Spring is in the Air!

Here in Florida, Spring is definitely in FULL swing.  As much as I LOVE the beautiful blooming flowers and trees, the older I get the more sensitive to pollen I am becoming…ACHOO!  The air quality has not been the best, but I can say the temperatures have been great.  The beauty of Spring in Florida is low 80s temps without the sweltering humidity that is so common during the summer.  Outdoor living is my favorite and exploring new places is always a treat.  We ventured to Leu Gardens last week and it was absolutely gorgeous.

This week’s Teleherapy Tip Tuesday is going to focus on fun and engaging activities that I like to incorporate into my therapy/teletherapy room during the Spring.  As you can see, I have updated my Bitmoji Classroom for Spring.  If you haven’t created a Bitmoji Classroom yet, be sure to take a look at my blog post that will guide you through on how to get started.

March is jam packed with SO MANY great teachable moments.  Use your time wisely to incorporate language, literacy, articulation, women’s history, and so much more into your sessions!  I personally like to mix things up and present a variety of digital resource options to my students.  I have learned over the years that in order to keep your sessions engaging, dynamic, versatile, and fun, it is imperative to present variety to your students.  Here are just a few of my favorites for this time of the year.

1. The Biggest Easter Basket Ever

This book series by Steven Kroll is a favorite with my students.  I love the fact that we can incorporate a different book from this series for each season/holiday of the year.  The progress that I see in their abilities to identify story elements and retell a story becomes very evident by this point.  Because the characters and story line are similar across each book, students learn to listen for the key details.  I offer a Book Companion for many of the books in this series and repetitive nature of the questions I present, help to ensure success.

The companion follows the progression of the story and begins with several pre-reading activities. The first is describing an Easter basket using this cute graphic organizer.

If you work face to face, this would be a great opportunity to incorporate a tangible basket and plastic eggs into your sessions.  You can also do this remotely via teletherapy and use your plastic eggs for a number of different targets.  Writing your visual cues directly on the eggs (i.e. who, what, where, when, why) and allowing students to select the eggs from your basket by selecting a color is a fun way to present the concepts.

You could also write a target answer on a small piece of paper and put it inside the plastic eggs.  Have your students select an egg and when you open it for them to see the target answer, require them to formulate a question.  For instance, the target answer might be “Clayton” and your student would need to formulate the question, “Who was the story about?” or “Who was one of the main characters?”  Take advantage of the MANY language opportunities that can be addressed with this book.  For complete details click HERE.

2.  Sequencing and Story Retell Spring Edition

This Boom Cards activity is a part of my most popular and most requested series.  In the Spring edition, there are four original short stories followed by comprehension questions and a four-step action sequence for students to drag and drop as they retell the stories.  The short stories are geared towards younger students (PK-2) and present a wide variety of vocabulary terms with a Spring theme.  This a great time to either model clear, fluent reading to your students or give them the opportunity to read aloud to you.

 

If you’re working with a mixed group, take the time to identify the words that contain your student’s target sounds and have them repeat the words, use them in sentences, and add them to their word journals.  Word journals are great for both your language and articulation students.  I like to start them in the beginning of the school year using a composition notebook and encourage my students to be creative and have fun with them.  They can draw pictures of their words, write the definitions, and practice from them for homework to reinforce targets.  Digital word journals are also a very effective option and can easily be created and maintained in Google Slides.  For complete details about this Boom Cards deck click HERE.

3.  Where is the Leprechaun?

This is another Boom Cards activity for Spring and is great to address basic concepts. It has a St. Patrick’s Day theme and includes both preposition practice as well as a formulating sentences component.  As students progress through this lesson they identify where the leprechaun is in relation to a variety of objects.  This serves as both preposition practice, vocabulary review, use of complete sentences (as they respond to “where” questions), and so much more!  The sentence formulation component is fully interactive and allows students to drag and drop words on the screen to unscramble 4-5 word sentences.

My students always enjoy being able to manipulate objects on the screen and this works great on Smartboards, iPads, tablets, computers, and of course teletherapy platforms.  If your students are not able to request control via teletherapy, no worries, the session is more language rich when they are required to use their words.  For complete details about this St. Patrick’s Day Boom Cards deck click HERE.

4.  Answering Yes/No Questions Spring Edition

This another Boom Cards option and includes real high-definition images with a Spring theme.  There are so many ways to utilize this resource with your students.  Real images are an extremely effective way to elicit language and can be used for vocabulary review, describing, formulating sentences, answering questions, tapping into prior knowledge, associations, and much more!

Regardless of the level your students are on, this can be a fun activity to get them talking.  Have them formulate a sentence about the target word, name the category, identify 3-5 things associated with the picture, tell you about a time that they saw/ate/played with the vocabulary words.  Be creative because the possibilities are endless.  Click HERE for complete details.

5.  What’s in Your Basket?

This one is a FREEBIE and can be used for a fun way to address prepositions and following directions.  It is fully interactive with drag and drop features for students to create a cute Spring themed picture scene.  They are then required to identify the correct preposition that corresponds to items in their picture.  Picture scenes can be used for so many important concepts and are great for MIXED groups too.

 

Have your students talk about the picture, describe target items, and identify words that contain their target sounds.  For a more comprehensive version of this lesson, I do offer a paid option.    For complete details click HERE.

6.  Vice-President Kamala Harris

March is Women’s History Month and a great time to empower, inspire, and motivate your students to always dream BIG!  This Kamala Harris Boom Cards Activity is FULL of language opportunities and addresses comprehension, answering questions, use of context clues, use of text evidence, vocabulary, and literacy, and MORE!  There are THREE separate mini-reading passages to help chunk the content into smaller digestible bites.

Comprehension questions follow each passage. It also includes a critical thinking open-ended section to challenge your students to apply their knowledge of what they learned from the expository text presented.  For the older students on your case load, this is a very comprehensive option that would be a nice addition to your toolbox all year long.  Click HERE for complete details.

7.  Phenomenal Black Women in American History

Another option for Women’s History Month is this Phenomenal Black Women in American History Boom Cards lesson.  It presents trivia style questions to introduce several phenomenal Black Women who blazed a trail in American History.

Incorporate Black history into your sessions and curriculum all year long. This unit is a great way to keep the conversation going.  It serves as a nice accompaniment to my Black History Comprehension Unit and will require students to either tap into their prior knowledge or explore new concepts.  This unit now includes questions about Kamala Harris, Amanda Gorman and a few more updated for 2021.   For complete details, click HERE.

8.  Hide and Reveal – Insect Edition

This is an Interactive PowerPoint with an insect theme.  The Hide and Reveal Series is a favorite with my students and is a great way to address a wide range of important concepts.  Students will be able to tap into their prior knowledge to make inferences about the pictures “hiding” underneath the squares.  This interactive unit allows students to click on the squares one at a time to reveal the hidden pictures.  The object of the game is to guess the hidden picture in as few clicks as possible.

 

Following each picture is a graphic organizer for students to practice describing the real images.  They will also get a chance to expand their knowledge.  After each REAL IMAGE picture, there are interesting facts in a “Did You Know” section.  This unit is great for MIXED groups!  For those artic students who are working on carryover to the conversational level, it is a great challenge.  The nature of the Hide and Reveal Series is to elicit discussion and conversation about the pictures and the facts.

These are just a few of my favorites for the Spring.  Be sure to visit my Spring themed offerings HERE to browse the entire collection.  As always, don’t hesitate to comment below with your questions.  If you prefer to send me an email, please do so at belinda@bvgslp.com.  I’m happy to help.