End of the year “round up”….

It’s close to the end of my school year so I thought I would dust off my boots and end it with a wild west theme. I have made theme boxes with materials that I have collected over my many years in this rodeo we call speech therapy. The cowboy box is one of many. So mosey on over to my ranch (aka speech room) and I’ll show ya’ a few things that I am using.

My door– images taken from google, stickers and a picture of me with friends on our horses (a fun trip we took to Wyoming and Montana last summer). My table– shower curtain (Kohls for 3.00), stuffed horse, books from the media center and a stable of horses. My white board– hats from the dollar store (held up by magnets). My cabinets outside of my room- books from the media center, horse head from a thrift shop and fake barbwire from (Hobby Lobby). My file cabinet– horseshoe magnets (dollar store) hats and boots.

I scrounged thrift stores and found an inexpensive cowboy shirt and leather vest. The kids loved dressing up and wearing these along with a hat and a bandana. It’s a lot more fun being dressed like a cowboy or cowgirl when you are practicing your skills. Oh and don’t underestimate the power of a dollar store mustache!

I found several web sites that would create wanted posters. This site was the one that printed the pictures the best. Create a wanted poster   I tried several free apps but there were too many advertising pop ups.

How did I use this with IEP goals? Well how could you not!

1. Problem solving What is a nickname? What nickname can you use for your wanted poster? Here are a few of the nick names we came up with- Wild Woman, Sparkles, Smiley, Grumpy, Slim, Red, Picker, Curly, Sweetie, Muzzle Loader, Bella, Flash, Crusher Here are some we found via Google:  The Kid, Itchy Trigger, Snake-eyes, Cotton Mouth, Deadeye, Texas, Arkansas, Dusty, Loco, Lefty, Lucky, etc. You can find some more here:Nicknames  and this site will create a cowboy/girl name and a crime for you Cowboy Name Generator (note these may not always be kid friendly).
2. What is a crime and what crimes would a cowboy/girl commit?  Here are a few that we used: bank robbin’, varmit shootin’, train robbin’, cattle rustlin’,  jaywalkin’, speedin’, horse stealin’, etc.
3. Following directions- it takes a lot of language and listening skills to decide what to wear for your wanted poster picture
4. Sequencing- what goes on first hat, mustache, bandana, shirt/vest and why?
5. Emotions/ feelings- What kind of wanted person are you? What are you feeling or thinking? Can you show that in your picture?
6. Our whole school uses the Zones of Regulation  so we can talk about what zone the culprit would be in when they were robbin’, chased by the sheriff or just ridin’ their horse, etc.This also works well for discussing the size of the problem.

Here are a few of the wanted posters that we created.

We worked a lot on the same skills but added a western twist. Other cowboy and cowgirl activities we did included:

1. Lots of cowboy/cowgirl books- a fun way to work on vocabulary, sequencing, listening skills, finding words with your speech sound, making inferences, etc.
2. Put a picture/object under a cowboy hat and give clues
3. Barrier games:  use cowboy stickers and a western scene (I used images I found by googling western backgrounds or you could create your own)
4. I  made a cowboy/cowgirl bingo game with vocabulary and pictures. I’d love to share it but I created it a long time ago and used pictures from google. Here are a few resources for vocabulary:Cowboy Vocabulary , American West/Cowboy Vocabulary/Slang, ABC Teach Cowboy Rodeo Theme

A few resources:( Apps- there are a lot of shooting apps which I did not use)

1. Cowboy Set 5.99
2. Pecos Bill app – 2.99
3. Cowboy Toddler– free app- shapes, letters, colors, etc.
4. Cowboy Alphabet – free app
5. Simoo- simon says app with cows – free app
6. Tizzy Cowboys and Cowgirls– 2.99-  or Lite version-free app
7. Mystery Word Town – Sight Word Spelling – 2.99 app
8. Old Western Movies – free app

Well partner it’s time for me to mosey on out and feed them horses. Here’s to you adding a your own twists to this theme.

Cindy “Countin’ The Days” Meester

 It was hat day at school- my cowboy theme was lucky timing! I even had on my speech lips sweater!

 

 

Helping Paws

I try not to use this blog for personal items but this is one exception. I do volunteer work for Helping Paws. I have trained a service dog, worked at many events and dog sit  for dogs in training. This is an organization that trains service dogs for people with physical disabilities and veterans.

The next event I will working at is the Wag Walk and Run. I know most can’t join us but you can support this worthy cause with a donation.
Please use the link below to help me raise funds for a great organization.

Donation Link

Thank you!
Cindy
PS. It’s ok to share this with others too.

Not a Stick…

 

Last posting I showed how I used the Not a Box book. This time I used Not a Stick for our creative and imagination adventures.

This book follows the same format as Not a Box. It has one sentence on a page along with cute line drawings of pig and his/her imagination. This time pigs finds a stick and let’s his/her pretend play turn it into a artist’s brush, sword and other imaginative objects.

First we read the book and made guesses of what the pig had imagined his/her stick to be. The book is set up to show pig standing with the stick and the next page shows what it becomes. It was a interesting to see what guesses my students made.

I gave each student a blank card stock paper and a bag of sticks. What will their imagination turn the stick into? I tried to steer them to new ideas and not just ones from the book. It wasn’t too hard to do. Once they had their idea I hot glued a stick to their paper and they drew their object.

I did not have them draw themselves. I took their pictures and printed them to add to their creations. See below for some of the finished results!

I even had a crown for the princess.

I can’t wait to see what my other students create!

Now for the twist. What app can pair up with this book you ask? Here are a few suggestions:

Draw a Stickman – free

Draw a stickman– this one is done on your computer

Draw a Stickman: Epic 2 – 1.99

Draw a Stickman: Epic HD -2.99

Draw a Stickman Epic- free – free

Doddlecast by Sago – 2.99

Now it’s time to add your own twists… Let me know by leaving a comment or two.

Cindy