Welcome autumn!  If you’re like me, you’re ready for some cooler weather and fun, fall activities.  I love to use the changing of seasons to introduce new vocabulary, games, and activities into my sessions.  It’s also a great time to reinforce previously learned skills from a different angle.  Try some of these apple activities or create some of your own.

Apple activities
Materials:  6 apples (2 each of red, yellow, and green), preferably in varying sizes

Matching – Have the children match the apples by color (then by size, if appropriate).

Comparatives – Pick 2-3 apples that are different enough in size and do receptive and expressive language tasks for big/little, big/bigger/biggest, and small/smaller/smallest.

Describing – Have the children describe the similarities and differences between the different types of apples.

Vocabulary/Parts of a whole – Discuss the parts of an apple, using the terms stem, skin, flesh, core, and seeds.  Cut an apple in half and show them the parts.
There are definitions for each of these parts at
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/samoset/gr2appleparts.htm

and an illustration of an apple with the parts labeled at
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/samoset/gr2applecutawaypopup.htm

Various speech and language skills – Print out this apple game board to use for a variety of skills.

To my friends in the Southern Hemisphere…I hope you are enjoying the beginning of spring.  You can use many of the ideas above using flowers instead of apples.  Silk flowers last longer and may be more consistent in size and color, but you can also just gather up a few from outside.

Look for more fall ideas and printables coming to your inbox soon!  If you haven’t signed up and activated your email address yet, do it now!  You’ll get FREE monthly emails full of ideas and printable materials so you can just print and go!  Here’s what to do…

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Becky Wanca

Why work on describing?
Describing with details helps a child be specific about the different attributes of an item.  This can help students with comparing and contrasting, using details in their writing, and increasing their vocabularies.

Creativity disclaimer
First off, I must give credit where credit is due.  This wonderful activity is used by the teachers in my sons’ school to improve the details in their students’ writing.  I loved it so much that I had to share it with you.

The set up
Find pictures of three or four dogs that look different from each other and display them.  An easy way to do this is to find a calendar with pictures of dogs and take a few of the pages out.  (These can often be found on sale during the second half of the year or at a “dollar store” at the beginning of the year.)  Have a blank piece of paper and pencil available for each student.

Let the describing begin
Start out by discussing the dogs and what they look like.  Have the students describe the color, size, ears, nose, etc. of each dog.  You may want to write the words that they come up with next to the dog’s picture.

Tell them that the sad news is that their dogs have wondered off in the neighborhood and they need help finding them.  They each need to make a “Lost Dog” sign describing what their dog looks like so that their neighbors will know which dog belongs to them.  When they are finished, have the children read their descriptions to the group.  The group then guesses which dog belongs to that owner.

More describing to come
September’s email will contain step-by-step directions for teaching children to describe, starting with learning the concept receptively and moving to expressively describing features of items.  There will also be additional describing activities and printable materials included.

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Organization

When things are organized, you can find what you need quickly and know where things go once you’ve obtained them.  The same is true for linguistic organization.  Understanding how things go together allows us to better learn and recall new concepts and vocabulary words.  Knowing the names of categories can also increase our ability to describe.  For my clients with limited vocabularies, I work on categorization to help them see how things fit together and to give them a basis on which to build new concepts.

Step by step

Like with any new skill, it is important to progress in a sequential, step by step manner. Take the child from what he knows and build up to the next level.  You may want to first check if the child can already identify categories by skipping to step 3.  If he can do this, progress from there.  If not, begin at step 1.

The steps for teaching categories:
1. match
2. sort
3. identify (receptive)
4. name (expressive)

Use pictures of items that belong in various categories.  First, teach the child to match a picture to its group.  When that is achieved, give the child the stack of mixed up pictures and have him sort them into their categories.  After that, have him identify the categories as you name them.  Once receptive skills are mastered, teach the child to name the categories as you point to them.

Additional ideas

For a tougher task, remove the pictures.  Verbally give three items and have the child name the category, or give him the category and have him name items that belong in it. 

Group game- Give one student a secret category and have him name items in it.  The rest of the group then tries to guess the category.  For a bit more competition, play this with teams and points.

Free materials

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While word problems can be intimidating to any typical student, they can seem downright impossible to figure out for the student with language disorders.  But what can we do about it?  Is math really something we should address in our language sessions?  Absolutely!  And here’s why… it’s about decoding the language of math.

I teach students how to decode the question and figure out what it is asking them to do.  The calculating is up to them and their teachers to work on.  Once students know what to do with the numbers, the battle is half won.  To work on the specific vocabulary, you can make flash cards with the students, make reference sheets for their desks, make posters to hang on your walls, or play math word bingo.  Do whatever you need for them to learn the following words and what they mean.  Then, do example word problems from their math books to help them practice decoding the questions.  Have them look for the “key words” in the question and figure out what to do.

I recently printed out business cards with these words on them for my language students in third-fifth grades to have on their desks.  All of their teachers asked me if they could have some for the rest of the class too.  Of course!  You can have them too!  Print them out on standard perforated business card paper or on plain paper and cut them apart.