Three Little Kittens Rhyme & Speech Activities

This was a fun Winter activity to create for my little ones. There are a variety of activities to cover a multitude of IEP objectives. Children will be enjoying the activities with this rhyme and they won't even realize they are working!

1.Story sequencing - Child can color all the pieces of the story. Tell the rhyme as the child listens and puts the pieces in order. THen the child can tell story using pictures. Ask Wh questions about the story.
2.Voice inflection, rate and prosody 
3.Grammatical structures 
4.Speech sounds - labials (p,b,m) and velars (k,g) 

Go to my TPT store to download this FREEBIE.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Three-Little-Kittens-Rhyme-Speech-Activities-1626825

Choose an activity related to your IEP objectives:

1.      Story sequencing -  Child can color all the pieces of the story.   Tell the rhyme as the child listens and puts the pieces in order:

·         Three kittens lost their mittens - put out the 3 kittens without their mittens – hide mittens by boots

·         Three kittens found their mittens - look for mittens by boots – one pair under boots, one pair in back of boots and one pair on boots. Then put boots and mittens on kittens.

·         Kittens ate pie

·         Kittens got mittens dirty and cleaned  them with soap

·         Kittens hung up mittens on clothesline

·         Then kittens saw 3 mice – they each caught a mouse – Gotcha!

·         Now have child tell story using pictures

·         Ask Wh questions about the story

2.      Voice Inflection and Prosody

·         Rhymes are the perfect venue for practicing changes in voice volume, rate and pitch. Children love to role play – kitten voice can be high pitched with faster rate and mommy voice can be lower pitch with slower rate.

·          Two syllable words and sound patterns – using medial sounds and words in phrases- kittens, mittens, mommy, little, meow,  gotcha

3.      Grammatical structures

·         Regular verbs (looked, cleaned) and irregular past verbs (lost, found, ate, got, caught, saw)

·         Pronouns – you, your, they, we, their, our

·         Compare sizes of kittens, mittens & boots– big, bigger, biggest or small, smaller, smallest

·         I am (coloring)– use this phrase while coloring

·         He/She  has - child can give the kittens names and give them a gender – child can describe colors of mittens and boots, e.g. She has pink and brown mittens

·         Plural S – count the kittens, mittens, boots, pies, etc.

4.      Speech Sounds

·         Labial sounds – mittens, meow, mommy, boots, pie, purr, mouse, mice, big, bigger, biggest

*While coloring pictures use colors with labial sounds – brown, black, purple, pink, blue

* Carrier phrases – I pick color, my turn

·         Velar sounds – kittens, cry, cute, cleaned, good, look, gotcha, big, bigger, biggest, color, cut, glue

*While coloring, cutting or gluing pictures use colors with velar sounds – black, grey, green, pink

 *Carrier phrases, I am  coloring, I want the color, I am cutting, I am gluing

Three Little Kittens ( Slightly Modified)

© Original by Leanne Guenther

Three little kittens, they lost their mittens,
And they began to cry

“Oh mommy mommy we lost our mittens”
What?  Lost your mittens!
You poor little kittens!
 "Meow, meow, meow"

“Put on your boots and let’s look for your mittens”
 

      Three little kittens, they found their mittens by their boots
And they began to cry

     “Oh mommy mommy look, we found our mittens”
 Put on your mittens
You cute little kittens
And you may have some pie
"Purr-r, purr-r, purr-r"
 

      The three little kittens put on their boots and mittens

      And  they ate up all the pie

     "Oh mommy mommy, look, we got our mittens dirty”

What?  Your mittens are dirty?

Then they began to cry "Meow, meow, meow"

 The three little kittens, they cleaned their mittens
And they hung them out to dry

“Oh mommy mommy look we cleaned our mittens”     

 What? Cleaned your mittens!
 Oh, you're good kittens ……
“Uh ohhhh….we smell a mouse close by”
Shhhh Shhhhhh   

"Mee-ow, mee-ow. We can see 3 mice close by!”

