Turkey with the Terrible Temper

Turkey with the Terrible Temper - How the Turkey Got His Tail Feathers

Turkey with the Terrible Temper

The story of how the Turkey got is Tail Feathers is an excellent way to talk about emotions. The author of the following story is unknown. Each year I read the story and showed a set of turkeys colored to match the events that were happening. At the end I provided each student with a copy of black line master turkeys for them to color so that they could practice retelling the story. Another way to use this story especially for students that are less verbal is to have them hold up the turkey that is the color of the emotion they feel at that moment. This will help them identify their own emotions. You could also have a class activity where students show a specific emotion guided by the teacher and the kids hold up the turkey they think the student is representing. 

Story with pictures

Prepositions and Pronouns

Speech Prepositions and Pronouns

I created another project that is posted on Teachers Pay Teachers. This one is more directed for speech therapy. In my eyes speech therapy is a group effort by the SLP, teacher, and parents. When only worked on in isolation progress is extremely slow and doesn't generalize to other settings. In this packet you will find

• A list of a few of my favorite picture books about Christmas time with some ways to include them into speech therapy.
• 2 pages with pronoun activities



Favorite Christmas books for speech

• 66 cards with pictures and the corresponding prepositional word. With these cards you can play a matching game, show the student one picture and ask, "Where is Santa?" the student response would be the prepositional word. Or you can show the student a picture and have them tell you what they see, such as "Santa is in the sled." This way they are working on complete sentences with prepositions. The link below will take you to the Teachers Pay Teachers Web Site.

Prepositions and Pronouns

5 Senses Thanksgiving

I have been teaching my students about their 5 senses. We have been talking about things we see, smell, taste, touch, and hear at Thanksgiving. Each day we have created a list on the board for one of the senses. For example things we See: Turkey, family, pies, dishes, parades, football, friends, etc. Smell: Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pies, grandma's perfume, etc. Taste: Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, pies, candy, cookies, etc. Touch: Food (lots of food), hugs from family, dishes, toys, etc. Hear: Family talking, dishes, football, parades, prayer, etc. Now after they create this simply list then we talk about adding descriptive words. They choose one word for each of the 5 senses, and it cannot be turkey on all of the categories each one needs to be different. For see if they choose "pies" then we talk about what kind of pie and what it looks like. In the end you want something like "I am thankful for my eyes to see orange pumpkin pie with white whipped cream" I realize you might be working with younger kiddos or students with more significant disabilities. In that case focus on at least one descriptive word like pumpkin pie vs. pie. The download has a simple version with more of the words on the page and a more complex for your older/higher functioning students.
5 Senses Poem

Turkey Hand Print Art

 

Turkey Hand print Art

Yesterday my students made turkey hand prints. The picture shows 2 hand prints of siblings. I helped them pain their palm and thumb brown and then we painted each finger a different color. Once dry they glued on an eye and drew some legs. This was a simple and fun art project.

Halloween Activities

Pumpkin Bowling

I know Halloween is over... Due to my preparation at the last minute things sometimes don't get posted until after the fact. Here are 2 fun activities to do next year. The first is Halloween bowling with rolls of toilet paper. I printed a simple ghost face and wrapped it around the toilet paper. Then I cut holes in a small pumpkin (I didn't remove the insides of the pumpkin, this way they the kiddos had a fun sensory surprise when they stuck their fingers into the holes.

 

The second activity was by far the biggest hit with all the kids from my young ones to the teens. I made tape balls. I wrapped my candy and prizes in plastic wrap. Then I took a piece of candy and began wrapping packing tape around the candy. For each piece of candy I placed 2-3 long pieces of tape. In this way I slowly built my candy/prize ball. in the end the ball was about the size of a large grapefruit. In addition to candy I placed small toys and coins. The kids sat in a circle and rolled two dice. When they rolled doubles they grabbed the ball and began pealing the tape off as quickly as possible, because everything they freed from the tape ball they could keep. They continued to peal tape off until the next kiddo rolled doubles.  I had 4 rotations going and this was the one that all the kids wanted to stay at. We are going to do this activity again at Christmas time. If you have a group of older and younger kids you can have the older kids wear gloves to even out the playing field. My suggestion is to separate the younger kids and older kids because this activity involves lots of fine motor and the younger kid ball was more simple to unwrap.   

Tape Ball with Prizes

Shapes, Shapes, & More Shapes

Shapes Unit Following Directions

I have been working on developing a shapes unit that includes many different skill levels. I have submitted a 40 page unit to Teachers Pay Teachers. You can find the unit at the following link:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Shapes-Shapes-More-Shapes

The most challenging level are the first pages that involve reading, following directions, counting, and coloring. For students that do not yet read you can read the directions to them. An example is pictured on the right.  Sample Page

The next set of worksheets involve tracing, coloring, or cutting out shapes. The individual shape worksheets are simple. However the worksheets with multiple shapes are more complex. Sample Page

Finally there are 3 different sets of memory games. The first set all the shapes are the same color and the student matches the shape to the word. Second each shape is a different color so 2 blue circles, 2 red squares... With this type the student may be matching based on color and not shape (so it is a little more simple) Last all the shapes are different colors this way the child has to recognize the shape and not use the color as a prompt.

These worksheets can be completed in a whole group setting, small group, or individual work, centers, or TEACCH.


Shapes Unit - Tracing and Cutting

Shapes Unit Memory Game











Froggy Counting

Froggy Counting ~ Flies

I created a froggy counting activity for my students. The packet includes a black line master and color version. The froggy unit is free on Teachers Pay Teachers http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Froggy-Counting This activity can be used in several ways:

• Print the black line copy to give to each student. Then using stamp ink they can "squash" the flies as they count the flies. This is great because they will know if they have counted that fly already or not and this skill works on finger isolation (fine motor)
• Print the color version, cut in half, and laminate. Have the students use small fly swatters or something similar to swat the flies as they count. After they have counted the flies they can place the corresponding fly number on each froggy.
• This activity can also be placed in a center or independent work station or used in a TEACCH task to promote independent work.



Froggy Counting ~ Flies