Summer Sensory Bin: Kinetic Sand

Is it just me or did summer show up all of a sudden?! Unlike my school SLP friends, I will be working through the summer. That is, until I pop out this baby (see last post)! One of my favorite activities to use with my preschoolers is a good ol' sensory bin (as you can see from my previous post on the Spring Garden Sensory Bin). There are many types of sensory play you can explore (gel, water, ice, shaving cream, etc). I have been having fun with kinetic sand.

For those of you who aren't familiar with kinetic sand, it is material that looks like sand but doesn't have the same grittiness. It's mold-able, easy to clean up (grains tend to clump together), soft, and doesn't dry up (I've had my sand for over a year and it feels the same way it did the day I purchased it).

I love how kinetic sand keeps its shape!

Kinetic sand isn't the cheapest thing in the world (about $13 for 1.5 lbs) but I figured it was worth the splurge. It totally is!

For the sensory bin, I placed a few pounds of sand into a shoe box sized plastic container that I got from Michael's. The sand alone would have been enough to make my preschoolers happy, but I decided to add some extra goodies. Additional accessories included mold's that I also purchased from Target. It included a turtle, fish, seahorse, and sandcastle mold. I also added a shovel I got from the dollar store as well as seashells.

My preschoolers had so much fun digging, building, burying, making, etc. We were also able to work on sentence expansion, following directions, comprehension of 'wh' and yes/no questions, you name it!

I paired the sensory bin with one of my favorite books, "Miranda's Beach Day". It's a simple story about the sights and sounds a little girl and her mom encounter while at the beach. After reading this, my kids were so excited to get to play in the sand like Miranda did!

For those of you who have used kinetic sand, how do you incorporate it into your sessions? What would you add to your sensory bin?

Spring Garden Sensory Bin

I don't know about you but I have a bit of spring fever and have gotten into the gardening and planting mood. Oh wait, you thought I was referring to my own personal garden?! No way! I'm talking about my educational play garden. Not only are sensory bins a fun tactile way for kids to play and learn, they can be used with any kind of toys/manipulatives you have laying around.

I filled a plastic shoe box sized bin with dried black beans (about 4 bags). I then added plastic fruits and veggies from Target (see below). I felt like I hit the jackpot with this purchase! It came with 2 cutting boards and 2 knives. Win!

My children had a BLAST with this one! We worked on verbs (digging, finding, hiding, cutting, etc), labeling, following directions ("Give me the __"), 'wh' question comprehension ("What is the orange, crunchy vegetables bunnies eat?"), yes/no questions, and categorizing.

I paired this activity with "The Fruits We Eat" to provide additional reinforcement to work on vocabulary. We used one of the last pages as a reference the help identify whether or not a selected item was a fruit.

**Edit: I found a great book that targets vegetables called "Our Community Garden". My kids loved learning about all the different veggies that can be grown in their own garden.

What else can I do with the bin you ask? How does planting flowers sound!? I couldn't really find any cool plastic flowers in the store, so I decided to make my own out of pipe cleaners (thank you YouTube!)

My "bouquet" 

I made the flowers in an assortment of colors (pink, red, blue, and orange). Add a toy shovel and planters and you're all set for some gardening!

Kids have so much fun using the shovel to dig the "dirt" into the planters.

 With this activity, skills such as requesting ("I want the red flower"), sentence expansion, 'wh' question comprehension, following directions, yes/no questions, can all be targeted.

Do you use sensory bins in your sessions? What materials do you use?

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I didn't want to make a separate post, so I'll just let you in on a secret I've been hiding. I'm pregnant! Hubby and I are so excited to be expecting a sweet baby girl this August. If I end up MIA again, you'll know why :) Please find the obligatory bump pic below:

Auditory Processing of Early Language Comprehension Skills {Review}

Frequently asking for directives to be repeated, delays in response time, difficulty following complex auditory directives, decreased comprehension in noise (the list goes on). According to ASHA's technical report (2005),             "(C)APD (central auditory processing disorders) may lead to or be associated with difficulties in higher order language, learning, and communication functions." Auditory Processing of Early Language Comprehension Skills is a useful resource from Great Ideas for Teaching Inc. meant to target the deficits those with processing disorders present.

Pages are perforated for easy tearing and photocopying

This 60 page workbook contains 30 reproducible black and white illustrations designed to improve comprehension skills.

While looking at pictures, students listen to a story pertaining to the illustration. Questions that gauge students' abilities related to comprehension, execution of directives, use of context clues, memory, inferencing, time, spatial details, etc. are provided (see below).

Despite being advertised as an activity for younger ages (6-9), students of any age who lack the aforementioned skills can benefit from these lessons. Activities can easily be expanded upon by requiring students to provide written instead of oral responses, as well as prompting students to provide supporting details to rationalize their responses. The activities in Auditory Processing of Early Language Comprehension Skills are straightforward, yet target a multitude of skills.

