When January hits, it’s time to pull out the Sneezy the Snowman book in your speech therapy sessions. You can target synonyms, s-blends, CORE words, sequencing skills, and story elements, to name a few skills! If you are doing a snowman theme with your elementary speech therapy caseload, this blog post will hook you up with Sneezy, the snowman activities you can use across the ages.
Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post for your convenience. When you use an affiliate link, I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Where to Find the Sneezy the Snowman Book?
You can head to your local library, Amazon, or find a Sneezy the Snowman read-aloud on YouTube. To have access to the book digitally, Kindle Unlimited has it available when you subscribe as of 01/01/23. Your library may have a digital loaning service with OverDrive or the Libby app to get this book electronically for free!
Sneezy the Snowman Story Retell Props
To turn the sneezy snowman into an engaging story, you need to make a story prop kit! I talk about how to make your own for this book in this blog post. Not only can you use the story retell props for narrative language, but you can also use them for syntax, basic concepts, yes/no questions, and comprehension.
Sneezy the Snowman Sequencing Ideas
If you decide to do the DIY sneezy snowman story kit, you can work on sequencing what happened in the story (blog post link is above.) For your older students, you can use this free Sneezy the Snowman retelling worksheet from Rowdy in Room 300. After working on sequencing with Sneezy the snowman, you can continue to target sequencing with a snowman theme using ideas from this blog post.
Sneezy the Snowman Activities for Vocabulary
Using this book, you can work on the shades of meaning for the vocabulary cold and hot. On the whiteboard, map out how words can be similar but grow in intensity.
For example, you can discuss the shades of mean for cold such as cool – chilly – cold – freezing.
Discuss with students when you might use those words to help describe a situation or the weather.
To help build depth of knowledge with some tier II vocabulary words in the story, have students fill out a personal dictionary, write the synonyms, and antonyms, use them in a sentence, state a kid-friendly definition, and draw a picture of the word.
Here are some of the vocabulary from the book that would be good for the personal dictionary: gigantic, shiver, new, build, melt, swirl, scoop, and surprise.
Join the Themed Therapy SLP membership if you want more themed therapy ideas like these Sneezy the Snowman activities. We provide 2-3 monthly themed units for your Prek-5th grade caseload, including book cheat sheets, no print materials, Google Slides, visual crafts, a toy guide, newsletters for parents, and MORE! You have access to over 24 themes simultaneously when you join the annual membership.
Reinforcer Speech Therapy Activities to Pair with the Book
Throughout the book, Sneezy drinks something hot and then melts and has to be made brand new. You can play the Build a Snowman game and have kids make their Sneezy “brand new” again.
Do you have a particular activity you pair with the book, Sneezy the Snowman? Share in the comments the activity and how you use it to target speech and language goals.
When it comes to choosing a snowman book for your caseload, you want a book that has great pictures, and LOTS of language concepts to target. Plus, you have a lot of students working on comprehension and oral narration, you want a snowman book that targets story elements. Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright ticks off all those boxes for me. It’s a great story that kids LOVE to hear. Today, I am going to share how you can make a Sneezy the Snowman story retell kit to make your sessions more engaging when working on speech or language goals. If you need more snowman-themed book ideas, head to this blog post! Amazon affiliate links are included in this post for your convenience, this means I get a small commission when you purchase anything from Amazon.
What is a Story Prop Kit?
Story prop kits are items related to the book that help children stay engaged during the story. They can be felt characters and vocabulary items for a storyboard or manipulatives related to the story.
Research has shown that students’ comprehension improves when children retell the story in their own words. The two strategies that worked best were children verbally recounting the story and enacting the story given props.
Creating a story prop kit allows you to implement both of these strategies with Sneezy the Snowman!
Can you think of a few kids on your caseload that would love this while working on narration? These stories retell kits can be great for students with shortened attention spans! Or, your kids who love to touch items. Your students will enjoy the activity when it feels more like play!
Where Can I Find the Sneezy the Snowman Story Retell Props?
For your Sneezy the Snowman story retell kit, you definitely want a snowman, fire, green mug, hot tub, hot chocolate, and ice cream! Having some kid figurines could be great too.
