Lily's Purple Plastic Purse

If you have not used a Kevin Henkes book in your therapy room, may I suggest you start with my favorite one:

Lily's Purple Plastic Purse

This book is one of those wonderful stories that can address multiple goals outside of the obvious use for articulation goals (/p/ and /l/ and vocalic /r/s), as it is really a great way to work on social skills and language, too.  It is a great book for working on Tier 2 vocabulary words (privacy, artistic, rodents, deluxe, permitted, creations, jaunty, considerate, fiercely, lurched, etc.).  I love to have the students infer the meaning of these words using context clues from the story.

Lilly LOVES school and her teacher, Mr. Slinger…that is, until she gets a purple plastic purse, a pair of movie star sunglasses, and three shiny new quarters that she wants to share with the class and Mr. Slinger won’t let her. Lilly is angry and upset and leaves a nasty note for Mr. Slinger that she later regrets. In the end, it is up to her to make things right and in the process, she learns important lessons about patience, self-control, and forgiveness. 

By now, it is no secret that I love to make a game to go along with any book I use, and this is how I spice up our work in my speech room.

First, grab a purple plastic purse from the dollar store.  Here is mine I got five summers ago:

I also splurged many years ago and bought a stuffed Lily from the bookstore because I have always loved this story!  Add in some purple glasses from the craft store embellished with self adhesive rhinestones, and you are on your way to making great story props. 

BTW-  the kids love it when you get goofy and put on the glasses.  You may have also noticed the paper coins in the first picture.  I found these at my local teacher store.  I laminated the set I got and write on the back of them with a Vis-à-vis marker so they can be used over and over.  I would suggest writing a number and that is how many times they have to practice their sound or practice their skill.  The set I got has pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, and each type of coin is in several different sizes so the students never know just by pulling one out of the purple purse what they are getting.  You could have older students add up the amounts they pull up and the student with the most money by the end of the game is the winner.  I decided to change the way I do the coins a little different this year since I found these plastic coins at the dollar store:

The neat thing about these is that they are both the same size, so when put in the plastic purse, the student doesn't know if they are getting a penny or a nickel.  Have them practice their skill, and then pick a coin without looking.  At the end, they can easily add up how much money they got!

Another great addition to the lesson is this free game with who and what question cards from First Grade A La Cart BlogSpot.

Have you used Kevin Henkes books before in your therapy room?  Which is your favorite one?