Preschool Leaf Lesson Plan for Co-Teaching

Preschool Leaf Lesson Plan for Co-Teaching

Working with the Prek-2nd grade population can be hard to plan your co-teaching lessons because there are a LOT of goals to juggle. That’s why you can format your themed co-teaching sessions in a way that gets the adults in the room to participate. Check out this blog post for ideas on structuring your push-in or co-teaching lessons.

Today, I wanted to help you with a leaves preschool lesson plan that you can adapt for small groups and your whole class lessons.

Although the leaves lesson plan is for your preschool-aged students, you can also adapt the activities with K-2 grade, especially with your self-contained classrooms.

Books for Your Leaves Preschool Lesson Plan

Have a preschool leaf lesson plan for your small groups and whole class speech therapy sessions!

On the carpet, you will want to do a leaf-themed book. Here are some of my favorites (Amazon affiliate links are provided for your convenience):

We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger (has repetitive text)
Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert
Leaves by David Ezra Stein
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro

As you read the leaf book, pair verbs with iconic gestures to help increase engagement. An iconic gesture is a movement that resembles the word.

Visual supports for language and story retelling goals are super handy in your sessions. I created this easy-to-prep story retell visuals resource for the old lady series. You have a printable or digital option! Check it out HERE.

Themed Therapy SLP Membership Makes Planning Lessons Easier

When planning themed therapy activities for your Prek-5th grade caseload, overwhelm immediately sets in as you try to find engaging materials to use with your students.

You either become burnt out trying to prepare lessons or feel lost with how to cover all the speech and language goals.

To make themed therapy planning easier, join the Themed Therapy SLP membership. We take lesson planning off your plate so you can enjoy doing therapy. Check out the October months with a fall, spider, and pumpkin theme for your elementary caseload. 

Movement Activities for the Carpet Time

Don't stress about planning a preschool leaf lesson plan for your speech therapy groups! This one is done for y ou.

If you co-teach in a classroom with a SMARTboard, you can do a leaf song. Here are a few fun songs:

Season Song for Kids by The Learning Station
The Leaves on the Trees by The Kiboomers
Why Do Leaves Change Color by Super Simple Songs
Autumn Leaves are Falling Down by The Kiboomers

Check out this video from Miss Nina for some movement ideas to use with the Autumn Leaves are Falling Down.

During carpet time, you can also play Simon Says fall-themed verb charades.

Station Activities for Your Leaves Preschool Lesson Plan

When co-teaching, you want to utilize all the adults in the room to maximize small group instruction.

If you have instructional aides, you can break students into three groups and have one to two teachers as floater teachers.

Otherwise, you can do one tabletop activity and have students at tables with similar goals, students who get along or based on levels of scaffolding.

Here are three leaf-themed language activities you can plan:

Make a leaf sensory bin and throw in your favorite mini trinkets for students to find under the leaves. You can add a mini rake to make it feel like you are raking leaves. I tend to put mini trinkets with my students’ speech sounds related to their language goals. You can read more about dinkydoodads on the blog HERE.

Another variation to this bin is putting fall-themed vocabulary words hidden in the leaves and going on an “I spy” hunt. The fall vocabulary printables are included in the fall-themed push-in language lesson plan guides.

At another station, students can make a falling leaves craft. It’s super easy to prep, and you can do it with any craft supplies you have on hand. You can do it with pieces of construction paper, tissue paper, or paint with Q-tip. If you love easy prep crafts, I have a blog post specifically with fall ideas!

Gather some leaves outside at your home or school and use them to make a leaf rub with crayons. You can also use the leaves to discuss attributes such as color, size, texture, shape, function, etc. With a ruler, you can talk about length, work on quantity of more, less, or equal, and explain why leaves fall off trees during the fall season. 

Want more themed co-teaching lesson plan ideas?

