Summer of Felt

Who else has a slight... ok, big obsession with anything felt?  I have been busy all summer cutting out all kinds of felt shapes.  Some for songs and some for books.  I am sharing some of my favorite summer felt activities.  Stay tuned, I will be sharing more felt crafts in the fall and spring.  I hope to have a huge collection of felt pieces that can be paired with some of my favorite books and songs. Bonus, the students love the interactive aspect felt has, let alone all the language skills targeted!

I made these felt pieces to go along with the books, We're Going on a Lion Hunt and We're Going on a Bear Hunt.   I love giving my students something they can hold and manipulate during book activities.  This helps when sequencing, remembering vocabulary terms, and retelling details in the story.

Do you know the song "Slippery Fish?"  I love it!  The fish gets eaten by the octopus, the octopus gets eaten by the tuna fish, and so forth.  I pair this song with hand gestures and as each animal gets eaten, I lay it on top of the other, finally leaving on the whale left!

I use this felt activity with a song that targets counting.  I start with 5 fish and then as the whale eats one fish at time, the students say what number fish are left.  I start all my felt activities by labeling each part, whale, fish, pail.  You'd be surprised how many students have no idea what a pail is.

This is 5 little fish swimming in the pool felt activity. Each fish says a something different, such as "the pool is cooool" or "the pool is deeep".  I also like to add gestures representing each fish.

Butterflies rhyming felt board.  As we "catch" butterflies and put them in our net, we work on counting and rhyming.  For example, I will say "We will catch a (have the student pick a color), it's really lots of fun and when we put it in our net, how many do we have? One. This gets repeated until we have 5 beautiful butterflies.

Ice cream shop.  This one is not really a felt activity, although you could easily make felt cones and ice cream.  I just happen to have these ice cream cones from another game.  I like to save time when I can!  I like this activity to work on more, less, fewer, least, and most.  To begin, you have "Johnny" going into an ice cream store and coming out with one scope of ice cream, then "Jenny" comes out with 2 scoops of ice cream and so on.  The students can name the ice cream colors and flavor as well as count how many scoops each kid has. Then you can ask student questions, such as, "who has the most" and "who has the least."

Alphabet Riddle.  These felt letters are from the Target dollar spot.  I got them in the spring, along with numbers.  I love that place!  For each letter, the student has to guess the animal based on the riddle I provide.  For example, he's colored green and has a very big snout, if you see its teeth you should surely shout, see you later.  A is for ... alligator.

Phew, that was a lot!  I hope you find some of these helpful!  Look for more to come!

Ladybug Bingo

Do you have students who struggle with understanding prepositions?  I feel like many of my students need multiple exposures to prepositions in order to generalize them into other environments. This bingo game focuses on the prepositions on and under.  Developmentally, these should be learned at approximately 3 years old.  Those students with language difficulties often take longer to master these concept.  I created this product to help my students and hopefully will help yours as well. I also plan to use this activity with the book "Are you a Ladybug?"  

Dr. Seuss Sensory Bin

I am loving using sensory bins with my students.  They're great at targeting articulation and language skills, as well as used with a large range of ages.  This Dr. Seuss sensory bin in paired with the book ABC.  I added different colored macaroni and used letters from Target.  What are you using for Dr. Seuss's birthday?

 

Valentine's Sensory Bin

My Valentine sensory bin was very engaging.  We targeted attributes, similarities/differences, vocabulary and even some fine motor skills. 

Decorating the Tree

Are you looking for some ideas that incorporates movement into your sessions?  This is great activity to work on following directions, labeling, and prepositions.  This works well if you co-teach with the OT, which I share a room with OT and PT. The sentences that the kids generated using prepositions and vocabulary related to the Holidays were great!

Annual Door Decorating Contest

It's that time of year again... the annual door decorating contest.  I do not know about you, but coming up with ideas for my door stresses me out!! December, in general, stressing me out!  However, I found this cute idea on Pinterest, I just modified it a bit.  The kids loved drawing pictures of books we have read together.  Our door did not win, but we still had fun!

October Staff/Parent Newsletter

October's newsletter continues to focus on books that I love to use during this month.  I try to recommend at least 5 books for the month.  My top 3 choices for October are Apple Trouble by Ragnhild Scamll, The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything by Linda D. Williams, and The Chocolate Chip Ghost by Meighan Peifer.  I love the book Apple Trouble because the main character is a hedgehog!  Who doesn't think hedgehogs are cute? Am I right!  I also love this book because my daughter has a stuffed hedgehog that I "borrowed" from her room...shhhh... don't tell her! We used this book in therapy along with pictures of the items that got stuck to hedgehog.  I just printed some pictures I found on google and laminated them.  Then I used double sided tape so that each item that got stuck to the hedgehog could be placed on my stuffed hedgehog.  The kids loved it!  Any time you can bring a stuffed animal to class and use it during therapy is a win!

Another great resource that I just found is a website called Tarheel reader.  This is an awesome site where you can create your own stories for your students. It's simple and fun - you can create any story you want including social stories, sensory stories, and stories about field trips.  The stories can be viewed as a whole class using a smart-board or laptop, or you can print them for smaller group projects. I have already received a positive response from the music teacher!. Yup, that's right...the music teacher loved it!