You can always ask your family and friends on Facebook to see if they have any old toys they would want to donate to you and your caseload. Another way to acquire these toys on a budget is by asking parents on your caseload. There is always the Goodwill and garage sale hunt too! If you need some tips for planning themed therapy lessons on a budget, listen to episode 47 on the Real Talk SLP podcast for more tips. Fortunately, I had most of the items in other playsets!
Join the Themed Therapy SLP membership if you want more themed therapy ideas like this snowman story prop kit. We provide 2-3 monthly themed units for your Prek-5th grade caseload including book cheat sheets, no print materials, Google Slides, visual crafts, a toy guide, newsletters for parents and MORE!
This book is great for story elements, but there are some other great ways you can use this book!
For your students working on CORE words, you can target “like, “put,” “you,” and “more.”
Thre are examples of hot and cold throughout Sneezy the Snowman. You can describe the shades of meaning for hot and cold.
If you have students with s-blend goals, this is a great book to target consonant clusters.
Practice naming items that would go in the hot and cold category group.
Target “where” questions focusing on prepositions for the location of Sneezy throughout the book.
How Would You Use Sneezy the Snowman in Speech Therapy?
Do your students love Sneezy the Snowman? What goals or activities would you do with this story prop kit? I would love to hear your ideas! Whenever I can find new ways to use a set of materials, therapy planning is easier. If you can use this one-story prop kit with a bulk of your caseload, you are saving LOTS of hours of prep work.
Share in the comments your therapy ideas for using Sneezy the snowman!
Need some more snowman ideas? Here are some blog posts to help you plan a snowman-themed therapy unit:
One way to streamline your themed therapy lesson planning is to start by picking a book for the theme! Once you have a book selected, it’s much easier to come up with activities to use with that theme that also aligns with the book. Many times, a themed book has other opportunities to theme smash. For example, with a snowman theme, a great book to use for theme smashing is Snowmen at Work by Caralyn Buehler. You can use that book to discuss snowmen while also targeting a jobs or community helpers category! Today, I am going to share some of my favorite snowman books for speech therapy and give you some tips for selecting a book for your caseload.
Tips for Selecting a Snowman Book
When picking a book to use with your students, you want to ask yourself some questions:
1. What types of goals do my students have on their IEPs?
2. How long can my students attend to a book?
3. Can this book be adapted to cover a lot of different goals and discussions?
4. Is this a book that my students can personally relate to in their own life?
5. Is this book at their developmental level of interest?
It’s always good to select a snowman book that is going cover a lot of groups as well as serve many different skilled needs. For example, if you have a lot of students working on story retell, comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary, “Sneezy the Snowman” by Maureen Wright may be a great choice. This book follows story elements and has lots of opportunities for targeting vocabulary.
Similarly, if you have a lot of students working on building MLU and describing goals, using the book, “Just a Snowman” by Mercer Mayer would be a great selection. This book has detailed picture scenes and a variety of verbs to create sentences about what is happening on each page.
Snowman Book Suggestions by Grade Level
When you plan using a themed-based approach, one way to make selecting a book easier is by choosing a book by grade level or target area.
Here are a few snowman book suggestions by grade level (Amazon affiliate links are included):
Skills to Target with Snowman Books for Speech Therapy
It’s always helpful to know why an SLP chooses a book, so I am going to share some reasons why I would use certain books with different groups or ages. Having some examples of how to use a book can make planning therapy easier too! If you need some tips for using shared book reading strategies, check out this blog post HERE.
Snowman Books With Reptitive Text
There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow by Lucille Colandro or The First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming would be wonderful for targeting sequencing. Students that benefit from the repetitive text would do well with these book choices. And, they both provide opportunities for CORE words such as “give, eat, more, all done.”
If you need visual supports for the old lady book to work on CORE words, comprehension and story retell, grab this story map set of printable and animated Google Slides.
Books that Target Vocabulary, Grammar and Comprehension
Snowman at Work and Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner would be great for working on grammar, categories, answering wh-questions. The pictures are vivid, so you can target adjectives, prepositional phrases, and verbs when building sentences.
Using Books To Work on Narrative Skills and Inferencing
The Snowman by Raymond Briggs is a wordless book that allows you to target inferencing, storytelling, and comprehension. You can also incorporate writing by having students share what they would do with a snowman for a day. There are many opportunities to ask and discuss inferential questions in the book.
