Book Of The Week: The Busy Beaver

The Busy Beaver by Nicholas Oldland

Summary: What happens when you are too busy and careless to think about others?  Beaver finds himself "falling" victim to his careless ways and vows to make a change.  This book is a great way to introduce Earth Day activities while taking care of others around us.

Vocabulary:

felled - to cut down

hobble - to walk with difficulty

embark - to begin a task or project

rigorous - very strict

rehabilitation - to get back to or restore to a previous state or way

inspect - looking at something very closely and carefully

saplings - young trees

Questions:

1. Why do you think the beaver was so careless?

2. Why didn't anyone visit beaver in the hospital?

3. How did beaver feel when he looked out of the hospital window?

4. How did beaver show his friends that he was sorry?

5. Why was it important for beaver to replace the trees he had felled?

6. What is the lesson in this book?

7. When was a time that you were careless?  What happened and how did it affect others?

8. How does this book relate to Earth Day?

In need of a few last minute Earth Day activities?  Check these out!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Earth-Day-1169347

https://www.thewiseowlfactory.com/earth-day-printable-for-k-1-free-sorting-pdf/

http://www.happyandblessedhome.com/free-30-page-printable-earth-day-activity-pack/

http://www.totschooling.net/2017/04/earth-day-picture-word-tracing.html

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Parts-of-Speech-FREE-A-great-free-Earth-Day-Activity-2473354

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-Earth-Day-Facts-Fun-Task-Cards-229539

Book of The Week: The Boy Who Loved Big Words

Selig was different than other boys his age. He had passion, a passion for words. He loved the way they sounded and loved the way they tasted. His father worries if any good can come from such a hobby. His mother worries he will never find happiness. Happenstance provides Selig a chance meeting with a magical Genie. This ally encourages Selig to live his dream of collecting words. When Selig has gathered so many words that he can hardly walk, he decides to start sharing his words with the world. Wordsmith, as he starts calling himself, discovers that the world was in dire need for some added describers. He goes on the help a poet, a baker, neighbors, friends and any who are in search of the perfect word. This book is geared toward 2nd-3rd grade students with a lexile level of 780L. 

Vocabulary:

Wordsmith- a person who is able to use words in many ways

Aflutter-a moving feeling or a feeling of butterfly wings

Lozenge -a medicated tablet (throat lozenge)

Spry-limber, feeling of youth and ability to move easily

Proclaimed- stated in a grand way

Voraciously-to eat or consume quickly or in a large amount

Rhapsody-a song or melody

Passion- strong love for or conviction to something

Story Questions:

Who is the main character in the story?

Where does Selig collect his words from? 

What does his father sell?

What does his mother worry about?

What does Selig do when kids call him "wordsworth" or "oddball"?

Who does Selig find at the Emporium (store)?

What happens when Selig collects all the words he wants?

Why does he have to lighten his load that he is carrying?

Who stands near Selig's tree and what is he also looking for? 

What does Selig decide he must do when he feels "word-heavy"?

How did Selig's words help the baker?

How did Selig's words help his fighting neighbors?

Why did they call Wordsworth (Selig) a legend? 

Why does he take Melody to see his parents?

How does the story end? 

Did you like the story? Why or Why not? 

Extension Activities:

Lesson Ideas

Hot Cocoa Thera-happy

It has been a dreamy, theme-filled January so far. Over the past two weeks our theme has been hot chocolate. An easy choice for the cold Minnesota weather! In the speech room we have continued with learning about nonfiction text structure, themes in a story, descriptive vocabulary and following directions. Here are the ideas and TPT products we used to incorporate our chocolatey theme:

      

This nonfiction text structure freebie by Primary Owl, was a perfect way to introduce text structures, it includes 5 posters and two worksheets for our 5th grade students. We also then used our own nonfiction text structure cards to deepen our students learning. 

                          

To keep the students enthusiastic about text structure, we also played a game called the Cocoa Cup Champ. Students were given a "cocoa cup" and when they could name the text structure they could add a marshmallow (in our case a cotton ball) to their cup. The student who had the most correct answers and had their cup full of "marshmallows" was the Cocoa Cup Champ. 

A variant for some of my students was letting them make marshmallow baskets in the cup. Anything to please right:) 

For my students working on functional directions we read a hot cocoa recipe and followed the directions. Then everyone tasted their cocoa and we as a group came up with adjectives to describe the cocoa. Our group came up with: warm, light, bubbly, creamy, good, sweet, spicy, wet, sticky  steamy, yummy, and scrumptious. 

We used to this craftivity by Lauren Balogh write down our describers and for some additional following direction fun. 

While searching for ideas we also found these great freebies for additional speech language practice, Enjoy!