Gotcha!  Gotcha!   Gotcha!

12 Essential Preschool Toys For Your Speech-Language ToolBox 2014

List created by Ricki Block, MS,CCC-SLP  www.preschoolspeechie.com Previous owner of Ariel’s Child for 22 years – a specialty toy store for school supplies, toys and materials for children with special needs and speech pathologist for 38 years.

Your kids will have so much fun playing and learning they won’t realize they are working on their speech sounds and language concepts!     Listed below are some of my students’ favorite toys. They maintain their interest and they don’t even realize they are working.  Each of these toys can be used  to work on language skills or articulation and especially helpful when compiling a speech-language sample.  They improve their ability to learn to respond to Wh questions, increase mean length of utterance and/or initiate pragmatic verbal turn-taking skills, to make requests, greet, comment and label . Before the activity I  write down key words or phrases to target while the child is playing. Many of these items I carried in my store for years and I still use today!  Click on the title and it will link you to Amazon.com.  Visit my website at www.preschoolspeechie.com to connect to my TPT store and Pinterest site.  There are lots and lots of fabulous resources.

1.     Body Parts & Clothing Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head and Magnet Dress Up Sets Mr.& Mrs. Potato HeadPlayskool ($5.00 ea) and Magnet Dress up (boy-12.99, girls-17.19)are staple tools  and there are many ways you can use them to expand speech and language skills   Teach body parts, colors, basic concepts( top, bottom, on, under), pronouns (he has, she has, his, her) , possession (mine, yours)

2.     Animals Farm Set , Second Set of Animals, Wild Animals  The  Battat Farm Set is durable (33.99 )  and I would suggest getting additional Farm Animals (7.49 US Toy) and Wild Animals (7.70 US Toy). It increases the skills to teach, e.g. matching the same animals, concepts of more, less, all, NOT, counting.    Animal sounds are a great place to start with little ones learning CV & VC combos, e.g. moo, baa.

3.     Pretend Play Rooms of House, Friends & Family  Doll House , People, Furniture, Playground  The doll house is for girls AND BOYS. Boys love to pretend play too.  The  Melissa & Doug Fold & Go Dollhouse (35.48)  is durable and mobile and it folds up for easy storage or portability. I bought the Fisher Price Fold & Go Doll House on e-bay because I like the lightweight feature of the plastic dollhouse.  I purchased a family (KidKraft) additional furniture (Le Toy Van Deluxe Starter Furniture Set $45.55) and Fisher Price outdoor playground( 19.22).  My students who are easily distracted can maintain their attention with the doll house. This is the perfect situation to work on following directions too – 1 step, 2 step, location words, and work on critical elements e.g. big blue chair.)  I have my list of words in advance to target and am ready with paper and pen to get a speech & language sample of phrases and/or speech sounds.

4.     Cause & Effect Wind Up, Push/Go,  Friction Toys Wind up trains (12) 10.45 Fun Express, Push and Go Toys Kavaya 7.75  Emergency Vehicles Toysmith 12.80 Teach “Sabatoge” in a fun way – when child can’t figure out how to make the toy go they can be encouraged to request “help or go”, engage in eye contact and interact with the adult.

5.  Vehicles Car Set, Train Set, Gas Station, Car Ramp One of my most utilized toys in therapy has been trains, cars and trucks for boys AND GIRLS. I made the mistake once of only offering a doll to a little girl  a long time ago- the mother proceeded to inform me that she liked to play with her vehicles and did not like dolls. Never assume!  Viking City road set ( 19.29).Melissa and Doug Train set 22.91  Duplo My First Creative Car Building Set 10552( 19.99) and PlayGo My City Car Park (25.85).

