Shhh Sound Speech Activity

Izzie has been practicing the "shhh" sound at speech therapy for a few weeks, but is still having a little trouble. She has a difficult time puckering her lips and then she crosses her tongue between her teeth, when trying to make the sound. So, to help out at home, I created a "Fish Splash" game for her to play. It's just like using flashcards, but Izzie is much more willing to participate...flashcards do not hold her attention. She has been playing this game over and over again, even by herself!

I made 20 felt fish and attached a picture to the back of each. Izzie "fishes" for a fish, then simply says what the picture is...it's that simple! I may (eventually) add little washers to the mouth of each fish and have Izzie use a homemade magnetic fishing pole to catch the fish. But, for now, this is working.

Back of fish...words included:

Beginning shhh sound:
Shrimp
Shelf
Shell
Shop
Shark
Sheep
Shovel
Shirt
Ship
Shoes
Shot

Ending shhh sound:
Shhh
Cash
Wish
Trash
Dish
Flush
Fish
Brush
Wash

Slippery Fish Felt Board

I found this cute "Slippery Fish" felt board activity (templates and words) here.

The Slippery Fish, the Slippery Fish,
Was swimming through the water.
The Slippery Fish, the Slippery Fish,
Was swimming through the water.
Oh no…(put your hands to your mouth)
He was eaten by….

Change underlined words to
Octopus
Tuna Fish
Great Big Shark
Big Fat Whale

Last line…
Oh no….I have a terrible tummy ache. (BURP) Ooops, Excuse Me!

In addition, I found an amazing website, Songs for Teaching, which has the song, "Slippery Fish", to sing along too! I highly recommend EVERYONE to check out "Songs for Teaching", it's a wonderful resource website!!

Secret Seahorse Memory Game

Secret Seahorse was Izzie's favorite beach book. She loves the I Spy concept and in this book, on every page, the seahorse is hiding. She had so much fun finding the seahorse and enjoyed finding him over and over...all week!

We found some shells that sorta looked similar...

And made a memory game for Izzie.

Rainbow Fish ABC and 123 Activities

Izzie is obsessed with identifying letters and counting to ten. As many of you know, Izzie has a speech disorder, Apraxia, so hearing her say the alphabet and counting to ten is music to my ears! She really enjoyed the Rainbow fish books...very simple, but great graphics.

Izzie can identify all her letters and pronoucing most by name and a few by sound, such as "S" is "sss" and "M" is "mmm".

I've seen a version of this activity on several different blogs. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I found the fish template. I printed off 26 fish, outlined each with marker, and wrote a letter on each, then attached a paper clip. For the fishing pole: wooden spoon, yarn, and a magnet.

When Izzie caught a fish, she had to identify the letter before she could keep the fish. If she didn't identify the letter correctly, she had to throw the fish back into the ocean. She thought this was great fun; therefore, began purposely misidentifying letters.

Now that Izzie can count to ten, she counts everything! She really enjoyed counting and identifying the colors in this book.

I found the templates here for this activity. I had the numbers in a small bag and the fish on the outside of the fish bowl. Izzie randomly drew a number from the bag, then counted the correct number of fish to put into the fish bowl.

Beach Patterns and What's Different?

More beach activities...

Izzie really enjoys watching the short shows in between the cartoons on Noggin. Her favorites are the ones where she has to complete the pattern and the ones where she can pick out which object is different from the rest. Going off these concepts, I created the following using Word's clipart.

Izzie had a difficult time completing these patterns. I think next time I will have the pattern repeat twice, then have her only fill in the last blank, instead of three.

Izzie was able to complete the What's Different cards without any hesitiation. I even tried making the black and white ones more difficult. Any suggestions on how to make this game more challenging?

Beach Theme Activities

We're back from vacation! We had a great time at the beach. I decided to take Izzie a few beach theme activities to keep her occupied during the 7 hour trip and for the down time at the beach house. I'll be posting the activities over the next several days.

The first was a color matching activity. I found the cards here and made the color clothespins by gluing paint samples on each. Izzie is a master at matching colors, but she still has trouble manipulating the clothespins, so this activity is great to practice her fine motor skills.