Furthermore, The Biggest Snowman by Steven Kroll and Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright are great books for working on story elements and comprehension.
What Snowman-Themed Books Do You Use With Your Students?
What snowman books do you enjoy grabbing off the shelf to use in therapy? I would love to know what your students enjoy as well as some goals you target with the books! You can never have enough books of therapy ideas! Share your favorite snowman book in the comments and what skills you target. If you need some snowman toys or props to use with your books, check out this blog post with ideas for toys!
Using books in speech therapy can be a great way to plan therapy because you can adapt the book to cover a wide range of goals, including story comprehension, oral narration, grammar, vocabulary, and perspective-taking. Plus, you can have students working on fluency or articulation carryover to summarize or retell the story while working on their strategies or sounds.
For the younger students, one way to get increased engagement with a book is to create story prop kits. Using story props allows students to kinesthetically get involved with the story. Today, I want to show you how to make an Apple Trouble Story Prop Kit to use in speech therapy.
Where to Get the Book Apple Trouble by Ragnhild Samell
If you are looking for a great fall book that works on story comprehension and story retell, you will want to check out Apple Trouble by Ragnhild Scamell. It was originally called Ouch!, so you may be able to find it at your local library under that name. Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post for your convenience.
When I don’t have a book on hand, I will use a YouTube book read aloud and just mute the reader, so that I can read the book to the students. I always love having the real book, but when you are in a jam, this works well too. Today, I am going to share how you can make a storybook prop kit for Apple Trouble!
To help your students recall the details and vocabulary from the story, it’s nice to have hands-on materials to bring the story to life.
Invest in the Mini Animals and Reuse for Future Theme-Based Lessons
Plus, you can use the elements from this story prop kit for future theme-based lessons when working on forest animals, farm themes, hedgehog books, or apple themes. Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post for your convenience. When you use the affiliate link, I get a small commission with no expense from you.
Join the Themed Therapy SLP Membership for Prek-5th Grade Elementary Caseloads
If you love planning by themes for your elementary caseload but don’t have the time or creative energy to find all the activities for your themed therapy, join the Themed Therapy SLP membership. We take lesson planning off your plate so you can focus on enjoying therapy with your students.
You can access over 24 themed units for Prek-5th grade when you join the annual subscription. There are also monthly options, but you only get access for two months at a time. Sign up HERE. See a sample of the apple-themed unit below.
Plush or mini hedgehog: The mini hedgehog is included in the forest animals figurines. You can find a plush hedgehog on Amazon.
Farm Toobs: This set has a pig, and goat. You can get this set on Amazon or at Michael’s.
Hedgehog’s nest is made from cut up cardboard and green moss hot glued that I found at the Dollar Tree. You could always buy some decorative leaves from the Dollar Tree or craft store and stick them in a box as the hedgehog’s nest.
Fake mini apples: You can find mini and large-sized fake apples on Amazon or at Michael’s. I got mine at Michael’s.
For the other items that get stuck in the hedgehog’s fir, you will need a pear, a blue piece of paper.
How to Make the Apple Tree in the Story
You can easily make an apple tree using toilet paper rolls and cutting out a green piece of construction paper to look like leaves and branches. Color red apples on the tree. Then, cut two slits in the toilet paper roll on one side. Slide the green tree into the toilet paper roll and now you have an apple tree.
Use this apple tree for a future apple-themed unit to use when talking about apple trees and orchards. You can make an apple orchard sensory bin like the one I share on Instagram.
Speech Therapy Goals You Can Cover With the Story Prop Kit
With your story props you can target the goals as follows:
Story comprehension and oral narration – act out what happened throughout the story
Work on basic concepts with the characters and props from the story
Describe the character’s by attributes and look for text to support answers
Build grammatically correct sentences using the characters and actions from the story
Add the props to a sensory bin and allow students to pretend play while working on initiation, commenting, vocabulary, etc.
Work on conversation dialogue with the characters
Have students practice summarizing or retelling while using transition words. This can also be a skill to work on articulation carryover.
How Do You Use the Book Apple Trouble in Speech Therapy?