For those with skills that are a bit more advanced, Targeting Auditory Memory and Processing is a workbook from the same author that addresses auditory memory in addition to vocabulary, prepositions, verbs, etc.

Reference:
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2005). (central) auditory processing disorders [Technical Report]. Available from www.asha.org/policy.

Disclosure Statement: Great Ideas for Teaching, Inc. provided resources for testing in exchange for a review. The opinions expressed in this review are mine. No other compensation was provided. 

Targeting Language Through Play

My summer vacation seems to have taken a bit of a turn. I had every intention of relaxing and using my free time to get organized for the upcoming school year and perhaps even plan my wedding (July 26, 2013!!!). However, an opportunity to work with the early intervention and preschool population arose that I could not pass up. After spending a year with my middle schoolers I definitely needed to jog my memory and re-familiarize myself with functional and multipurpose toys to use in order to support and develop language. I am using this post to do just that.  Here is a compilation of some of the things I’ve have found useful in the past, as well as toys I would like to utilize moving forward.

Elefun: 

Kids can't seem to get enough of this game, although adults get tired of this one fast!

This is a classic game where an elephant blows butterflies out of his trunk and are caught with nets. Short utterances can be modeled (e.g. “Pick up,” “Ready, set go!” etc.) as well as requesting, and turn-taking behavior. Important spatial concepts regarding spatial relationship (e.g. front, behind, top), quantity, colors, directions, etc. can also be addressed.

Pound a Ball:

This toy allows you to target color matching, prepositions (e.g. in/out, up/down), requesting, turn-taking, cause/effect etc. Just me mindful of fingers during this activity as children tend to get very excited and  occasionally “miss” their target.

Melissa & Doug Sound Puzzles:

Sound puzzles are a great way to teach sounds and basic words as well as cause/effect. The child's receptive language can easily be targeted  by asking them to “point to”, “show me”, or indicate “where?”

Bubbles:

Bubbles are one of my favorite therapy tools because they can be used to assess language skills as well as promote its development. Skills such as eye contact, requesting, signing, sound production, word/phrase production, turn-taking, quantity, etc. can all be addressed.

Jenga:

Classic Jenga with an updated look.

                                                             

Jenga is a classic no frills game that is a tried and true motivator. It reinforces turn-taking behavior and spruces up any speech/language activity. After producing a target sound, answering a question etc. have the student take a turn removing a block. I have also found this to be a great demonstration of concepts like “gentle”, “slow”, “rough”, “careful”, etc.

Shape Sorter: 

In addition to requesting and turn-taking, many concepts can be targeted with a shape sorter. Concepts include: prepositions ("in", "out", "on"), color, shapes, directions, full/empty (depending on type of sorter), quantity, etc.

Blocks:

Blocks are an essential part of any SLP’s toolkit as they encourage creativity as well as target prepositions, spatial relationships, directions, quantity, cause/effect, as well as social skills related to turn-taking, and sharing.

These are only a few examples of toys to utilize with the preschool population. I am fully aware that there are a plethora more available. However, I find that the simple toys/games/activities illicit the most language, as there are no bells and whistles to distract the child from their innate need to play.

I am very excited about my new summer position working with the little ones. I'm also extra pumped because I get the added bonus of a supplementary income.  I hope my piggie bank is ready for all the cash :)

Following Directions With Origami {Review}

The free ‘How to Make Origami’ app is a fun, simple tool to utilize with students who are bored with worksheets. This app will walk you and your students through the steps of how to make over 70 popular origami figures (crane, rabbit, giraffe, goldfish, tulip, etc) while using 3D animation of the folding process. Steps range from a simple 6 step walk-through on how to make a boat all the way up to the 78 step ‘how-to’ on creating a spider!   Users can easily go forward/backward through the steps as well as replay the animation. Each figure is rated for difficulty from easy to middle to hard. Directions for images rated easy and middle are provided for each step. For the images rated hard, no written directives are provided.

This can be turned into a great pragmatic language lesson wherein a student can take the lead and instruct others on the next step, engaging in a back and forth dialogue. Students have the opportunity to ask for clarification, repetition, or assistance; necessary social skills a lot of my students do not possess. Additional IEP goals related to following directions, auditory memory, sequencing, sentence formulation, can also be targeted.

For additional reinforcement related to the skills targeted, graphic organizer can be used to recall and organize steps used to create the origami image. Further working on receptive and expressive language.

Below are a few screen shots of one my favorite figures from this app.... a pig! 

Each image is presented on the screen prior to steps being introduced.

 Each step is animated and accompanied with written directives at the bottom of the screen (for easy and middle images only).

 All steps can easily be replayed. Users can go forward or back through steps.

 

 App Compatibility:

The ‘How to make Origami’ App is available on all Apple products (iPhone and iPad) as well as all Android products (phone and tablet). I have the app on both my Android phone and iPad.  In the therapy room setting I prefer using the iPad where it’s large screen is a perfect size for my small group sessions.

Have fun folding!