Come on Snake Eyes: Using Dice Games in Therapy

I've gone dice crazy.  Dice are fun because it inserts that element of chance into a session.  It's not me that's making you do six repetition of your target-it's the dice.  Plus the dice games are really motivating for kids.  AutismTeachingStrategies.com has a fantastic blog post on using game like elements to teach social skills to children with Autism Spectrum disorders.

I have a stash of dice: light up dice, tiny, tiny dice, foam dice and giant sized dice.  I've also used some of the dice games on the iPad.  I have the Make Dice app on my iPad.  It's versatile and even allows you to take pictures of people or other objects and add them to the dice!

The virtual dice spoiled me since you are able to customize dice in almost any way conceivable.  I enjoy the iPad but I also like to make activities more physical whenever possible.  So I decided to design my own dice template.  (There are lots of samples out on the web if you do a search too!)  It led to 4 new TPT downloads.  

Roll-A-Sounds: Multisyllabic words and Roll-A-Sound: Prevocalic R and Vocalic R

I like these activities because they only focus on a few target words but would be great to do massed practice types of activities.  It should be fairly easy to get at least 100 repetitions of each sound in these activities.  

RECEPTIVE REPTILES

This download has just included one dice.  I thought the graphics were really cute and wanted to create some activities which focused on: 

• following directions
• associations
• fill in the blank for object functions AND reversals
• basic listening comprehension.  
• Absurdities 

ROLL-A-SOUND: DIRECTIONS

I have a lot of clients on my caseload who are working on following directions containing temporal or spatial concepts.   I liked the idea of using the dice to show how a direction changes if the spatial concept changes: How is the direction different when I say in vs. on.  By breaking up the direction into three parts AND using the dice as a physical manipulative, I think I've made it a little easier for some of them.  I can do a similar activity with the temporal directions.  If the student rolls this direction: 

"Before you clap your hands, sit down."  I can physically show them "This direction means...." and put the cubes in order to help them learn the concepts.  

 Up Next: Learn how I used a dice making an activity to address executive functioning, sequencing, sentence formation and more....