I often share co-teaching lesson plans on my Instagram @thedabblingspeechie

You can look at the highlight reel to find the most seasonal ones!
And if you need some more themed lesson plan ideas, here are a few that you can check out:

Apple Theme Preschool Co-Teaching Lesson Plan

All About Me – Likes and Dislikes

Sound Push-In Lesson Plan

Apple Theme Preschool Co-Teaching Lesson Plan

Apple Theme Preschool Co-Teaching Lesson Plan

Wanting to plan an apple-themed preschool co-teaching lesson, but not really sure what to plan? Or, maybe you are struggling with how to organize the setup in the classroom? If you said yes to these questions, then this blog post is for you! Today, I am going to give you LOTS of apple-themed activity ideas you can implement ASAP. Plus, I will share tips for how you can set up the session to embed MORE language opportunities.

When we have a solid set-up paired with engaging activities, engagement increases, which means learning is happening. That’s a win, right?

Setting Up Your Co-Teaching Lesson

When it comes to planning out your co-teaching lesson, you want to think about how the students will participate in the activities. I have found over the years that having a mix of whole class instruction paired with a station teaching model has been the most effective for keeping students engaged, involving all the adults in the room, and providing MORE meaningful opportunities for language practice. Check out this blog post with tips for setting up your co-teaching lessons. You can also listen to the Real Talk SLP podcast episode to learn more about the different collaborative service models. This may give you some ideas for implementing whole class instruction with other educators.

As  you set up your lesson, you want to keep in mind how your students transition to new activities, and how you can utilize the staff in the room. In this blog post, I will show you two examples of how you can plan your apple theme preschool lesson to give you ideas. 

Apple theme preschool lesson plans that you can use for speech therapy

Co-Teaching and Station Teaching Set-Up

With this first example, you would plan on being in the preschool classroom for 50-60 minutes. You can definitely adapt for a 30 minute session. When I go into a classroom for 50 minutes, this allows for transition times to stations as well as time at the end for me to check-in with the teacher. 

Apple theme preschool lesson plan for speech therapy so you don't have to stress about what you are going to do!

First, you want to plan your whole class carpet time activity. Typically, I always read a book on the carpet along with using an apple-themed song break and quick group activity. I allot 10-15 minutes at the carpet and shift time based on engagement.

Apple Trouble is a great book to use with this age group. To see how to make a prop kit for the book, check out this blog post.

After you read the book, you can do the “I Love Apples” song and do other language activities on the SMARTboard with the Google Slides from my push-in speech therapy apple activities

 

Have apple theme preschool lesson plans to rock your small groups and whole class lessons for speech therapy

Station Activities for Your Apple Theme

After your carpet activity time, you will then have 3 stations set up for your students to rotate between the teacher, aides, and yourself. You can have one teacher float around the room if you have enough adults to run stations. By having smaller group stations, you are eliminating extra wait time, so your students are learning throughout the entire lesson. Here are some apple theme ideas for stations:

At your station, you can use an open-ended apple game so that you can work on all the student’s goals at one time. At your station, you may also want to use the book to do story retell or to talk about the pictures. 

Another station can be working on sorting pictures by categories. Cut the tops off some paper bags and tape a basket of apples with the category for the student to sort. Then, students can be given apples with nouns for that category to sort into the correct basket. These are part of my apple activities unit. You can also have students sorting different colored apples into the correct colored basket with these apples from Learning Resources (Amazon Affiliate links included for your convenience.)

The third station can be something with a hands-on component such as a craft, sensory bin, playdough mats, or worksheets with magnetic wands. You can use the apple tree verbs activity from my apple push-in unit to work on verbs, answering wh-questions, and building sentences.

30 Minute Lesson Plan Set-Up

With a 30 minute set-up, you will adjust your carpet time activity to be 8-12 minutes and then have one station activity set-up and 3 tables. So, pick a book to read at the carpet time, and one quick activity such as an apple song, describing a real apple, or watching a video about the apple life cycle. Below is a video of some apple-themed books you can use.

Then, at the tables, every student can make this apple paper plate craft that you can view on my Instagram for how to assemble. You can pair students based on goals or how they work together. This craft can target basic concepts, CORE vocabulary, sequencing steps, following directions, and can be adapted for any goal by gluing your student’s target words on the back. With crafts like these, I like using my Any Craft Companion so I can do one craft and customize for students goals.

 

Want More Themed Therapy Ideas?

