Speech Therapy Activites for February – Groundhogs and Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras, OH MY!!

It’s am exciting time of year here in Louisiana! We have Valentine’s Day and Louisiana’s biggest holiday, Mardi Gras, coming up in the next 8 days! It’s hard (but fun) to squeeze in all that fun, but we are doing it!

Oh, and Punxsutawney Phil says there’s 6 more weeks of winter. I’m fine with that because while most of the U.S. has been pounded with snow, I’m still waiting for winter. It’s a nice 73 degrees here which is lovely. The bad part is that I have lots of cozy winter wear waiting to be worn! (#southerngirlproblems).In any case, I LOVE teaching and talking about LOVE! Love is definitely in the air in my speech room 🙂

Come on in and see what’s going on!

I absolutely LOVE Groundhog Day. This quirky American tradition weirds my students out- which makes for lots of discussion! Here we are using the Groundhog Quick Drill (with the articulation cans)! We have also been reading about Punxsutawney Phil in inclusion (and watching videos of Groundhog Day to build background knowledge.

With these fun holidays coming up, we’ve been having lots of fun in therapy. Here’s a peek of what we have been doing and what’s going down this week….

We’ve played a few board games, of course.

We’ve been rocking the EET to describe both Groundhog Day and now Mardi Gras.

See?

There will be many-a-bead thrown in the speech room this week anytime my students give me some good communication!

I caught them at a parade in New Orleans.

The ones with the LIPS are staying with me though!

Last week. Mardi Gras king and queen crowns were made my one and all!!

I knew my girls would be ecstatic about making these…but I had no idea how much the BOYS would love it, too.

It just goes to show you everyone loves a good crown! {hahaha}

We’ve played some Mardi Gras Old Maid and some “Who’s got the baby.”

We have also been learning from Mardi Gras vocabulary from that same packet

We’ll be doing some dot art, as usual.

During the last 2 weeks of therapy with my older kids (both in the classroom and my room) we have been reading about the history of Mardi Gras and discussing Mardi Gras traditions throughout our state (as well as some fun facts and interesting tidbits).

We’ve eaten a lot of king cake, too!!

We are continuing it this week. So many kids celebrate Mardi Gras but don’t know the reasons for the Mardi Gras traditions we practice (the parades, the beads, the feasting, etc)… even though they live here! It’s an absolute MUST that they learn about it- it’s their culture!

On Friday- just before we leave for our 4 day Mardi Gras break- I will be sharing my personal photos from Mardi Gras, playing some traditional Mardi Gras music, sharing videos of my family’s traditions, and showing them my husband’s traditional Cajun Mardi Gras costume, mask and capichon (hat).You can see my hubby decked out in his costume HERE.

The week AFTER Mardi Gras we will be doing some silly Mardi Gras Stamp-A-Stories while the kids tell all about their fun Mardi Gras adventures! Below is a story from last year. You can read about those stamp stories HERE, and download the freebie HERE.

On the Valentine’s Day front, of course we’ve been doing some quick drill!!
(continuing my life long quest to rid the world of the word “Valentime.”)

The kids all get grossed out when they pick the card that says “You got kissed” or “You’re in love!”

I’ve used and abused my Love Letters for articulation.

This week we will be mailing love letters again- this time the EET activity for describing that goes along with this one.

It’s amazing how tickled kids can get just by slipping a card into a make-believe mailbox. I hope they never lose that – that thing that lets them get so much happiness from something so simple.

The book, The Valentine Grump, went so well with these activities. It’s about how getting a valentine in the mail even makes the grumpiest of grumps happy.

Today I laminated my newest Valentine’s Day product, Valentine Basic Concepts Fun! I made this especially for a preschooler and kindergartener that’s struggling with basic concepts .
It’s hot off the press in my TPT store 🙂

This is prepped and ready to go for tomorrow.

We’ve been doing lots of articulation homework from my Valentine’s Day Fun Pack...

…AND some listening/following directions practice from the same packet.

Oh my, this was so hard for them 🙁

I’ve been using a Valentine Sticker scene for artic and language with my little ones. If you haven’t discovered the sticker scenes from Oriental Trading, you must check them out. My artic kids earn stickers to put on their scene with correct productions and my language kids earn stickers by labeling or describing them (they aren’t allowed to point) and by telling me where in the picture they plan to put them. Them we use the scene to make up a story, answer questions and so on. I have them for every holiday and they keep little hands and brains busy.

We started making foldable Valentine cards today for the peeps we love, and we will be doing that all week! These are also from the Valentine Fun Pack. There’s plenty of space inside to write sweet messages or draw a picture for mom.

In honor of all the love going on, I made the trek to Target yesterday to gather up some Valentine treats for one and all!

I love the peel-and-stick gems from Lake Shore and the Foam beads from Oriental Trading. They make craft projects easy and mess-free.

See statement above about how everyone loves a good crown haha.

Students did tasks (like following directions, answering questions or practicing articulation target words) to earn their jewels.

We also did some simple art with some of my favorite big foam stamps!

These are awesome for preschoolers to use while working on labeling or any other skill.

I play 3-4 activities per sessions for preschoolers since their attention spans are short.

Whew, I need to rest up for another jampacked day of therapy tomorrow.

I hope your speech room is filled with LOVE, too!

Happy Valentine’s Day

and

Happy Mardi Gras, y’all!

Comments

Mary says

February 10, 2015 at 11:13 am

I love the "We don't hide the crazy" saying in your first picture!!! Mardi Gras sounds like so much fun!
I keep having to pull out the sweaters, then try to figure out what else to wear during our warm days. It's winter…it's supposed to be cold! 🙂
I think we all need to have a field trip to your speech room and witness first hand all of the fun your students are having!

annied says

February 14, 2015 at 7:09 pm

Mia, I think I have all of your Mardi Gras activities. I particularly like the Reading and Responding set. I can only imagine how fun Mardi Gras is in Louisiana!

Speech Therapy Activites for February – Groundhogs and Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras, OH MY!!

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