6. Pretend Play  Provider Baby Doll Accessories, Doctor & Vet Kits Another favorite -  playing with baby dolls, especially if there is a baby brother or sister in the family.   Here are the accessories  which I like using for encouraging basic sentence structures, e.g. agent+action+object- I feeding baby, I brushing hair, etc. (Mommy & Me Doll Collection - Amazon.com $14.99)      Choose a dolls that do not require batteries . Two dolls are even better to engage in verbal turn-taking with a peer or adult.  I bought my dolls at the Dollar Store believe it or not. Add a Battat medical kit (17.69) to the mix and watch the language take off.  Include a favorite stuffed animal and you now have a vet kit too!

7.     Food Pretend and Play  Food  When my little ones see the food coming their eyes light up.  We set the table for mealtime and often have the dolls out so we can feed them too. Teach food categories – breakfast, lunch, dinner, hot foods, cold foods, dessert, fruit, vegetables, etc.  I also made sure I purchased food sets that have food I can use for final consonant deletion and with multisyllables, e.g. celery, strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes and use with one of my pacing boards from TPT.  (Step 2 101 food pieces 24.57 , Learning Resources Little Sprouts Breakfast  16.26 and Pretend and Play Sliceable velcro fruits and vegies 13.77 are a few of my favorites. I found some great deals on e-bay too.)

8. Household  Dishes, Utensils and Pots The dishes and pots go hand in hand with the food. It complements the whole learning experience. Include a tablecloth and have a “Teddy Bear Picnic.” Educational Insights Dishes  11.99  and Pots & Pans 13.99 are colorful and durable.

9.     Greetings Webber Toy Phone 5.95,   Tubaloo  6.19,  Magic Microphone 4.16  Teach greetings with Hi and Bye. Social skills/pretend play: Your child can use the play phone to “practice  social speech and language skills and “talk” to mommy, daddy, friends, staff, etc.  Grab yourself another play phone, and have a conversation.   This is the basic foundation for turn taking!  The microphone is another tool to encourage children to talk and sing.  I am an advocate of singing songs to emphasize prosody and inflection.  Most of my sessions include a song or a rhyme!

10.        Balls Light Up Balls,  Puffer Ball,  Playground Ball, & Bean Bags Big balls, little balls, hard balls, soft balls, colored balls light up balls, bouncy balls. Concepts of in, on, off, through, up, down, next to, in front, behind, top, bottom (while using the balls in different activities and with other items like basketball hoops, baskets, tunnels, cups, boxes, etc.) Engage in turn-taking by using words to express request for an action, e.g. roll ball, throw, catch, kick, bounce. This requires awareness on many levels:  1-Watch your friend  2-facial expressions, gestures) 3- Wait patiently for your turn to   4-put hands out to Catch the ball.  Light up molecule ball 5.38 Play Visions, Knobby balls 8” (5) 7.99, Melissa & Doug Playground Ball 6.99  Ed Insights Shape Beanbags  14.94

11.  Puzzles Melissa & Doug Chunky Puzzles 9.99 Chunky puzzles have a dual purpose – use as a puzzle or use during a pretend play activity.  These are durable wood animal shapes which can be used to sort animal categories, respond to “Where live” questions, “Which animal lives in zoo?”,  use for teaching location words, e.g. put cow on the barn.   Use with other animals you are playing with, include the pets when playing with the doll house or use as props when playing with the balls or bean bags.

12.           Playdough I use playdough as a tool to work on the child’s IEP objective and as a reinforcer. The goals are endless, but to name a few , e.g. basic sentence patterns (I am, I made a color item , Can I have?, turn-taking, speech sounds – SH, CH (push, make fish, sharks, choo choo),  K, G (cut, make cookies, K, get, got, green), F (fork, knife, fish. face, 4,5)  I laminated a place setting board and face template so the child has a mat to play on.    I have collected many playdough items over the years, e.g. rollers, stamps, small cookie cutters, scissors.   I just bought a new kit from Play-Doh and added it to my collection -    Play-Doh: Toolin' Around Playset (14.99-I bought my set at Kohl's  for $10  using discounts.  I also use Model Magic (19.81) - add gems, pipe cleaners, beads and then paint.

