Testy yet trying

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A Concrete Demonstration of "Self Control" for Kids

This activity comes from Dustin Smith - the Teacher Tipster. All you need is a bottle of bubbles. If you want to get fancy, download the free "Self-Control Bubbles" label one teacher made and paste it onto the bottle.

Self-control is a really abstract concept for young children. Research shows that self-control isn't something you're just born with. It is a skill that needs to be practiced and can be improved. Start the activity by filling your room with bubbles and encouraging your children to pop them. Let them get a little out of control. Once all the bubbles have been popped and the excitement calms down, issue a challenge. Tell them you're going to fill the room with bubbles again. This time, their job is to NOT pop the bubbles. Don't pop them if they land on your desk. Don't pop them if they land in your hair. Don't even pop them if they land on your nose. Once all the bubbles have popped, talk about how hard it was to leave those bubbles alone. Tell them it takes self-control to not do something you really want to do. Discuss other times in a classroom that it is important to exercise self-control.

The best thing about this activity is that it should be memorable. The concept of self-control will come up again and again and you can refer back to the self-control bubbles to help them remember one very concrete example of when they succeeded. You might even repeat the experiment regularly to give extra practice and help keep the idea fresh in their mind.

If you're creative, you can think of other exercises in self-control and do one a month. You might put a pretzel on everyone's desk. Anyone who hasn't touched the pretzel by the end of the lesson gets two more. Simon Says, The Freeze Dance, and Red Light, Green Light are games that exercise self-control.

If you have any great activities for working on self-control, please share them in the comments!

Monday, October 22, 2012

Final J: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

If you like this free card set, you might want to check out the premium speech therapy kits now available in the Testy Shop. Kits include expanded card sets, illustrated minimal pairs, homework sheets and more in a single download.

Final /ʤ/ Card Set

(/ʤ/ is the phonetic symbol for the sound typically spelled with the letter "J".)

To download click on the image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer.

I recommend you print on cardstock and laminate for durability.

Description

This articulation picture card set is designed to be more comprehensive than the typical sets you might find elsewhere. The target audience for this set is young children or children with more severe speech delays that need intensive practice with initial /ʤ/ at a one-syllable level. No blends or vocalic /r/ sounds are included in this set. The set pairs the final /ʤ/ with as many different vowel sounds as possible to maximize co-articulation variety.

Key Features

This set includes 10 therapy cards with the target word and picture on the front, and the difficulty level and a carrier phrase on the back.
The words are all VC or CVC in syllable shape.
The words are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.
Combines the target sound with a variety of vowel sounds.
Words are sorted by difficulty level for an easy progression from easy to hard.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this card set provided that:

Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
No copies are altered without my express consent.
No one makes a profit from these copies.
Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses this card set. Let me know if you find errors or there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

More sets are on my Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards page. Other card sets include /p, b, t, d, m, n, h, f, v, k, g, w, j, s, z, l, th, ch, sh, ʤ, s-blends, and l-blends/ and more sets are being added regularly.

What kinds of activities can I do with this cardset?

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Homeschooling with the Usborne Very First Reading Set

I can't believe it has been six months since I first bought the Usborne Very First Reading Boxed Set. We bought our set used on eBay because the new price of $70 seemed a little steep for a product I was buying sight unseen. To be honest, now that we've had the set for six months, I can honestly say the price is fair. The books are well conceived, designed, and made. They are a lot of fun to read with your child. There are three built in activities at the end of each book. There are also useful supplementary materials available to download for free online. These books make teaching my child to read fun for both of us. That is a lot of value in one boxed set.

We had gone through 10 of the 15 books. At book 8, the format changes from the adult and child taking turns reading pages to the child reading the entire text. Also, the books build in difficulty as you progress through the series. Michael was beginning to struggle and was having less fun. Here are some sample pages showing the difference in difficulty between the Level 1 book and the Level 10 book:

Then one day when I went to download some supplementary materials for the next book I saw that there were some new titles available in the series. They had released a second book for levels 1-7. Perfect! That was just what I needed to work with Michael. We could start over again at level 1 and work our way back up to level 7 with new books. I was very excited.

Then I realized that the new titles were only available in the UK. I searched and searched and finally found a way to order them (alibris.com). I was willing to pay new prices and shipping for these. That is how much I like them. The new books are just as nice as the original ones and they include little built-in ribbon bookmarks. Here is a picture of the inside of the back binding from one of the originals and one of the new books so you can see the change in selection.

We read both books at a level at the same time. So when I got the new books we started with Level 1 again and read Pirate Pat and Double Trouble in the same lesson. On the first lesson we read the books and do the first activity at the end of the book. Then Michael gets to put a sticker in the Activity 1 box on his progress chart. We also go through the sight word flashcards (download for free from usborne site) sorting them into the pile he knows and the pile he needs to work on. The second lesson consists of re-reading the books, doing activity #2, and working on the sight words again. The third lesson we read the books a third time, complete activity number 3 in the backs of the books and re-do the sight word cards. The fourth lesson is re-reading the books a final time, completing the downloadable worksheets and doing the sight word cards for the last time. Re-reading books is important for gaining confidence, intonation, speed, fluency, and comprehension. After the fourth lesson, we are ready to move on to the next level.

We are having the best time with this reading program and I'm looking forward to using it a second time with Ava when she's ready.