If you loved these co-teaching A.K.A push-in therapy lesson plans, I have themed K-2 units for over 30 themes! Everything is ready to go, so you can focus on engaging your students. Whether you are doing small groups or co-teaching, you are covered with the following:

-Google Slides with book recs, songs, and digital activities

-Parent newsletter to send home

-3-5 language station activities

-Lesson plan cheat sheets

Why stress about planning when you can have all the tools to build your confidence with themes and co-teaching?

If you need more ideas for planning themed-based therapy, come join my Free Themed Therapy SLP Facebook Group. That’s where you can get ideas and inspiration for planning by themes. 

Ep. 27 Tips for Parent Coaching

Ep. 27 Tips for Parent Coaching

As Marvin Gaye puts it, “It Takes Two” even for parent coaching. This week Felice will give practical tips and strategies to help with parent coaching!  You will learn how to communicate with parents so they can see the benefits and buy-in to your strategies. Parents need to understand what strategy you want them to use, why you want them to use it, and how to use it. 

In this episode: 

You’ll hear

  • How to find out what barriers parents may have and how to fill those needs.
  • How to discuss the best way for the student to learn and be coached. 
  • How to use the TACO method and why it is important for parent coaching.
  • How to be positive and keep encouraging the parents.

If you are implementing a parent coaching model for students in Prek-2nd grade, and need easy ways to show parents how they can use a toy to cover lots of speech and language skills, you can use my toy companion cheat sheets.

Elizabeth shares that she uses these cheat sheets like this, “This has been so helpful in my parent coaching sessions while students learn virtually. I can send it to them ahead of time, and then point out the parts to focus on. It has also helped me use some popular toys in new ways during in person sessions!”

Sound Activities for Kids to Use in Push-In Therapy

Sound Activities for Kids to Use in Push-In Therapy

For the month of March, my special day class teachers are using sound and light as their theme for language arts. We use the Unique Curriculum every month and the month of March has sound activities for kids. Using the Unique Curriculum helps the teacher and I plan push-in lessons because it includes stories and modified activities, so you can easily differentiate for the students academic and communication needs. Today, I wanted to show you how you can create your own sound activities for kids that can be used in small groups and whole-class instruction.

Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post for your convenience. When you click on a link and purchase an item, I get a small commission without any cost to you. 

Planning for the Sound Speech Therapy Lesson

The Push-In set up for my self contained K-1 and 1-2 classrooms are to teach a whole class lesson using literacy and discussing the theme of the week with visuals and a Google Slide presentation. We do this for about 20 minutes. Then, we break up into small group stations that I and the teachers run for about 10 minutes in length.

This allows the students to engage in different language topics at three different stations, which makes for more meaningful practice. This also helps get your students academic ready meaning they are learning to stay seated in a chair, transition to new activities and practicing the correct voice volume at a station table. For those of you feeling overwhelmed with managing behaviors in small groups and whole class, head to this blog post. It has a lot of helpful tips!

If you need visual supports to help teach behavior expectations and rules, these visuals will help increase positive behaviors with less verbal reminders. 

For more information about how to setup push-in lessons for your students, check out this blog post. If you are wondering about

Here are some great sound activities for kids that you can use in your small group and push-in lessons as a speech therapist. Want to have activities that support your Unique curriculum? Check out this blog post to get sound activities to teach science, vocabulary and descriptive language.

YouTube Videos of Sound Activity for Kids to Use for Whole Class or Small Group Instruction

Here are some great sound activities for kids that you can use in your small group and push-in lessons as a speech therapist. Want to have activities that support your Unique curriculum? Check out this blog post to get sound activities to teach science, vocabulary and descriptive language.

On YouTube, there are two really great videos to work on identifying noises and sounds. You can have your students ‘guess’ what is making the sound. And, after the guess is revealed, you can work on answering ‘Where’ you would hear that sound or ‘Who’ makes that sound. Use visual sentence frames to have students explain who makes the sound such as, “The cow makes a ‘moo’ sound. You can also have students identify if the sound is quiet or loud.

One thing I recommend using is a software called SafeTube. It allows you to copy and paste the YouTube video link and creates a safe link to view the video. This way you aren’t getting inappropriate ads or popups that are not appropriate for students to view.

The animal sounds game is perfect for your younger students.  The “Guess the Sound” YouTube video has a variety of sounds in the environment and would be best for younger and older students. 