App Review - Fun With Verbs and Sentences by Hamaguchi Apps

    

App Review –Fun with Verbs & Sentences HD

by Hamaguchi Apps for Speech, Language & Auditory Development

I am thrilled to provide a review for this ingenious app. I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!

Fun With Verbs and Sentences HD  was developed for the young child to address basic agent+action+object/preposition sentence patterns and to formulate syntax structures.   

Features:

1. Includes 39 verbs and 266 adorable animations/sds (lite version has 10 verbs)

2. Teach verb concepts in 1-word phrase

3.Play “Build a sentence” or “Watch & Say”– Child taps on a picture of a Subject  (girl, boy ,bear.) Then tap an Action, “ What do you want the boy to do”, then pick  object, e.g. something for the boy to eat.  – up to a 6 word phrase.  Sentences can be expanded further using the prepositional phrase, e.g. “ Where will the boy jump?” and “ What is happening?”  Always have access to settings to change at a minutes notice.  You can end the session at any time.

4. Tap the recorded sentence, record the child, then play it back instantly. Quality of voice is excellent. The modeled voice is precise and has inflection.

5. Text and recording button

6. Settings are simple and easy to navigate and offer a graded progression of difficulty  

     with  6 categories:

·        Activities (Build a Sentence or Watch & Say)

·        Sentence Type (varied phrase lengths, pronouns He and She)

·        Verb List and Tenses ( ing, past & irregular past)

·        Cueing (visual/verbal prompts)

·        Progress Tracker(Collect Data)

·        Bubble Game( provides reinforcement after a number of questions)

The preschool children easily engaged with the adorable graphics and animations/sd of this app and wanted more! At first I worked in an isolated setting with 1 child (IEP goal of MLU 4 words) who had a huge smile on his face each time he heard his voice. He was quite engaged with this activity and maintained attention for at least 15 minutes. By the second session he was able to independently choose the agent, action and object/preposition and used 5 to 7 word phrases! In settings, I chose the cueing models with simple verbal and visual prompts.  The child tapped on the 3 color coded circles at the bottom of the screen at his pace to hear the sentence pattern. The animated activity is occurring as the child taps the circles. There is no rush to complete the sentence.   This was perfect for my student whose response time can be delayed at times. We then brought this app into the classroom where the teacher was happy to have the group participate. They were just as engaged as my student and patiently waited their turn.   I was surprised at the interest level of my preschoolers.  We did not need the Bubble Game to reinforce performance. The app itself was reinforcement. It took no time for me to learn to navigate and play with the Settings. I did watch the demo video just to see if I missed something, but I didn’t.  I love the auditory component of this app  - I was able to record the student’s voice with clarity and Hamaguchi did a top notch job in selecting voices which are appealing and have inflection.  This is especially helpful when working with a child who displays a monotone voice.  I could use this app as a screening tool to establish baselines.  This app can also be used for sentence recall, emerging readers and literacy development.     I do have a one wish list for future updates:   Is there is any way to decrease the MB Usage of 715?  I had to put some apps in the Cloud. $15.99 is a little pricey but worth it. There is a lite version available for .99 (10 verbs.)

Rubrics	Description	Rating
Curriculum	Material is accurate & evidence based, addresses task, offers large selection target. Addresses speech goals: 1.     Basic verb patterns 2.     MLU 3.     Verb tenses 4.     Pronouns	5
Flexibility	Flexibility to adjust settings , add/delete tasks,  audio recordings, back button	5
Ease of use	Can use app quickly, video demo instructions from developer, no glitches	5
Interest	Captures attention of user, simple graphics, interactive, animatioms	5
Value-Outcome	Accountability- time needed to complete task, # trials, results in improved student performance- record data – progress monitoring. Price $15.99 (lite .99)	5

 Fun With Verbs & Sentences HD