Hot Chocolate Listening for Absurdities 

Hot Chocolate Object Description

Hot Cocoa Speech Therapy Game

Snowman Soup Freebie

Hot Cocoa Reader

Book of the Week: Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

Summary:

This week we are reading, "Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" to get us in the mood for fall. The story follows the Peanuts gang as they get ready for Halloween. Each character has different a idea about how to celebrate. Lucy and Charlie Brown want to go trick-or-treating, Violet is throwing a party, and snoopy pretends he's a World War I fighting ace. Linus is starting early with his celebrating by writing a letter to the great pumpkin. He convinces his friend Sally to skip trick-or-treating and wait for the great pumpkin's arrival in a pumpkin patch. Linus and Sally wait and wait and in the end, they did not find exactly what they're looking for. A great book to do extension activities with, and one that students can continue to relate to year after year as the peanuts characters are well-known, well liked, an interesting to talk about. 

Questions:

What does Linus ask for from the great pumpkin in his letter? 

Do you think the great pumpkin is a hero? Why or why not? 

How does Lucy feel about Linus writing the letter? She says the words, "laughing stock."

Who is willing to go with Linus to the pumpkin patch? Why? 

Who is throwing a party? 

What does Lucy dress as for Halloween? Is cute or ugly? 

When sleep when Snoopy slips off into the night, where do you think he is going?

Do they notice that Snoopy is missing? 

Why does Lucy ask for extra candy? 

Do you think they will ever see the great pumpkin? What do you predict? 

After trick or treating, who goes to the pumpkin patch? 

Who helps Linus get home and into bed? 

Does the great pumpkin ever come? 

What does Charlie Brown do to make Linus feel better the next day? 

Vocabulary:

Sincere

Candy Apple

Patch

beagle 

Embarrassed

spooky 

bobbed

sighed

Beagle

Furious

Language Ideas:

Bulletin Board

Great Pumpkin Writing

Following Directions

Multiple Meaning Words

Comparing and Contrasting

Vocabulary Cards

Antonyms

Book Of The Week: I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves

I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro

It's officially fall, so why not get started with this popular book?  Yes, the old lady is at it again, swallowing leaves, rope, clothing, pumpkins and more.  The kids love when she sneezes and creates a scarecrow!

Questions:

Who is this story about?

Where did the story happen?

When did the story take place?

What did the old lady do at the beginning of the story?

What happened at the end?

Is this book fact or fiction?  How do you know?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

We have a sequencing activity/story retell for this book at our TPT store that you can find here.

There are a LOT of activities for this book!  Here are just a few freebies for you to check out.

Take Home Book

Spin-A-Scarecrow Game

Leaf Counting Activity

Free Activities

Nouns

Zaption for Speech, Language and Pragmatics.

We are just a few days into summer, but it gives me some time to write some posts that have been sitting as draft ideas. A few months ago I learned about Zaption a fantastic video editing tool that can be used with videos from around the web (PBS, National Geographic, Youtube) or with your own videos. You create a "tour" with a video and then are allowed to add captions, questions, other clips or pictures together to create your own unique learning "tour" or formative assessment. It can be used to introduce content, test content or further learning. I love, love, love Zaption, as it eliminates the pop-ups (like on youtube) and allows you to shorten clips (to eliminate extra or inappropriate content.) It also eliminates the video ads that also may not be appropriate to show in the classroom.

How do you use it?

This is a screen shot of their webpage. You will need to start with the orange JOIN FREE button in the bottom left to create a user name/login. You could also press the WATCH A QUICK DEMO button on the bottom right to learn how to put together your first "Tour." The quick demo shows you everything you need to become the Zaption pro you were meant to be:)

What else I've learned about Zaption:

There are two versions, a free version and a paid version (roughly $75 a year). I have only used the free version thus far, but LOVE it! I believe the paid version allows a teacher greater control with data tracking and greater editing ability (putting two videos together, adding their own photos etc).

Zaption App: 

Zaption also has a viewing app on iTunes, but can also be streamed on android tablets by going to their website. I currently work with a district that offers all students 1:1 technology with every student having a iPad to utilize. All of my students have been able to view my video tours through the app or by sending them an email link.

My Sample Tours: 

Reading Response or Language Questions:
http://zapt.io/tp6nm3f3

Analyzing Social Scenarios:
http://zapt.io/t9mgqqsh

Articulation/Rating Speech:

http://zapt.io/tymmp43y

After watching the tours all 25 of my students who used it, liked it!  I hope you and your students also love Zaption. Have more Zaption Questions? Click here for their FAQs page.

Mighty Ducks! A Compare Contrast Activity!

