many more activities for us to do! I'll fill you in on some more activities as the weeks move on. Until then, I hope you enjoyed your Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. It's a wet week in Southern California, so stay dry!

What's Happening in my Classroom?

Today was the first day of school for some of my students! I have 3 classes--Mon/Wed/Fri in the am and pm (my 3 year olds) and Tues/Thurs am (my 4 year olds). So far, they seem like they'll be a lot of fun! *fingers crossed*

I base my class activities on vocabulary themes because I believe that teaching vocabulary in categories is the best way for children to learn new words. Themes/categories help kiddos put new words they encounter into little "filing cabinets" of similar words to expand their vocab.

What's the current theme? Back to School!
We've got vocab words like school, bus, teacher, book, pencil, crayons, friends, backpack, toys, blocks, etc.

How are we teaching these words?
Well, today, we played a game where students took turns opening the backpack and taking out a vocabulary item. They had to label items and maybe even say a sentence (like "I have a backpack").
We also worked on their listening skills by having them point to items or follow directions (like "point to the book," "point to something we use to cut" or "pick up the apple and put it in the blue backpack"). If they can't do any of these right away, we give them cues, like pointing or modeling for them.

We also did a coloring page (with crayons and a bus) to give them a chance to practice their crayon/pencil grasp--- My trick for getting the correct grasp?--breaking crayons in half! (by the way, this is a coloring, experiential activity, NOT a worksheet activity--blech!)

Finally, we used our Discovery Toys EZ Blocks!
EZ Blocks are great first building blocks because they have a grooved top and bottom to make sure that little ones' hands don't accidentally knock the blocks over. They are also a nice size for the little hands, too. Give your EZ Blocks a little shake--they make noise!! How fun and inviting is that? They are also inviting to the eye because they have some basic colors and shapes.

So, how can you use EZ Blocks in a speech and language development class?
Well, first off, "blocks" is one of our vocabulary words for this theme since blocks and toys are key items in a preschool classroom.
We also worked on requesting-- my kids are taught the phrase "I want ___" It's a pretty powerful phrase, if you think about it! A great way to meet your wants and needs! We only give the students 1 or 2 at a time so they will always have something to ask for. We're sneaky that way!
Some basic concepts were also targeted, like colors and shapes, but also concepts like "tall" and "short" or "loud" and "quiet." Who made the tallest tower?

Some of the phrases and sentences I heard used with my students were "I make a castle," "shake blue," and "it fall down!" When we heard these utterances, we modeled and expanded so the students could hear the correct sentence use ("oh, I am making a castle," "I am shaking the blue block" and "it is falling down!").

There is so much more that can be done with EZ Blocks from Discovery Toys! The kids are learning and having fun, too!! They are available here at my website.
Also, check out the new fall catalog to check out an EZ Blocks addition--
EZ Blocks Wheels & More!
Here's to a great school year with lots of learning and playing!

Happy building!
~Marcy

Bathtime Fun with Discovery Toys!

Bath time in the Fox household used to consist of lots and lots of screaming. And splashing. And crying.
Well, it still contains all that, but, fortunately, it occurs at the END of the bath, not at the beginning and middle. She does not want to come out. Why, you ask? I think it has something to do with

Bathtime Bugs

Bathtime Bugs is a 4 piece set made of sturdy, washable plastic. Each piece is a different bug (a butterfly, bumblebee, worm/bug and flower {yeah, I know! A flower isn't a bug...work with me here...}) so you can work on springtime and bug vocabulary!