I would love to know how you would use this Apple Trouble story prop kit to target goals with your speech therapy caseload. Share in the comments or tag me on social media @thedabblingspeechie
Need more tips on how to use books to cover language goals? Check out this post with some book reading strategies.
Where are all my Very Hungry Caterpillar fans? Using The Very Hungry Caterpillar in speech therapy is a great addition to your bug theme. I especially enjoy this book because I can incorporate a food theme as well.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Speech Therapy
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a classic children’s book for younger students. I use this book every year with my K-2 students. This board book comes with plush toy for The Very Hungry Caterpillar which is pretty great if you want a real caterpillar to go with your lesson. There are so many ways to adapt and use this book in therapy.
During the spring months, I love incorporating bugs into my therapy. The cool thing about an insect theme is that bugs are around all year long, so you can use this theme any time of the year. My favorite times to do bugs are Spring and Summer because that’s when those creepy crawlers come out for kids to see!
Toys and Activities for The Very Hungry Caterpillar
When I need toys, games, books or anything really, I tend to look on Amazon first. As a busy SLP and mom, I just don’t always have the time to go hunting around stores for resources. There are a TON of Very Hungry Caterpillar toys and resources for extension activities. Here are some that I found on Amazon (amazon affiliate links included for your convenience):
I enjoy doing crafts as part of my push in lessons to support basic concepts and social skills. When we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we made these sponge caterpillar crafts. It was a pretty easy craft to prep and we worked on requesting items, learning basic concepts and then initiating conversation by showing peers our craft.
Here is how I transported everything to the classroom. I found the sponges at the dollar store, used white 11 by 17 craft paper, eye stickers, black pipe cleaners cut up, and black marker to draw the legs.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Speech & Language Activities
Articulation ideas: Go on a sound hunt with the pictures from the story. Have students look and listen for words that have their sound.
Basic Concepts: Follow directions with basic concepts using props from the story.
Category ideas: Sort fruits, vegetables and junk food. Or sort food vs. insects. You can discuss if a food is healthy or junk food.
Vocabulary: Practice describing a caterpillar and butterfly by attributes. Do the same thing with the food in the story. Have a taste test to describe fruit as crunchy, juicy, sweet, sour, color, size, shape and category.
Grammar: Target present and past tense for verbs, as well as, marking plural nouns that happened in the story. The students can describe the verb actions in each picture. The caterpillar ate four strawberries.
More Language Ideas For The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Listening Comprehension: Students can practice answering wh-questions from the story. One way that I scaffold the story for some students is by asking a question every page or every 2-3 sentences. When I read the story, I will read it out loud all the way through. Then, I will use the book page by page to talk about all the details in the story. The next session when I read the story to the kids, I will stop and ask questions. At the end, we will retell the story together.
Oral Narration: Students can work on sequencing and story elements using The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This book is great for students that need visual supports to remember a story because the story has lots of visuals to support the story.
Social Skills: When you create a caterpillar or butterfly craft only put one set of art supplies on the table. Students have to practice initiating, waiting, and sharing supplies with another student while creating the craft.
FUN Idea For Your K-2 Push-In Language Lesson
During my SDC K-2 push-in language lesson, we read the book, described the caterpillar and then did the caterpillar craft. The next session, I read a new caterpillar book and we then went on a bug hunt outside! You can hide insects in the grass and have students look for bugs! I am a BIG fan of TOOBS and used my insect TOOBS (amazon affiliate link) for this activity. These are the fruits and vegetable TOOB items (amazon affiliate link) I would use if you have the students pretend to be hungry caterpillars.
Easy Tip Lesson Planning Tip For SLPs with High Caseloads
When I had 75-83 students on my caseload with two Autism Special Day Classrooms and one mild-mod Special Day Classroom, I would plan activities with a similar theme for as many groups as I could. I felt that it was easier for me to learn how to teach the language and scaffold skills if I was using the same concepts for a lot of different students. I would find ways to adapt the theme for students abilities, interests and ages. So, often times, I read this book 7-10 times in a day. It was hard to keep the energy up, but it definitely made me feel less stress when planning lessons. So older students, I may not actually read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but I might find a non-fiction passage or video to learn about caterpillars.
Need an insect sensory bin activity to use after reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, then check out this blog post for how to make one! What toys and resources have you found for this book that you love using?
