Spring Flowers -Simple Craft for Following Directions May 3, 2012

Going along with the spring theme, I had a little fun today making spring flowers to decorate my tiny room (which I am very thankful for). I remembered how much fun my students had making snowflakes and the fun discovery that happened when they opened up the folded and cut up piece of paper.

Simple instructions on how to make paper snowflakes

I modified this idea to make simple and very colorful flowers to greet a new season. I printed colorful spring scrapbook pages with images of flowers and bugs and printed them double sided so that when the flower is made you could see the other colors on the reverse side. This activity is great for performing directions (in a specific order) several times, so you can have your students learn the task, review the task, and hopefully by the third or fourth time they can retell the directions back to you.

I helped my students follow directions to fold the paper. For the ones who needed limits on where to cut, I drew lines on their papers, and for others, let them go at it alone. Then poked a green pipe cleaner “stem” through the middle and TADA!!

Spring Prepositions and Vocabulary- Dora the Explorer May 2, 2012

I find that my students (whether it be preschool or school-aged) have difficulty using specific language when answering questions. “Where is the doll house? Over there;” “What do you want?  That.”

This is often due to lack of understanding and use of the content of language. Whether it be a lack of vocabulary (the name of an object) or lack of prepositional knowledge, a part of the message our kids are trying to communicate is being omitted.

Over the past few weeks I have been working on vocabulary related to “Spring,” and “Planting/Gardening.”  I find that real like 3D activities help kids relate to better to their world, and try out their language use in a safe and interactive environment.

One activity I have worked on is increasing vocabulary and use/understanding of prepositions.

I have used the free materials available at Nick Jr. :

Coloring Pages (Great for teaching early vocabulary)

Gardening Games (Great for the kids to practice interactive planting with quicker growing times)

And I have put together some simple printables to target both vocabulary and preposition use. Click on the image to view the document in Google Docs.

You can make several copies of which ever level your students are on, laminate, and have the students match the symbol to the picture or the word to the picture, or the picture to the picture.

I also used all the pictures from the boardmaker board above to make larger images that can be printed on sturdy paper (attached velcro, magnetic backing, or even just glue) and used as a barrier game to practice expressive and receptive language. Here is a site that has a really wonderful description of barrier games Playing with Words 365.