Squiggly Worms was a bit of a surprise hit. I thought it looked boring in comparison to the Highlights Hidden Picture Game (another one they hated), Funny Bunny (loved it), and Tip It (loved it). The premise of the game is very simple: collect the worms that match your cards. The worms move up and down when you pull back a lever (love the no batteries needed part). They can be a bit tricky for smaller fingers. The biggest surprise was the fact that my 5th graders enjoyed and begged to play this game. Who knew?
The second "game" is very girly by all appearances. Honestly, I don't use the board or the little doll characters. I take the cards out of their Ziploc bag and ask my students the questions. The majority of the questions with this game are great for social skills practice and articulation carryover. It gives you four possible answer choices if you want to narrow down the answers. I usually ask the questions and let my students give their own answer.
The nice thing about having all of my goodwill game finds is the ability to just grab the pieces that work for therapy targets without bothering with the rest of the game. It shocked my students at first, but there is no reason to not make the most of what you have. It also saves on time.
I also picked up this card set at Target last weekend. It was $5, which is a bit more than what I usually spend on a single material. The Exceptional Children's teachers at my school use short Leap Frog video clips with our younger students as a way to give the students a "brain break" between hard activities. It's also a great way to teach them the letter-sound correspondence. (I can sing that song in my sleep now.) I thought these cards would be a great way to make opposites and sequencing connect more to these groups.
I haven't tried the sequencing cards out yet, but the opposites cards are wonderful. They cover your basic opposites. I have used them for drill as well as playing the memory match game. Either way, my students are more motivated by these cards than my regular cards. I would suggest laminating the cards before using them. I haven't had the time to yet and my students have already gotten a few stray crayon dots on them. I'll be getting them laminated as soon as possible. At any rate, they are worth every penny of the $5.
In other news, I have finally made some headway on all of that laminating I had to do for my chipper chats. I ended up cutting the cards for the Wh- question one so I could put it on a jump ring. I love how easy it is to flip to the questions for each sheet now. I'm planning to do this with the social skills cards too once they're all laminated and re-sorted.
I haven't tried the sequencing cards out yet, but the opposites cards are wonderful. They cover your basic opposites. I have used them for drill as well as playing the memory match game. Either way, my students are more motivated by these cards than my regular cards. I would suggest laminating the cards before using them. I haven't had the time to yet and my students have already gotten a few stray crayon dots on them. I'll be getting them laminated as soon as possible. At any rate, they are worth every penny of the $5.
In other news, I have finally made some headway on all of that laminating I had to do for my chipper chats. I ended up cutting the cards for the Wh- question one so I could put it on a jump ring. I love how easy it is to flip to the questions for each sheet now. I'm planning to do this with the social skills cards too once they're all laminated and re-sorted.
