February: Joint Attention Games

January was my month to get organized.  February is a month of love, relationships and (most importantly MY BIRTHDAY!  Sadly I am way too old to still get excited about my birthday but I do.  In keeping with the theme of the month, I thought I could write about some of my favorite games to encourage joint attention, eye contact/eye gaze and general interaction games.  February 18-23 I will be having  a giveaway each day of my best selling TPT products to celebrate my birthday week with you.
(I have yet to decide if I'm going to reveal my age BUT I can say that I'm at the age where I realized my birthday was on a Saturday!!!  and then thought yeah, I'm still staying home.)

The first game is KABOOM which I originally heard menioned in this book

The book was vague in that it just referenced a mother and her child played a variation of Kaboom without any instructions for the game.  I was able to find a description of a Kaboom game on a teaching website.

Here is how I played it. I used some animal counters we had at our clinic and put them in a box.

The rules are simple.  One color is KABOOM and the other colors are safe.  For example, if yellow is the KABOOM color, I would pull out the other colors to establish a routine saying in a calm voice, "Green is safe, Blue is safe, green is safe" etc.  After 5-6 safe colors, I pull out a yellow one.  Then I just throw the yellow piece in the air and yell KABOOM!!! as loud as I can muster without having the other therapists rush into the room to see what was the matter.  The game continues until you are out of pieces.  

This is my absolute favorite joint attention game right now.  I can use it with difficult clients and see that they are engaged for 5-10 minutes.  I've also seen immediate improvements in coordinated eye gaze shifts.  Plus, we can build in the anticipation that is key in a joint activity routine.  (I'm usually REALLY scared that I'm going to pull out a KABOOM color.)

Kaboom is fun to play during articulation or traditional language therapy too.  This time you want to stack the pile with more KABOOM pieces.  On their turn the student picks a piece.   If it's a Kaboom piece, everyone yells KABOOM and then the student needs to answer a question or say their articulation targets.

Squinky Directions Part 2

I found this little Polly pocket house at Goodwill for 1.99 this weekend.  It folds up for easy storage.  I liked the fact that there are lots of different areas that you could use for spatial concepts or following directions.  The refrigerator opens, you can move the stairs or you can lift up the bed at the top of the toy to hide a toy underneath. 

I like to use real objects or toys during therapy tasks because I think it is motivating and it's functional.    I thought this would be a great opportunity to work with kids on following single and multistep directions.

Walmart had their superhero Squinkies on clearance for 4.50 per pack.  If you don't have any, now would be the time!  I'll admit I have a lot of squinkies.....  

But that just helps with describing tasks.  (Find the yellow and blue Squinkie, which Squinkie Can fly...)  Squinkies come with a variety of plastic gumball machine toy containers.  Each pack comes with a different color (red, sparkly pink, pink, clear etc.)

I also had a multi-pack of colored tongs I'd gotten through Amazon for a plane trip with my little one.  (I thought I was buying a single pair of tongs for a busy book type of game but ended up with a container of 12.)  With all of these options I was able to target a variety of directions.  (Ex. Find the yellow ball, Take the red tongs and pick up a superhero and put him in the blue car. )

When working during functional activities, I find it helps to write down my targets prior to the session so that I am able to maximize the therapy time we have.  For this activity, I decided to make up some direction cards so I would be sure to target everyone's goals during the session.  The second bonus to the cards is that it takes the pressure off of you, the speech-language pathologist.  You're not the bad guy who's just bossing them around when they want to just PLAY with their toys.  It's the cards.  For those kids that really want to just play with the superheroes for awhile, I let them earn 10 seconds of play time for every card they answered correctly.  If you are looking for some direction-following inspiration, you can use the cards that I have HERE.

Sentence Block Building

This is an adapted Pinterest project for sentence building which has been really popular with my clients this week. 

 Materials Needed:

• Blocks or legos
• Address labels that match size of blocks
• Picture Symbols or Google images search.