Science Sound Unit Google Slides for SMARTboard, Computer or Teletherapy

If you want a “done for you” digital lesson plan with a sound theme, check out this Google Slide that has everything organized, so you can focus on teaching your co-teach lesson, small group or teletherapy session. Grab it in my TPT store

Books About Sound to Use for Speech Therapy

You can use a book to introduce the topic of sounds as a whole class or use the book during one of the station rotations. As a whole class, we used the story from the Unique Curriculum. It is great on a SMARTboard because you can tap the page and it will read it out-loud to the students while highlighting each word. If you do not have this N2Y subscription, I listed some books you can use. Check out the Station 3 book too. My students loved it! You can still get it on Amazon even though it appears that Usborne does not sell “Who’s Making That Noise?”

Here are some other books you can use in therapy that talk about sounds:

Sounds All Around by Wendy Pfeffer

Sound: Loud, Soft, High, and Low (Amazing Science) by Natalie Myra Rosinsky

Encyclopedia Britannica Kids – Animal Sound Treasury Book – PI Kids (Play-A-Sound) by Phoenix International Publications

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? By Dr. Seuss

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

Here are some great sound activities for kids that you can use in your small group and push-in lessons as a speech therapist. Want to have activities that support your Unique curriculum? Check out this blog post to get sound activities to teach science, vocabulary and descriptive language.

Sound Activity for Station 1 Rotation

 

The special education teacher had these tin canisters from the Dollar Tree and filled them with different items that make noise. Each of the students took a turn shaking one of the containers. They listened to the sound and made a guess about what the sound could be. Your students can also describe the sound as either quiet or loud with this activity. The students were very engaged and excited to find out what was in the containers. You can work on CORE vocabulary for “open”, “more,” “like/don’t like”, “loud” and “quiet.” You can also find them on Amazon HERE.

Here are some great sound activities for kids that you can use in your small group and push-in lessons as a speech therapist. Want to have activities that support your Unique curriculum? Check out this blog post to get sound activities to teach science, vocabulary and descriptive language.
Here are some great sound activities for kids that you can use in your small group and push-in lessons as a speech therapist. Want to have activities that support your Unique curriculum? Check out this blog post to get sound activities to teach science, vocabulary and descriptive language.

Sound Activity for Station 2 Rotation

For another station, you could use one of the ‘Guess the Sound’ YouTube videos and work in a small group. Or, you can do a sound charades game where students take turns imitating the sounds/noises of different items, nature, appliances, and animals. While you are making the sounds, you can cover yes/no questions by asking, “Is this sound quiet?” or “Is this a lion?”

Grab this activity by clicking the pink button. It is a free download to use in your therapy room.

Sound Activity for Station 3 Rotation

 

Grab a good book that talks about sound. I really love the Usborne Lift a Flap Book for “Who’s Making that Noise?” by Jenny Tyler and Philip Hawthorn. I don’t think Usbourne sells this series anymore. But, the kids loved talking about the noises the animals were making. It was perfect for open/close, answering “what”, “where”, and “who” questions as well as teaching the CORE vocabulary of “no/not.” This book has repetitive lines and one of them is “Who’s making that noise? Is it those noisy boys? It’s NOT us.”

Here are some great sound activities for kids that you can use in your small group and push-in lessons as a speech therapist. Want to have activities that support your Unique curriculum? Check out this blog post to get sound activities to teach science, vocabulary and descriptive language.

Grab this free sound charade visual activity with visual sentence starters. I love using visual sentence frames to help my students generate more novel utterances. If you are an elementary SLP and tired of scribbling out sentence frames on post-it notes, then grab my entire visual sentence starters to use with ANY lesson and with a variety of goals.

Need More Push-In Lesson Plans for Your Prek-2nd Grade Students?

Love doing whole class lessons but feeling a bit stressed on what to plan week after week? Use the themed guides to take the guesswork out of your push-in lesson plans! Not only do you have all the tools you need for push-in with these resources, but you can also repurpose the activities for small groups too!

What Sound Activities for Kids Do You Love to Use?

Working on identifying sounds in your speech sessions can be really engaging because your students use their hearing to navigate the world around them. When we find themes that are relevant to our students’ environment, they tend to have more to say about the topic. The staff and myself noticed a lot more comments and initiation of communication with this theme. What sound activities or materials have you used with your students? Let me know in the comments. 

