Ladybug Counting Book

One of my professional goals this year is to have more math activities, like counting, number recognition and simple adding and subtraction. Since this is a speech and language class, I try to get creative with mixing our speech and language goals with pre-academic activities. It's gotten easier in time, though --it's a matter of taking our vocabulary themes and using them in different activities!

So, for our Springtime/Bugs theme, why not count the spots on ladybugs?

Targets
Vocabulary-ladybug
Pre-math- counting to 5; TouchMath
Fine Motor

First, we gathered our materials--

Enough counting books for the students and some red stickers (labels I got from Office Depot).
The book needed a little prep work. The original ladybug was taken from abcteach. We photocopied it 5 times and used White-Out to get rid of as many ladybug spots as we needed so that there was 1 on the first ladybug, 2 on the second and so on. I added the text and numbers.

We also used the concept of TouchMath. TouchMath is a multisensory approach to teaching math.That's why there are little dots on each number.

Each student requested their book (I want a book) and we reviewed each page, counting the dots and looking at the numbers. Then, they got to sticking!!
They requested the red dots and had many chances to practice counting--as we put the stickers on their fingers and as they put the stickers on their ladybugs, all the way from 1 to 5.

Fingers are a great way to teach counting to 5!!

I would also suggest using the Little Ladybug song from Little Fingers That Play! It's another way to talk about the vocabulary "ladybug" while counting.

Please leave a comment--I love to hear what you have to say!!
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St. Patrick's Day Counting Book

Leprechauns love to have gold coins in their pots of gold, and preschoolers love to count, so, why not make a St. Patrick's Day Counting Book?

Targets
Vocabulary- leprechaun, pot of gold, gold coins
Counting to 5 with 1:1 correspondence
Number recognition

First, we gathered our materials- enough books for each student, lots of gold coins, glue, a  pot and a leprechaun.
We talked about each item, giving the students repeated practice with naming the vocabulary. They could hear the words over and over again and have a chance to say them.

Throughout the activity, the students needed to request items before they got them ("I want a book;" "I want a leprechaun"). The first thing we did was to decorate the cover with the leprechaun, pot and some gold coins. They could follow our pattern or put them anywhere they wanted.

Next, we went through the book, page by page to add the gold coins.

On each page, there was a number written (we use the Touch Math concept; that's why there are dots on the numbers) to work on number recognition and a circle drawn on to represent how many gold coins went on the page. This helped them with counting with 1:1 correspondence. Finally, there were written words to help encourage pre-reading skills.

As the students requested their gold coins, they had more and more practice with counting.
This activity is a nice example of how pre-academic concepts, such as math, can be incorporated into speech and language therapy! The students practiced counting as they practiced requesting and vocabulary!
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Valentine's Day Candy Counting!

Even though my classroom is primarily for intensive speech and language therapy, we do do many pre-academic activities. This includes counting by rote and counting objects. Our counting activities are related to our vocabulary theme to make it more functional and more fun! It also reinforces our vocabulary items. For our Valentine's Day theme, we counted candy hearts!

Targets
Vocabulary- Hearts, Candy
Counting objects to 5, number recognition

First, we gathered our materials:

 

 We used regular old (delicious) conversation candy hearts, a counting sheet I hand drew and some glue. The counting sheet has a couple of things of interest--First, we use the concept of Touch Math, where the numbers have dots on them that correspond with the amount the number represents ("2" has two dots on it) for the students to count. This gives a multi-sensory twist to learning. Second, I drew dots under each number to give the students extra cueing as to how many hearts to glue on and another chance to count.

We went through the counting sheet number by number and the students were encouraged to label the number and count the dots. Then they asked for candy to put on ("I want 2 hearts") and we helped them glue them on.

We continued to 5 and then they were done!

And, of course, they were allowed to eat some--as a fellow candy lover, I couldn't withhold!! ;)
I'm sure eating the candy was the students' favorite part, but I was happy they got lots of practice with counting objects and recognizing numbers!

 

Happy Counting! 

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!

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?

This month's theme in my classroom has been Zoo Animals. We've had a lot of fun singing cool songs about "Going to the Zoo" (yay Raffi!!), playing with our zoo animals, making lots of animal sounds and working on cute projects.

One week was dedicated to pre-math concepts. That week, we counted animals, made AB patterns with zebra stripes and read the fabulous Discovery Toys product:

Counting with Animals!

This one little book is jam PACKED with educational concepts! Let's take a look:
Introduction to numbers- on the left side of each page, the numbers 1-5 are shown (one at a time as you turn the pages!). The coolest thing about this is the numbers look like Touch Math**! There are a number of dots on the numbers that correspond with the amount the number represents, which really helps those kinesthetic learners as they move their fingers to count. **disclaimer--it's not TouchMath--it just reminds me of this fabulous way of teaching numbers and math.

Introduction to shapes and colors- on the right side of each page, there are peek through holes that are in some of the basic shapes, like squares, circles, triangles. Oh!! And, the amount of holes corresponds to the number shown! And, guess what?! The peek-a-boo shapes show off colors that are on the secret "Lift and Learn" flap!

Lots and lots of opportunities for counting-inside the flaps, there are oodles of animals to count and, you guessed it, the amount of each animal corresponds to the featured number on the previous page!

Lots and lots of opportunities to see the numbers- while you and your child are reading, the book asks your child to find certain animals. This gives your child many chances to see the number in print.

Language and speech concepts!!
Vocabulary-I know I've mentioned it before, but, presenting new words within categories is the best way to teach vocabulary and add words to that "filing cabinet" in the right place.

Articulation- Hooray for a multitude of multisyllabic words!! Many of my students leave off those pesky unstressed syllables when they are talking (so, "elephant" becomes "ephant"). Well, Counting with Animals has oodles and oodles of animals with lots of syllables!!
Elephants, butterflies, caterpillars, oh my!

And, as a person who works with preschoolers, I certainly appreciate the quality of Counting with Animals!! The book is very sturdy and strong to resist those busy hands who might get a little rough and accidentally rip the book. Also, the pages are laminated, which is so fabulous because, well, 3- and 4-year olds get kinda snotty!! Little sneezing kiddos are no problem with Counting with Animals!!-- Wipes off so easily!

Oh, and did I mention how affordable it is? $13.50 is a great price for such a high quality book!! Please checkout my website and get your own copy of Counting with Animals!!