The Speech Gobbler: A reinforcement turkey craftivitiy

I saw an occupational therapist making something like this with each of her clients and thought this could be a fun way to work on different therapy targets with a Thanksgiving theme.  Have you ever looked at the difference between therapy crafts made during speech therapy sessions versus occupational therapy sessions?  I usually prep before hand by cutting out the shapes and laying out the activities.  Of course this is due to my desire to maximize therapy time not secondary to my inner Martha Stewart who doesn't like crafts to be completely imperfectly.  Of course the Occupational therapists always have the kids draw the shapes and cut them out so they look a little different. 

I called this Henry the Homophone turkey because I wrote out some homophone pairs on the clothespins.  The client picks a clothespin, I would say a sentence and they would have to pick the correct homophone and then define the other one.

Here's how you can make your own:

1.  Get your supplies.  I tried to find colored clothespins but I couldn't so I ended up picking up some Sharpie Wood markers to color my own.  This took a lot of time.  I think turkeys can have brown feathers too, right?  Sometimes I just can't let it go.  

2.  Cut out some kind of turkey shape.  I really liked the brown glitter paper I found.  My turkey has some BLING!

 3.  Add a beak and nose if desired.  I just cut these out of cardstock.  Then I laminated it for durability.

 4.  Add the eyes and clothespins.  I LOVE googly eyes.  So fun to really put on anything in speech therapy.  Add them to your travel coffee mug and tell your kids that you just need to talk to Mr. Coffee for a minute.  

5.  Decide on your therapy targets or leave blank.  I wrote on one side and left the other side blank to use it as a reinforcer game for drill activities.

Are you making any crafts for Thanksgiving?  Are you better at letting your clients or students complete their own crafts?  Or do you like to have mini-masterpieces leave your speech room. If you liked this post, please consider sharing it with others on Pinterest or Facebook by clicking on the buttons below.

Multiple Meaning Words, Homophones, Homonyms

One part of my job involves providing virtual speech therapy to middle school and high school students.  We use a webcam, and I can upload internet games, movies as well as write on a virtual whiteboard.   Here are some of the online resources I use to introduce multiple meaning words: 

Videos: 
Youtube is a good resource for short teaching videos.  These are a few that I like to use:   

• Synonyms, Antonyms, and Homonyms by Charles Johnson at Edusoul.net.  I like this one.  I usually make kids listen to it each session until they are able to independently define each term.  
• Homophones/Between the Lions  Brian McKnight sings about homophones.  We usually watch this and have a contest to see how many of the homophones the kids can remember.  Afterwards we make a list and define each word.  
• Homophone Photos:  Teaches initial concepts and then presents photos contrasts of multiple meaning words.  As we are watching, we write a list of the words and work on definitions for each word.  
• Words with Multiple Meanings:  This contains videos of different multiple meaning words set to music.  I think the music makes it seem a little more fun. 

Power Point Activities:  
This is the best website for FREE powerpoint activities.  They also have links to lesson plans and some online games to play.  Two of my favorites are Homophones!  and Homophone Search.  The Homonphones! gives clues like "Two of a Fruit"  I usually hide the answer to see if they are able to figure out what the answer is (pair of a pear.)  For bonus points, we see if they can spell the words correctly. 

Games: 
Vocabulary Games:  This website has lots of games for vocabulary building.  The games are pretty basic but it's a nice review of the material, plus they change the game based on grade levels. 

Zoom was a children's television show on PBS.  They had a segment called Zoom Zinger's where they would play a game that was sent in.  These are 2 good ones for multiple meaning words. 

• Zoom Zinger: Porcupine Homonyms 
• Zoom Zinger Homonym Game:  

Books:
I really like the Words are Categorical Series by Brian P. Cleary.  I use How Much can a Bare bear Bear a lot in therapy.  It has a sentence with 2 homonym/homophone pairs with illustrations.  I usually have the student pick the word they want to define.  Then I can give them a model of how to define the word.  

Jokes and riddles are good and fun for kids to uses in therapy.  The Dove Dove:Funny Homograph Riddles by Marvin Terban is one source I've used. 

The Amelia Bedelia books often have situations where Amelia confuses the meanings of multiple meaning words.  They are also good for discussing different thoughts (What did she think she was supposed to do, what did they want her to do...)  

These are a few of the activities I use, what are some that you've found?