Pinterest + Thanksgiving Break + Dollar Store= Christmas Therapy Planning

Today is the first day of Thanksgiving Break, and I am using my five days off to enjoy family, friends, shopping, and planning for the holiday season in my speech room after this break is over.  I have been pinning ideas from Pinterest like crazy this past month, and here are my three projects I am tackling to get a jump on December activities:

1)  Putting together my What's In the Stocking game (modeled after Ned's Head):

I will be hitting my local Dollar Store/local Target Dollar Spot (after I look through all of my Christmas boxes in my garage) to find holiday themed items (bow, jingle bell, ornament, candy cane, snowman, angel, etc.) to add to a stocking for a good all-grade level, any skill reinforce game.  I plan to use my iPad camera to take pictures of each item individually and the kids can go through the camera roll to see what item they have to feel for in the stocking (I need a break from laminating more cards!  The camera roll feature makes it easy to have each item one at a time on the screen instead of in a pile of cards on the table!).

2)  Gingerbread Cookie Matching
My kindergarten and first grade students are going to read The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett our first week
back:

http://www.amazon.com/Gingerbread-Baby-Jan-Brett/dp/0399234446/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1385561013&sr=8-13&keywords=gingerbread+man+books+children

 

Following the book, we are going to do the gingerbread matching game after answering questions from the story.   I saw the idea on Pinterest, and I am going to make my men look the same on the outside, and the students will use the spatula to flip the men on the baking sheet where I will have a Christmas sticker (hello Dollar Store) and they need to match the two with the same Christmas sticker to remove the pair from the cookie sheet.

 

 

3)  Silver Bells

 

For my older students in second and third grade, we are reading There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bell:

 





http://www.amazon.com/There-Was-Lady-Swallowed-Bell/dp/0545043611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385561427&sr=8-1&keywords=there+was+an+old+lady+who+swallowed+a+bell

We are going to retell the story, sequence the story, and practice our good sounds in the story while playing a fun little game where Hershey kisses with matching stickers are placed on the table and students get to try to find a match after practicing their speech or language goals:

Happy Planning, everyone!