3 Rhyming Games That Are Fun and Easy! Rhyme Time! Week 4

Have you been having fun with rhyming? I sure hope so! If you missed the other parts of this free rhyming set, as well as my ideas for how to incorporate word play in daily life, start by clicking here.

Now that your children are familiar with rhyming, maybe you'd like to try some challenges! Ask the question and then the children can take turns providing a starting word. 

Be sure to talk about which WORD has the most/least rhymes, NOT which child guessed the best. This helps with keeping it a collaborative family game instead of a sibling fight.

1.  What do you think is the biggest number of rhymes we can make?
(After the challenge: "Great going, guys! We met the challenge!"
OR, "Good try, everyone! That word was harder to rhyme than we thought!")

2. What word is the hardest to rhyme?
(After the challenge: "That was a hard one! We couldn't come up with real words, so let's try some silly ones and see how many of those we can name.")

3. How many real/silly/both rhymes can we make for all the names in our family? Which name do you think will be the easiest? Hardest?

I know you are having fun now! But be sure to download the last set of free picture cards, too!

Enjoy!

Linda

Rhyme Time! Week 3 Freebie

It is Rhyme Time! Since I feel very committed to helping children, I've made a series of easy to play games that can be used by parents, SLPs, SPED and PreK teachers to help build children's literacy skills. This week, there's another rhyming set available to download for free!

Why rhyming? It is one of the important pre-reading skills that children need to have! Download this free part of the set here and keep coming back every week to get the rest of the set. 

RHYMING TIP:

When you are playing around with the sounds in words, like in this rhyming set, encourage children to pay attention to their tongues and mouth. When you start the rhyming pairs, the beginning sounds are different. What did they do that made it different? Maybe one sound used lips (like 'pear') and the next word used their tongues (like 'tear'.)

Are you an educator looking for something more in depth?

Take a peek at my rhyming games at my store! There are 66 different pictures in this set, so you can differentiate more easily for groups and even build vocabulary with the less common words. Click here to check it out.

Enjoy!
Linda

Rhyme Time! Week 2 Freebie

Who doesn't love a good Dr. Seuss book, full of rhymes? Theodor Seuss Geisel was a brilliant man whom we should all be grateful for. His funny creatures and entertaining rhymes have taught many children to read!

The power of rhyming is well known, and it is something that parents can easily learn how to fit into their regular routines with their kids.  Just liven up a boring task with a word game and you will be helping your child to be more ready for school!

Don't forget to start a night time routine for a short story or book, either!

Now, I'm not claiming to have the sparkling wit of Dr. Seuss, but this free download will help you get started playing word games with your kids.

Want more tips for word games? Start at the beginning of the summer series here.

What are your favorite books for kids?

Enjoy- Linda

Rhyme Time! Week 1 Freebie

Summer is for fun, and who says that rhyming games can't be fun? Playing word games with your kids over the summer is a great way to help them keep their skills strong for back to school time!

There are free printable word games on this blog all summer long! If you missed the last set, start here to play with beginning and ending sounds.

This week's download starts off a rhyme series. The picture are adorable, so keep coming back all summer to get the complete set!

Don't forget to play rhyming games in the car, too! 

Start with basic games:
- Do a round robin where one person starts with a simple one syllable rhyming word like  'at.'  Everyone takes turns naming a rhyming until someone runs out of ideas. See if you can beat your last group score!

Make it harder:
-  Play a game for giving clues for something you can see around you. first give a rhyming clue. Then give a describing clue. Then tell what it is for. Three strikes and you are out!

"I'm thinking of something that rhymes with 'grouch.'
It is (color.)
You sit on it."

For older kids:
Play the same games but use 2 or 3 syllable words only!

Are you seriously in the business of helping students with their pre-reading skills? Try this fun game with 48 different picture cards!

What word games does your family like to play?

Enjoy- Linda

3 NO COST Tips to Help STOP Summer Time Lag!

Did you know that students who don’t keep expanding their vocabulary over the summer come back to school in the fall lagging behind their peers who continued learning?

It is just one way to measure growth, but is closely tied to many skills needed for school success.

Parents, what you do with your children at home is so important! You CAN help your kids to be better prepared for school each and every year. These ideas are NO COST, but they do take a bit of time. And you don't even need to leave your home for most of these!

3 tips to help stop that summer time lag!

Vocabulary:

Choose a word of the week and give a thumbs up for every time one of your kids uses that word in a sentence. The winner earns an easy prize:

• Stay up 15 minutes later (or in bed later in the morning)

• Choose the next cereal to be bought

• 1 chore to be shared by the other kids one time

• A star next to their name on a piece of paper on the fridge

• Play word games where you take turns:

-naming something in a category that starts or ends with a letter.

