I love taking ideas meant for teachers and throwing in my SLP twist. The original idea for this project came from a parenting blog, And Next Comes L, which has tons of neat ideas for learning activities. She created a shower curtain to use for practice with sight words. I really liked the idea as it's something I can take outside to work on therapy targets without the fear of it getting messed up. It's also fun for inside play too.
So here is my category curtain....
My articulation groups will not be missing out on the fun either. I'm in the process of making a set for the most common articulation sounds that are on my caseload. The plan is to use the shower curtains for bean bag toss games rather than a writing activity as it was presented in the sight word post. If you have students that aren't afraid of the dark, you could also turn the lights out and use a flashlight to select the words. It took me about 30 minutes to write all of the categories on my $1 shower curtain (which is a much better deal than paying $27 dollars for a pre-made version). If you are worried about a shower curtain withstanding the test of time, you could also try a lined tablecloth. They work really well in therapy too and have more size options available.
Remember this activity from Halloween 2012? It was done with a tablecloth purchased from Goodwill.
I have a cheap tablecloth from the Dollar Store that I gridded out and wrote the letters of the alphabet. I used to use it for phonemic awareness and sound-symbol correspondence when i had the room. Now, I'm thinking I need to drag it back out and use it for categorizing where students have to think of a category member that starts with whatever letter the bean bag lands on. That would really get the kids to delve deeper into a category and have to justify some responses.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea, Deidre. I have a game that uses that strategy (thinking its one of the Cranium family). It's quite a good challenge for them.
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