Collaborative Services Can Support Your Students

Collaborative Services Can Support Your Students

There has been a shift in service delivery models in which school districts are wanting SLPs to implement collaborative services for students with IEPs. I know when I did my grad school internship, I was only introduced to doing “pull-out” group sessions with students.

I never really learned about what collaborative services were in grad school, nor did anyone show me the ropes to implement these types of services. As I began to grow as a clinician and see the needs of my students, I knew that I wanted to be in the classroom more often.

Collaborative Services Are Scary (At First)

I was nervous and scared. No one teaches you how to work with your colleagues or how to implement collaborative services. There isn’t a manual or a curriculum that you can follow. What I have discovered over the years is that there is not a “one size fits all” solution for students. What works for one student may not work for the next student.

So, today, we are going to learn the different types of service delivery models that you can start implementing for students. 

Collaborative Services For Your Students

Co-Teaching: an integrative service delivery, where the SLP and the classroom teacher plan together and carry out a lesson together.

This could mean that one or both teachers do the whole class instruction and each run a different station that was planned together.

One-teach/one-float: the classroom teacher teaches the lesson and the SLP “pushes in” to assist specific students or observe a student. There is no planning with the teacher using this service.

Consultation, coaching model: the SLP discusses strategies with the teacher to implement social skills in the classroom.

You may come in to model a strategy or skill. Creating visuals or supports and coaching the teacher on how to use them are examples of this type of service model.

Pull-out model: the SLP is addressing areas of need in a small group setting outside of the classroom environment.

Teaching Approaches You Can Use with an Integrative Service Delivery Model

  1. Supportive teaching—a combination of pullout services and direct teaching within the classroom.
  2. Complementary teaching—the classroom teacher presents the curriculum content as primary instructor, and the SLP assists specific students with work completion.
  3. Station teaching—instructional material is divided into parts, with the SLP and the classroom teacher(s) each taking a group of students. Students rotate to each station, or learning center, for instruction.

Teaching Approaches Continued

4. Parallel teaching—the students are divided, and the classroom teacher and the SLP each instruct a designated group of students simultaneously, with the SLP taking the group of students that needs more modification of content or slower pacing in order to master the educational content.

5. Team teaching—the SLP and the classroom teacher teach the academic content together, allowing each professional to provide his or her expertise.

6. Supplemental teaching—one person (usually the teacher) presents the lesson in a standard format while the other person (usually the SLP) adapts the lesson.

How I Implement Co-Teaching in my K-2 SDC Classrooms

For the past three years, I have implemented a co-teaching collaborative service model with my Special Day Classroom teachers. Once I had buy-in, doing this model has been so effective for my students. I also found that I was able to also implement consultation and coaching with this model. Check out how you can set up your own push-in sessions HERE.

Want More Professional Development About Collaborative Services?

If you are tired of feeling alone and insecure about your abilities to implement collaborative services, I created an ASHA CEU course that will help you have the tools to feel confident with implementing push-in services with your caseload. Sign up today HERE

What Questions Do You Have About Implementing Collaborative Services?

Starting a new way of servicing students is overwhelming, scary, and filled with doubts! If you have a question about how I implement collaborative services, email me at feliceclark@thedabblingspeechie.com.

I would love to know what successes you are having with implementing one of these collaborative service delivery models. Share in the comments or email what is working for you and your staff.

Using Chickens in Your Next Push-In Lesson

Using Chickens in Your Next Push-In Lesson

During the spring months, I love using specific themes to cover speech and language goals. Bugs, farm life, and spring vocabulary are part of my March and April themes. I also love incorporating chickens into my small group and push-in therapy because many kindergarten teachers are talking about newborn animals. Some teachers even raise eggs to hatch into baby chicks! If you are in search of chicken speech therapy activities for your K-2 students, you came to the right blog post.