-describing something until someone guesses it.

-going through the alphabet to name an item you would find in a place.

Read:

Reading is the most important thing you can do! If your kids totally resist trips to the library, try these ideas:

• Try a manga (comic strip pictures) book.

• Read the comics together if you get a paper or have computer access.

• Make something your family loves to eat and have your kids read the recipe to you.

• Have your kids read the labels at the store to find out how much sugar or salt are in the food.

• Find a show or movie with subtitles that you have access to and take turns reading the script.

Tell a story:

For school practice, the stories have to have a beginning, middle and end that are connected by a main idea. Try these ideas:

• At a shared meal, tell something about your day.

• Tell a story about something that you will always remember.

• Tell about the worst time you ever had at (place)

• Tell about the last episode of their favorite tv show. Does it make sense even if you haven’t seen the show?

• Tell a wish/hope story, like:

      - If I could could travel anywhere...

-If I won a shopping spree at my favorite store...

-If I invented a _____...

-If I was stranded on an island...

-If I had a personal robot...

Whatever you do, just keep on talking!

Have a great summer! Enjoy- Linda

Making It Work: 3 Steps for Using Adapted Books and Play

Did you leave my last post about combining books with play thinking, “Those are great ideas, but how do I do that?”  Then this post is for you!

Step 1: Choose a theme!

Having a picnic is the theme I’ll be using since it is lots of fun and has so many options. Themes allow you to :

      • Make groups work when you have to switch your groups around for make-up sessions.

      •  Coordinate with the theme being used in a pre-K or K classroom.

      • Get out a limited set of toys, books and craft activities for the time you are using the theme.

• Start collecting fun toys and activities to expand your theme for next year.

Step 2: Choose and adapt a book!

There are so many choices!

⁃ Start by looking at what you already have around or can get inexpensively. Planning ahead and looking at the Scholastic Book club choices can be a good way to go, so parents can get the same book for home carryover!

⁃ Often it is good to have a higher level book and a lower level one for your theme, so you can meet most of the goals you are working on and have a cohesive set of follow-up activities for everyone.

⁃ Look at the pictures in the book. Does the text talk about what is happening in the picture or can you adapt the text easily so that they match? Our students need to have this visual matching support to make sense of the language in the text.

⁃ Adapt the book so that your lower level students can fill in the vocabulary words while your higher level students can complete the sentences. This can be done easily if you have more than one place with a blank Velcro spot to add the missing symbols. Just choose which set of symbols to remove depending on the needs of each student or group.

Step 3: Choose your follow-up activities!

You want these activities to reinforce the language and concepts for the theme and the book. Best practice would have you read the entire book first before you focus on sections of it for skill building.

- Start with the object vocabulary. 

Find toys or bring in the real items to elicit the labels. How about a picnic basket filled with the items you are talking about? Students can take turns putting their hand in the basket without peeking and pull out an item to label.

- Re-enact the plot sequence by doing the activity. 

This is a great way to reinforce the object labels and introduce the verbs. If your students can handle it, go outside to an enclosed area and have a picnic with their favorite snack and drink. 

Do you have runners? Then have a picnic on your therapy room floor with the door closed. Still won’t work? Put a plastic tablecloth or red bulletin board paper over your table and have your picnic there while your student is in the accustomed seating.

- Now that your students have some experience with a picnic, go back to your adapted  book and see how successful they are at completing it. Note their errors to choose which follow up activities to use:

* Play having a picnic with toys.

* Do a craft to make/decorate/color the vocabulary items.

* Play a game with pictures of the activities involved in the theme.

* Watch a You-tube video associated with the theme.

* Use an interactive activity on your iPad for the theme. BOOM Cards are great for this!

* Make flip book activity for forming sentences.

* Adapt a picture worksheet to make an interactive activity, or have your higher level students just complete the worksheet.

* Have students fill in more of the symbols in your adapted book, or use additional books to expand their language for the theme.

Here are some picnic theme ideas to check out:

Enjoy! Linda

Beginning or Ending Sounds- A Free Phonological Awareness Activity Week 3

You might be saying to yourself, "What is phonological awareness, anyway? What happened to phonics instruction?" 

Well, phonics instruction still exists, but your kids will be a lot better prepared for it if you have fun with sounds in play before they get to school age!

FUN FACT 1:
Phonemes are the sounds, not the letters of the alphabet, that make up a language.

