Ho Ho Ho! More "Joint Action Routine" Action

Here it is on Friday night and what am I doing?  I guess it's a bit obvious.

I love my job, and love speech therapy, so here was my latest little snippet about my day at Ephesus Road Elementary School.  I have a group of children that need routines, but they also love Christmas--which is definitely out of everyone's routine.  We had a little speech group today, so prior to that, I did an internet search and came up with a paper bag puppet of Santa that was easy to make.  Why did I search paper bag puppet?  You need to read my earlier post about Joint Action Routines.  The kids have made an entire zoo of puppets---many features stay constant and are predictable, with a few changes.

     In Santa's case, he has eyes and a nose and is made from a paper bag (similar to our earlier 'Rudolph' puppet.  The changes this time were the beard, mustache and hat.  The kids understood this and a couple were significantly enthusiastic and verbal when helping to assemble their puppet.  I had a Tech Talk 32 available, and apologize here for not supplying the Boardmaker overlay---Boardmaker disk is at school right now (did I mention it is Friday night?).  The overlay was very simple---glue, eyes, bag, nose, santa, scissors, and other icons for requesting and commenting. If you need it, email me (on a weekday) and I'll send it.

HELPFUL TIPS

1.  Pre-cut the parts!!  I didn't have a pattern but this was easy to figure out.  You basically need red and white construction paper.  I just cut multiple pieces at the same time---it took about 5 minutes to prepare.

2.  I found this idea from this website---Working Mother in Zion. I didn't feel the need to add a belt on Santa.  I also did not have googly eyes handy, and the kids didn't seem to mind drawing them. 

I used my iPad to present the directions, step by step, in Pictello.  Here is a link to those directions in .pdf format.  

Prior to making Santa, we read an adapted book.  Here is the link to the book.    I basically printed it, laminated it, and used icons and velcro for each page (one icon per page).  The kids matched--lights to lights, santa to santa, etc.....  Very simple. The book was snatched, with a few changes, from Tarheel Reader. 

I hope this has helped a few of you with some last minute ideas of an activity prior to Christmas break.  Goals that can be facilitated with this are answering simple questions, sequencing,  labeling items, following directions, requesting items, seeking help,.......the list goes on.

P.S.  I know that not all kids actually celebrate this holiday.  Most of mine do---hence the Santa Claus theme here.