Small and Whole Class Lesson Support

For my Special Day Classrooms, I do some form of whole class or co-teaching service delivery model. When I plan lessons for my whole class lessons, I definitely re-use those materials for my small group instruction as well. Today, I will be talking about how to implement the chicken speech therapy activities in a push-in format. But, if you don’t currently do a push-in model, you can still use these ideas in small groups. That’s the beauty of planning effective whole class lessons, because they work for small groups too (lesson planning made easy). If you are looking for information about how I set up my push-in lessons, check out this blog post HERE.

How to Structure Your Push-In Lesson

I usually plan a 15-20-minute lesson that I do with the whole class. During that time, I ask that the teacher and aides help support the behavior in the class. One day, I hope to train some of the staff to take data while I teach. #slpgoals

We start the lesson introducing the theme and reviewing behavioral expectations. Then, the teachers and myself run three different stations that last for 10 minutes each.

Behavior Management Tips for Work Stations

When I run push-in lessons, I try to follow the classroom rules and expectations. I also add in visual supports to help my students navigate what they should be doing during each station. I visually break it down into “What my body can do,” “What I do during the activity,” and “How to use my words.”

When it is time to transition to a new station, I set off a timer and use visuals to help remind students when they have to wait/go to the next station. You can read more about teaching behavior expectations HERE.

Chicken Books to Use with Your Speech Therapy Activities

After the stations, I read a book. During this time, I call on students with wh-question goals, emphasize key vocabulary, and try to get my students working on verb concepts to share about what they see in the pictures.

Here are some of my fave chicken books (Amazon affiliate links included for your convenience):

Big Chickens by Leslie Helakoski

Interrupting Chickens by David Ezra Stein

The Chicken Problem by Jennifer Oxley

Whole Class Lesson Ideas for Using Chickens

After I read the book, we do a Google Slide presentation about the theme.

Other activities you can do:

You can do an Anchor chart describing everything about chickens. You can include chickens “can” (i.e. Chickens can run.), “have” (i.e. Chickens have feathers.), chickens “are” (i.e. Chickens are animals.).

We play “Who has the egg?” I print out eggs or baskets and hide the eggs in the students’ hands while everyone has their eyes closed. Then, they open their eyes and students get to initiate a “who” question to a peer or staff member. We play this until all the eggs are found.

I will also put a chicken or an egg on a popsicle stick and work on the basic concept of the week. So, if I choose “above,” I will put the egg above students’ heads and items in the classroom. The students have to say “where” the egg is located.

Station #1 (10 minutes in length): Easter Egg Craft

Use an ice cube tray and put different colored paints in the tray. Attach pom pom balls to clothespins. Students can dip the pom pom balls in the paint to make different designs on the egg. You can work on initiating requests, waiting/sharing, asking friends to pass the paint, and talking about the colors. After the students create their craft, they can talk about what they did first, next, last.

Station #2 (10 minutes in length): Chicken Inferencing

Put the picture stimulus items in plastic eggs. I number the eggs with permanent marker, so I know what items are in which eggs. Use my inferencing cheat sheet to give students clues about “what” is in the egg. You can simultaneously work on taking turns, describing the noun by attributes and the concepts “open/close.”

Station #3 (10 minutes in length): Chicken Crossed the Road

Your students can work on making sentences with correct grammar using these mats. If you have students working on noun-functions or categories, the mats have food, school supplies, and transportation. Sentence frames are included to help your friends have greater success with more complex sentences.

Additional Chicken Speech Therapy Activities

I love using Dinky Doodads to work on skills. They are the perfect size for eggs. Check out how to use trinkets with plastic eggs HERE. You can also make a baby chick sensory bin to work on language skills. Check out the blog post for how to make it HERE (free printables included).

When I use a theme, I try to use the theme for at least two weeks. So, I will interchange some of the activities. At a station, I will bring in toys or games that can work on social skills and functional language.

With this cooperative game Count Your Chickens Game, you can target turn-taking, counting more/less/most, and describing the animals. I love Peaceable Kingdom games because there isn’t a winner or a loser. Perfect for our friends that like to win all of the time!

What Chicken Speech Therapy Activities Do You Plan?

I would love to know how you plan for therapy! If you have some fun chicken activities, share in the comments or tag me at @thedabblingspeechie.

What I love about planning my push-in lesson is that I can re-use the activities in my small group instruction. It feels so nice to have effective therapy plans that I can use across many groups.

thedabblingspeechie