FUN FACT 2:
Children need a lot of practice listening to and playing with the sounds of our language before they are ready to attach them to the alphabet and written language.

FUN FACT 3:
If your child has difficulty pronouncing a sound, playing games to build skills for listening and identifying the sound can be helpful in learning to say the sound more clearly!

So, what are you waiting for? Download the free Beginning and Ending Sounds Activity and get started! If you missed the prior weeks, get started with the first download here.

If this got you curious, you can read more about the difference between phonological awareness, phonemic awareness and phonics at my friend Sarah's blog, Speech is Beautiful! 

Enjoy! Linda

Beginning or Ending Sounds- A Free Phonological Awareness Activity- Week 1

Have fun practicing the phonological processes of initial or final sound omissions, work on phonological awareness skills, or just have fun being creative and let your students find ways that the pictures are the same or different! There are so many ways to make use of this free download!

Come back every week for a month and you will have a complete, free packet! Or if you prefer, join my newsletter to get the entire, complete set in one download (along with some extras!) 

This month, my newsletter followers are getting a bonus open ended game board. 

Open ended activities are so useful when you have make up sessions to do and have to group kids with a hodgepodge of goals!

Download the first week's set here.

Do you need some more fun sound practice for articulation and phonology skills? Check out Speech Therapy Games and Activities for Final Consonants & Rhymes. 

There are many pictures, sorting mats, worksheets and a fun game to keep your students practicing over and over again! 

One buyer said, "What a brilliant idea! The kids enjoy it!" And I'm sure yours will, too!

Enjoy the freebie! Linda

5 Important Reasons to Combine Books & Play in Therapy

Books and play are my two favorite therapy methods, so what could be better than combining the two? Sometimes people think that all SLPs do is play, so how hard could that be? They’d be surprised if they tried to accomplish specific goals in maybe an hour or so a week!

5 benefits to combining books and play in therapy:

1. Kids who are engaged are more willing to learn.

2.  Using play and the language for play also helps improve their symbolic thinking skills.

3. Using adapted books helps them understand and engage with books, improving their literacy skills.

4. Using therapy methods and materials that are part of their environment helps to promote generalization or carry-over.

5. They are both so much fun!

Spring is a fun time for incorporating a cloud/rain theme to go along with the saying, “April showers bring May flowers.” My favorite book to use for that theme?  It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw.

Adapting the book

Did you know that there is a great website from the Baltimore City School system that has Boardmaker symbols for books all ready to download? For FREE! What a huge timesaver if you have Boardmaker already installed!

Get the list of all of the adapted books here. 
Or you can start with the downloadable zip files, starting with the letter A here.

Unfortunately, It looked like Spilt Milk used to be available, but no longer is. Maybe I should make that freebie for my newsletter members- what do you think?

Games & Skills

Since VISUAL DISCRIMINATION SKILLS are a must for any students using a symbol system to communicate, the shape matching nature of this book makes it a great choice to use with students who are developing literacy skills. Additional shape matching activities can be found in the book companion at my store.

You know that I loved using Ellison cutters when I was in the schools (free), and now many people are buying home versions like Sizzix or Cricut machines (expensive.)

No worries, though, as you can just download the free cloud shapes here and do some old fashioned tracing and cutting on construction paper instead.

Cloud faces with the basic EMOTIONS are always cute to use!

Make a pile face down, elicit a target from your student and then let them choose from the pile. If you have 4 emotions, you can have 4 winners!

Instead of picking randomly from a pile, stack each emotion in a deck and students can take turns requesting the emotion card they want.

Clouds with different colors, sizes, and shapes add DESCRIPTIVE WORDS to their language!

MIXED GROUPS- Try using tape or fun-tack to attach other pictures to the back of the cloud shapes. In the picture, I have pieces to a Sesame Street puzzle attached to use as a puzzle token board. The student knew that when the puzzle was completed, the task was done.

Give each student a set of their own clouds with their specific targets. Place the free cloud page that you downloaded in a page protector so students have to cover all of the shapes.

SPEECH SKILLS- Tape pictures with the target sounds on the back or write the word using a dry erase marker on the clouds if they are laminated. Easy!

LANGUAGE SKILLS- It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just cut out the pictures from a worksheet that you can give for homework and tape them on the back to practice first!

There are so many more fun activities in my book companion. Besides giving little ones an easy way to start using the strategy of looking back in the text to recall story details, there are a cute open-ended game board, and rhyming and phonology activities, too. 

But I think my favorite is the cloud shape matching boards! Check it out here!

Enjoy!