A few photos of Lisbon

Here are a few shots from a wonderful beginning of spring break in Lisbon. More to come!

Castle at Sintra

Lisbon overlook

Street artist in Lisbon 

Fun and sun in Lisbon

David and I are on a spring break trip in Lisbon.  More to come!

Time for Egg Fun!

Nighttime prep work

 Around this time of year, I like to dye eggs with the kids.  It's a fun thing to do, and they love it.  I've put together an egg dyeing 'how to' booklet, with a communication board and comprehension activities, along with 'Chicks Everywhere'--an interactive book.

You can get this here for next to nothing on TPT.  Have fun.


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Below is a reposting from three years ago of a free interactive book ----yours for the download!

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I'm continuing my Easter Eggs theme with a downloadable book just for you!  It's from Tarheel Reader--not my creation, but I did bind it and make icons.   It's pretty straightforward!  If you want a corresponding Easter Egg decorating how-to book to download, go here.

 I love all of these books with the vivid photographs and simple language.  My self-contained kids really need this uncluttered format.
Click here to download the book.

Click here for the icons in pdf

This was one kid's favorite page! He liked the broken one.

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Are You My Mother? Materials to supplement this Common Core Exemplar Text

This was a favorite book of mine growing up. There is a great plot with a 'problem' and a 'solution', a cast of characters, setting, and a missing mother.  You can find it in any library or on Amazon. I've had several copies over the years in my speech room.

I was skimming  Exemplar Texts for the Common Core, and this made the list for K-1, so I thought it would be nice if my students were able to learn the vocabulary, characters, sequence, and story, and have better access to the regular education curriculum.    The result of my thinking is the following companion pack.

This pack meant for the more linguistically challenged students and is perfect for speech/OT or speech/special ed collaboration. This is nice for integrating literacy and hand-on activities. I typically read “Are You My Mother" with the kids and have them practice answering questions, state the repeatable line, and name characters using the manipulative icons. I then take another day to read “Looking for Mother Bird" (book is included with this packet) which reinforces the main concept (Looking for Mother) and reinforces animal and vehicle names. With the teacher or OT, we work on a craft (in this case it's a bird’s nest activity). There is also a construction vehicles interactive book. With reading, re-reading, and questions/activities, I spend two weeks on this book if I work with the kids twice a week. 

Enclosed is:

• 12 page interactive book entitled ‘Looking for Mother Bird’ with simple text and icons for matching. This book is a reduced language version of “Are You My Mother?” pages 2-14

• 11 page step by step booklet for making a ‘birds in a nest’ craft.  Pages 16-26

• Yes/No and Wh-questions (to go with the craft) Pages 27

• Sequence worksheet for birds in a nest craft –page 28

• “Are you My Mother” character manipulatives (You need your own copy of Are You My Mother?) page 29

• Who, What, and Where question comprehension worksheets (30-32)

• Sequence worksheet for Are You My Mother? (page 33)

8 page interactive book with icons entitled “Construction Vehicles” (34-42)

Go here to Teachers Pay Teachers to check it out.  

It's a nice project for any time of year, but might be extra nice to read before Mother's Day!   

Seven more days until Lisbon!



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"Who is Driving?" Free visuals to go with a fun book

This post is for all of my friends who are special educators or speech pathologists.  This book is perfect for your caseloads. 

Purchase it here. The hardback version may be out of print, but there seem to be lots available used on Amazon.  I got my copy at the public library. The board book is available, but I prefer to use a regular book with elementary aged children.






From Amazon: First published in Belgium, this picture book challenges children to guess which animal will drive a certain vehicle. "Who is driving . . . / . . . the fire engine?" asks the text on the first double-page spread, illustrated with four oddly dressed characters striding purposefully across the page: a chicken in a jumper, a red-capped goat lugging a suitcase, an elephant equipped as a firefighter, or a bear wearing his cap backward. Other questions (and other animals) dot the remaining pages. The answers are not always obvious, though observant children can pick up visual clues. 

