Insects and Adjectives

As our insect week continues my student teacher came up with a great lesson about adjectives! They first read the book If You Were An Adjective By Micheal Dahl. This is a fabulous book that teaches the students about adjectives in a fun way! This book is part of a full series that talks about different types of language (synonyms, antonyms, plurals, etc...). After they read the book the student drew an insect of their choice and then used adjectives to describe their insect! It was lots of fun for everyone! :)

Insects!!

This week we will being our insect unit! This is personally one of my favorite units to do with my students because they love it! I get insects from the dollar store and get Easter grass and put them in a container. I have the students search for the insects and then I have the students put the insect in a sentence and we work on describing them with adjectives. For my non-verbal students, I have a choice board and PECs pictures to have them formulate the sentences. I also have made a handful of worksheets (see link below) about insects that I have made to meet my students individual needs. Towards the end of the unit we go outside to search for insects and use what we learned about insects throughout the week. This helps with generalization of what the students learned in speech! Stay tuned for my activities from my insect unit this week!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Insect-Unit-for-Autistic-Children-and-Children-with-Language-Delays

Wh-Question Visuals

 While working with students on the autism spectrum I have found that answering wh-questions is very difficult for them. I have made visuals for 'what', 'where', 'when', and 'who' questions. I focus on one type of wh-question and explain to the child what the answer will always be. For example, 'who' questions will always be a person. After this is taught I "kill and drill" who questions with the student. I have seen a lot of success with this strategy. These visuals are used throughout the lessons for wh-questions and I share these visuals with the classroom teacher to help with generalization.
Below is a link to my wh-question visuals that are available for free on TPT.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Wh-Question-Visuals-For-Students

Spring Language Flowers

Today we made our language flowers. We drew a picture of our spring vocabulary word in the center of the flower and then wrote adjectives and sentences that describe the vocabulary word. It was a lot of fun and all the flowers turned out great. I highly suggest doing this activity with your students. See our finished bulletin board below!

Spring Vocabulary Games

To help my students with learning more spring vocabulary I have made spring bingo and spring memory games. (See TPT link below **on sale**). These games keep the students engaged and making learning fun. Many IEP goals and objectives can be addressed while playing these games which include: sentence structure, answering 'yes'/'no' questions, answering wh-questions, attributes, and articulation! I have modify the game for each group of students to address their individual needs. Have fun! :)
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spring-Vocabulary-Games-Bingo-and-Memory

Spring Articulation Flowers

I am always looking for fun new activities to do with my students that are working on articulation! This week since our theme is spring we made articulation flowers. Each student wrote their sound  in the center of the flower and put their articulation words on the flower petals. A group of students decided to make them into a bulletin board with all of my students articulation flowers. Tune in later in the week for the bulletin board and for our language flowers!

Spring Therapy Ideas

It is (sorta) spring in Chicago so this week I will begin my spring unit with my students. I have created many worksheets for my students to work on based on their IEP goals. This morning with the self-contained autism classroom I worked on the attributes of big and small. Many students in this classroom use PECS as their mode of communication and reached the phase where they add the attributes of size and/or color to their sentence strip. We first used stuffed animals (one big and one small) and I had them determine the size of the stuffed animal. Next, we used the worksheet (see above). Visual and verbal prompts were given to students depending on their skill level with this concept. See link below for the spring unit on TPT. Happy Earth Day and Spring! :)
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spring-Speech-Language-Therapy-Materials-AutismLanguage-Delays