{Looking Ahead} It's Going to be a Mad, Mad Week!

Just to recap last week (since I didn't get it in gear to do a Looking Ahead post!):

This is what my table looked like last Wednesday. Since we're never in school for St. Patrick's Day, I miss out on all of the fun activities that I see a lot of you doing in your speech rooms. So, I extended St. Patrick's Day! We had a P.D. on Monday, so on Wed. my students either glued pictures on or wrote words on a shamrock to take home for homework. (Thanks to Bright Ideas SLP for this freebie!) That kept them busy when it wasn't their turn as we played St. Patty's Cakes from Putting Words in Your Mouth. The students had a great time trying to be the first one to have all 5 of their cupcakes on their table. When they put a cupcake on their table, I had them put a chip on the corresponding cupcake on their key card to help them see what they still needed. It was a hit!

Moving on to next week: We all know what happens in March, even if you're not a big sports person. If you live near a college who happens to have a decent basketball team, then you're probably more into the madness than others. I've never done a basketball themed week before, so I'm a little excited about doing this with my students!

5 Minute Day/Homework

Sparklle SLP has a brand-spanking new book companion for Salt in His Shoes (Delores Jordan, Roslyn Jordan).  (Let me take just a second here to reiterate how much I love her book companions! I love that she includes homework and a game: 2 required components for a book companion that I'm going to use!) For the independent station, the students will use the word list that Sparklle has graciously provided and will write words with their targets in the basketballs. And, their homework will be done and ready to take home at the end of the week!

For 1 of my "mixed" groups, I'm going to have a student who is working on retelling stories listen to a reading of the book Salt in His Shoes while I'm working with an artic student. This will actually give me close to 10 minutes with each student. When the artic student is writing the target words in the basketball, the student working on retell will use this from Sparklle's companion packet:

As you can tell, I use different terms than she does, so I just marked out her terms and wrote the ones that the student is used to using. (I use the Weber Story Builder from Super Duper) This student will take the flip book home, retell the story, and I'll have the parent sign a sheet in the homework folder that it was completed.

Younger students

This is yet another activity from Sparklle's companion. The students, after saying 3 target words, will glue a basketball around the hoop. Since all of my younger students are on the modelling phase on the word level, I'll write words on the basketballs of words they had trouble with during the session so they can take that home and work on it with their parents.

Language

Before we do anything, I'll show the students this Youtube video to help them grasp the basketball vocabulary. All Y'all Need also has several new packets centered around basketball. From Basketball for Speech & Language Therapy- Younger Elementary I'll be using:

Categories

And vocabulary

Laura has been busy; she also made a Wh? game! With a couple of my students who are in mixed groups, I will use the question cards as we play a group game (see "Games" below).

From Basketball for Speech & Language- Upper Elementary, some of my students will be using:

Basketball Text Passages

In her companion packet, Sparklle included an activity for identifying emotions:

Game Day
Again from Sparklle's companion packet, my students will actually have 2 different games to choose from:

An open-ended game,

Or a game to see who will have the most points at the end. 

Have a look to see what else is included in all of the materials I've linked. I only printed out and prepared those activities that are pertinent to my caseload.