I learned about this book from a Pinterest site:  This book is perfect for teaching the vocabulary associated with a 'wacky guess' and a 'smart guess'. (Social Thinking curriculum) Children have to be very observant as to what the characters are wearing to determine who will be driving the vehicle. Have the students use the language "I think the ___ is the driver because _______".  

For those children who are more linguistically challenged, I made a set of visuals and a sentence strip to go with the book.  Visuals are from Smarty Symbols (Commercial License).

Have fun!  There is a lot of vocabulary associated with jobs, vehicles, and clothing.  Kids have to make predictions!  They will love the vehicle noises they can make.

 If you have small children of your own at home, raid their toy shelves and bring in different toy trucks, cars, and planes.  

Download the visuals here.  


Thank you everyone who reads and follows my blog.

"Hatching from Eggs" --free printable to enrich your Egg Dying Experience

I was led to an awesome website by my colleague, Ashley.  It's called Dynamic Learning Maps and one of the pages is entitled "Exemplar Text Supports". 

Here's the webpage introductory sentences:
     "One of the challenges in providing students with the most significant disabilities with access to the general curriculum is finding materials that link directly to the grade level content, but are written at a level that is accessible. As part of the DLM™ project we have been building a library of companion texts that go with the exemplar texts called out in the Appendix of the Common Core State Standards."

If that sounds dry, the actual site is not.  Let's say you have a kid that needs companion texts to go with common children's literature such as 'Are you My Mother?'.  This site has lists of books pulled from Tarheel Reader that are companion texts in simple language to various  books at the designated grade level.  I've focused on the younger grades due to my caseload, but if you have high school students, there is a library of companion texts there waiting for you!





Since Easter is coming up, I thought it would be cool to share one of these companion texts with you with the simple adaptions I made.  The simple title on Tarheel Reader was 'Eggs', so I downloaded it, added icons and a sentence strip, and also added a link that connects to YouTube videos of eggs hatching.  I also changed a few of the pictures and added some additional animals that hatch.  I think that if you are dying eggs with your students, you can easily take a little time using this book to talk about eggs from a more scientific aspect.   Download link is at the bottom of this page.

 My kids will love this book, especially the dinosaur picture.  They'll learn a bit too!  As a teacher or SLP, you may need to look up other animals that hatch from eggs (alligators, ostrich, shark, fish.......)   The link with the egg hatching videos will be awesome on a Smartboard if you have access to one, or on a laptop screen.

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Have fun with this!  Click here to download the book.




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There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick Activity/Companion Pack

I love this season with my kids and really enjoy books, dying eggs, and just being excited about spring!

This is an activity pack for the Easter season and includes a few pages (6 PAGES OUT OF 46 ) to go specifically with ‘There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Chick’ while the remainder of the activities are for the Easter season. This pack meant for the more linguistically challenged students and is perfect for speech/OT or speech/special ed collaboration. This is nice for integrating literacy and hand-on activities.

Enclosed is:

• 12 page interactive book entitled ‘Chicks Everywhere’ with simple text and icons  and sentence strip.  Pages 3-17

• 10 page step by step booklet for dying eggs.  Communication board is included.(pages 19-29)

• Yes/No and Wh-questions to go with the egg dying activity (page 30)

• Sequence worksheet for egg dying. (page 31)

• “There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Chick” book manipulatives (3 pages including a sequencing activity)  (pages 33-35)ACTUAL BOOK NOT INCLUDED

• Who, What, and Where question comprehension worksheets for the Old Lady book (3 pages) (Pages 36-38)

 11 page interactive book with icons “Animal Babies” (pages 39-50)

These are screenshots from the pack.
For more, go to the Teachers Pay Teachers site here.   It's priced modestly.

As usual, if you are a starving CF, email me and I'll send this to you free.





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