I was at Archivers (a scrapbook store) a few years ago (when I still had time to scrapbook.) They have die cut machines which allow you to punch shapes out of scrabooking paper. One of the punches was of a fence and the other one I made was of a house with a door that you can open.
Last week, we used these shapes to make Halloween paper crafts, focusing on following directions, stating directions, requesting supplies, and articulation/intelligibility.
1. Five Little Pumpkins:
I glued the “gate” onto blue paper and also cut out the 5 little pumpkins rhyme using a cloud shape before the therapy session. In the past, I’ve used different stickers to make the pumpkins. Last year I found a really cool pumpkin hole puncher on clearance that included 3 different stamps to decorate the pumpkins. Here is how I used it in therapy:
1. Requesting: punch out the pumpkin, I do it, you do it, I want the pumpkin stamp, (ready, set…) GO.
2. Labeling locations: Put the pumpkin on the fence, under the moon, next to the cloud etc.
3. Following directions (for this I hid the five pumpkins) The child had to find the pumpkins I hid (ex. find the pumpkin under your chair) and then bring them back to glue onto the gate.
4. /s/ Blends: stamp, stick, sticky, Spooky, scary,
5. Emotions: I had my social skills kids work on drawing different emotions on the pumpkins
6. Articulation homework: After we were finished, I highlighted all of the sounds/words I wanted the parents to work on in the poem.
2. Spooky House
I used the house die cut and punched out a bunch of houses onto black scrapbooking paper. I took pictures of some of the kids making scared faces (always get consent for photos first) and then printed them off using the contact sheet portion. It worked better to print the pictures off on photo paper, regular copy paper printed too dark. I also wished I’d taken a picture of the whole child and printed it off even smaller so that their whole body fit in the door.
I put the child behind the door and then glued everything onto the blue paper. Then the child got to add the stickers to the picture.
1. Emotions: We practiced making scary faces and talked about what different parts of our face do when we are scared. We also talked about strategies for what to do when things are scary.
2. Articulation: Kid’n’Kaboodle had a variety of fingerplays and I varied the poem based on what sounds I was working on with the child.
3. Vocabulary: I didn’t have a lot of stickers, but it was also a good activity for naming or requesting.
4. Role playing: We also talked about how to go trick or treating. We could practice knocking on the door, opening it, saying trick or treat and then getting candy.