I used the Avery address labels and return address labels.  I think it would be nice to color coordinate based on noun/verb etc. but wasn't able becuase I didn't have enough of one color.  I tried to use similar sizes for the different parts of the sentences, though.

Then I just typed in the words that I wanted, printed them off and put them on the blocks.  I also put Boardmaker pictures on the sides of the blocks for non readers and to reinforce the meaning of the sentences I made. 

I tried to organize present tense on one side and past tense on the other side (tickles/tickled) to help teach which is the correct form to use in the sentences.  I also found adding popular singers, super heroes, sports teams added increased motivation for the clients. 

Here are some ways I've used them in therapy:

1.  Fill in the blank activities:  I create part of a sentence and then the student finishes it.  Ex. He ___ riding a bike (is/are)  The child puts in the correct sentence.

2.  Basic Sentence building: Start with N-V-O and then add adjectives etc.  Who can build the tallest sentence. 

3.   Pronouns: Start with a basic sentence and then have the child replace the Subject with the correct pronoun.

4.  Mixed up sentences:  Can you put the sentence in order? 

5.  Subject Verb Agreement:  Start with one sentence (ex. Darth Vader is walking) What happens if we changed it to Storm troopers?  What else needs to change?  I like that this adds more of a physical component to something which may seem more abstract.

I think there are lots of ways these could be used in therapy.  How would you use them?

Sentence Obstacle Course

This year, I've been working on incorporating more movement into my therapy sessions.  First, because it makes therapy more fun.  Second, because I'm hoping the combination of movement with drill work will improve memory and carryover of the skills we are teaching.

Which brings me to my favorite activity of the week: Sentence Obstacle Course.  It definitely needs a better name. 

My first thought was to use directions (forward and back) to help teach the concept of future and past tense.  So the students go through the obstacle course normally to say a sentence like "He is going home."  And they go backward through the course to say, "He was going home."

Here's how we've addressed it in therapy:

1.  Regular/Irregular Verb tenses.  Set up one part of a balance beam, piece of tape or obstacle for the child to jump over.  Have the child state the present tense form when jumping forward and the past tense when moving backwards. 

You can also set up a row of 5 pieces of tape placed horizontally to each other to get more drill practice.  As the child is moving forward they say (word/sentence level) the present tense form.  (ex. driving, driving, driving, driving, driving.)  then they go backwards and practice the past tense.  drove, drove, drove, drove, drove.) 

2.  Auxiliary +ing forms.   Set up balance beams, pieces of tape or obstacles for the child to climb over.  Depending on their level, I may start with an obstacle for each word.  As they get better, I may decrease the number and lump into: Subject verb predicate.

Here is how we had it set up last week:

I used three different colors with the is + walking the same color to teach that this goes with the verb.  Other ideas for basic sentences:

• Coordinate with some of the great resources available on Teachers pay teachers or the free therapy blogs.  Last week we used the Grammar Gumballs download Jenna Rayburn (Speechroom news) had on her TPT store.  You can find that here:   Grammar Sweets  I had IS/ARE taped up in the front of the room and WAS/WERE taped up at the back of the room.  They walked forward to put a gumball in the IS/ARE bucket and backward to put it in the WAS/WERE.
• Coordinate colors/colored tape with the colors used in the Rainbow Sentences App.  
• To expand sentences, practice a base sentence for a few turns, then add another obstacle (Now we have to describe the boy...)

3.  Compound Sentences:
2 sets of sentences with Balance beam in between.  The child says the first sentence, walks across the balance beam and walks back saying the next sentence.  If possible color coordinating the nouns/verbs.

4.  Complex Sentences:
4 pieces (I used pool noodles I got at the Dollar store), balance beam, pillows to crash into.  I do this in our OT gym.  The students say their regular sentence, then the reason: as they are walking across the balance beam.  As a fun reinforcer they can jump from the beam into the pillows for the last part.

I think that there are lots of ways to get this to work in therapy. How would you use this in your therapy room?