My elementary students seldom initiate conversations without prompting, but last week my school held a fundraiser that changed my normally tepid sharers to a level of wonder that could not be suppressed. What had them wondering, conversing, sharing and comparing were small plastic duck key chains that looked like celebrities. While I am not one to judge interests, I am an opportunistic SLP that will play to the interest areas of my students to get the best bang-for-my-buck. So what I did was find my own ducks so we could compare and contrast and infer information. You can get your set here.


Here is what the ducks look like:

After pulling two ducks out of the bag at random I had students use a Venn diagram to brain storm ideas before writing about the the ducky similarities and differences paragraph form.

After we finished with the ducks we moved on to characters in novels they were reading in their classrooms. They loved starting with the ducks before tackling the daunting task of grade level text and complex character contrasting. This activity worked well for all! 

What are your students interested in this year that you have incorporated into therapy?

Book Of The Week: Gertrude McFuzz

Gertrude McFuzz by Dr. Seuss

Summary:

And yet another Dr. Seuss book this week!  Gertrude McFuzz.  The girl with one little feather on her tail.  Gertrude McFuzz just couldn't bear to see Lolla-Lee-Lou's beautiful tail.  Jealousy and greed get the best of her, and in the end, she realizes that she is perfect just as she is.

Vocabulary:

• droopy - to hand or sink down
• spy - to discover
• pout - to show unhappy feelings with expressions of the face
• absurd - silly; foolish
• tantrum - a noisy outburst of anger
• din - a loud, steady noise
• gnaw - to chew
• pluck - to pick
• twitch - to move or pull with a quick, sudden motion
• nibbles - to eat in small bites
• silk - a soft thread made by a certain insect
• swish - to move using a rustling sound
• squawk - to give a harsh scream

Questions:
Why was Gertrude so sad?
Why did she want more than one feather?
Why did Gertrude have a tantrum?  Have you ever had a tantrum?
Why did Gertrude eat more than one berry?
Why couldn't Gertrude fly home?
Who rescued her?

What three words can you use to describe Gertrude?

How did Gertrude's feelings about her tail change from the beginning of the story to the end of the story?
If Gertrude had been able to show Lolla-Lee-Lou her feathers, how do you think Lolla would  have responded?

What would you have done if you were Gertrude?  Would the outcome have been different?  How so?

What is the theme of this story?

The Life and Work of Dr. Seuss: A Nonfiction Text Structure Activity

Over the last few weeks, the students in our language arts intervention groups have been working on nonfiction text structure.  We have been working hard on increasing the complexity of text that we present to the students.  Initially, we started with simpler activities with a strong emphasis on visual supports and identifying clue words.  Our February 20th post, Non Fiction Text Structure, was a great example of this.  Next, we moved to task cards.  These cards included clue/signal words with a range of reading lexiles due to the tier 3 vocabulary.  The students were intimated by the lengthier passages, but they did fantastic!  (The passages were also used with our intervention group that was working on decoding multisyllabic words, another reason for the higher reading lexiles.)  They gained a lot of confidence reading the passages and discovered that their length had nothing to do with the actual content...and they rocked the content!  (If you're looking for this set of task cards, they are available here at our TPT store.)

Today, they were given another challenge.  I presented them with a full page of text, again, at a higher reading lexile for those students working on decoding.  They were excited to find that the text was about the life and work of Dr. Seuss.  Unintimidated, they started reading with confidence and excitement. After each paragraph, they were asked to determine what type of text structure was present and then provide evidence from the text to support their answer.  While I tried to be very pointed about the type of structure I embedded within each paragraph when wrote it, they were able to provide several great discussion points about the type of text structure they thought the paragraphs represented and why.  It was a much better activity than I anticipated! If you want to check it out, you can also find it at our TPT store.  It's free until this Wednesday at noon, so grab yours now!

Non Fiction Text Structure

Over the past few weeks my 5th grade language students have been trying to tackle Nonfiction text structure in their language arts classes. It has been a little daunting, but anything is doable with the right strategy. We started out going over all of the common text structures, I modeled how to use key words, reviewed task cards, and then used some texts that were below grade level to identify the kinds. My students were able to use a chart as a strategy and seemed to be making some connections when able to use the chart as a reference. The problem with this is that during state testing they have to be independent. Enter a great idea! What if we practiced drawing the text structure chart, my students then could draw out a visual cue to help recall the name when they need it. 

Here are the visuals and key words we came up with:

Students were helped with the visual but asked to come up with their own "Keywords"

Sequence:

Description:

Compare/Contrast:

Problem/Solution:

My hope is that when asked about the writing style of the author, they will be able to think of the answer very independently. Hope you can also use this strategy too!