Here's what the Discovery Toys (fancy, schmancy new) website says about Bathtime Bugs {with my commentary, too!}...and, have you seen the awesome new Discovery Toys Parent Guides?
KEY BENEFITS:

• Brightly colored and textured pieces encourage child to investigate early science concepts {Rachel had fun manipulating each piece and exploring. She also was figuring out the concept of water displacement as the worm kept popping out of the flower. It was kinda fun to push it down and squirt the water out!}
• Thinking skills are reinforced through cause and effect principles {Rachel had a blast trying to figure out how to keep all 4 bugs under the water at the same time. She also was learning that she had to keep the yellow butterfly under the water for a longer time to get it to full up so she could dump it on herself}
  
• Assists with bath time while aiding motor skill development {Rachel had to use her (cute little) fingers to spin, push, scoop and sprinkle}.
• Provides the opportunity to expand vocabulary by introducing new words and concepts and demonstrating their meaning.{Beautiful!! Read below for my speech-language point of view!}
  
• Versatile pieces are also perfect for backyard water or garden play. {we will TOTALLY have to try that!}

And, here it is...the after bath...

So, what kind of cool speech and language things can you do with the Bathtime Bugs?
Early Sound Development- "B" is one of the earliest sounds that develop in children. So, if you are using Bathtime Bugs with your little baby or with your non-verbal child, you can encourage him/her to use their /b/ sound---you've got bath, bug, butterfly, bumblebee, and even bubbles. You can put the pieces by your mouth to help your child focus on your lips. Then, /b/ away to your heart's content! "B-B-B-bubbles! B-B-B-Bee!!" Eventually, your child will join you!

Vocabulary- Remember, teaching words within a theme is one of the best ways to make sure your child is learning the vocabulary. The theme here is "Bugs." Have your child point to each bug as you name them. Then, have your child label each piece as he/she puts them in the tub.
Action vocabulary words--as your child is playing, talk about what she is doing. "Splash," "pour," "swim" and "push" are great words to learn!
Descriptive vocabulary words (a.k.a. adjectives)-- "Wet"

Using Simple Sentences-Some of the things I heard Rachel say included "I taking a bath!," "I got water," "bug go down," "I wet" and, not to mention "no all done!!!" Most of her sentences include a subject, verb and a complement (the basic 3 word sentence), which is pretty typical for a 2 or 3 year old. When she said only "I wet," I could have helped her expand her sentence by saying "yes, you are wet" "you said 'I am wet!"

Bathtime Bugs has been a great addition to our bathtime!! They are available at my website as a set of 4 sturdy pieces for $20. (But, don't forget!! If you order any product through my e-mail by August 11, you can enjoy 10% off your purchase!!).

Keep clean ;)
~Marcy

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!!

Ode to a discontinued product: Mini Motors

One thing I'm learning about selling cool stuff is that, sometimes, awesome products come and go. Some are just put out to retire. So is the fate of Mini Motors :(


It may be discontinued, but, I'm using it in my classroom anyway!!
This month's theme is Transportation, so I'm using Mini Motors in a variety of ways:

Teaching Vocabulary
There are 6 different vehicle types, including cars, buses, trains, boats and airplanes. Playing with them and talking about them help young kids learn the labels.

Teaching Play Skills
Play skills don't come naturally to all kids, believe it or not! We model how to make the planes fly in the air, pretend kids are getting on the bus or how the boats splash and speed through the water.

Learning Colors
The vehicles come in a variety of colors, so we label the colors as we play.

Pre-Math Skills
Patterning yellow-blue-yellow-blue; train-bus-train-bus-train-bus These simple patterns help with developing pre-math skills by preparing children to observe patterns in the environment, including with numbers. Oh!! Reading involves patterns too!!
Sorting The kids can put all the planes together, all the blue vehicles together or all the vehicles that go on land together! Once they start seeing the the characteristics of the items, they can even start simple mathematics!!
Simple mathematics! 2 planes plus 1 car equal 3 vehicles! Cool!

Now, if you miss these amazing manipulatives for pre-math, fear not!! Busy Bugs is another manipulatives set that even comes with cards to show the kids how to pattern and do simple math!

And, to continue on the Transportation vocabulary theme, we also offer the Working Trio Dump Trucks, the Rough and Tough book set, the aptly named Plane Train and Automobile, Motor Works and even Hammer Away!

Happy motoring!!

~Marcy

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