Dr. Seuss Lessons and Links for Read Across America Day
Our baby cousin Avery
celebrating Dr. Seuss!
This week brings us to an exciting yearly event…
Read Across America Day, March 2nd, created in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday. Dr. Seuss—Theodor Seuss Geisel—was born here in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1904 and grew up on Mulberry Street, just a short walk from our MindWing office. We are looking forward to the completion and opening of the Dr. Seuss Museum here in Springfield! It will be such an exciting destination for children as well as adults who grew up loving Dr. Seuss stories! “The more that you read the more things you will know. the more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” With this quote in mind, please enjoy reading and sharing the following links to Seuss-related information!...
Working Around the Clock: 12 Lessons to Begin Using the Story Grammar Marker®
Because collaborators come from different points of view in terms of their view of the students’ needs, the contents of this listing may be something to use as a discussion tool fostering collaboration among general education teachers, special education teachers, speech/language pathologists, school adjustment counselors and those focusing on social communication growth!...
Tech Tuesday: Tell Stories with Pocoyo
Pocoyo is a British-Spanish television series featuring the adventures of a young boy and his friends: Pato the duck, Ellie the elephant and Loula, a dog. I first came upon the Pocoyo series accidentally, as one of its videos was contained in the terrific ABC apps from Peapod Labs. It turned out my young client is a BIG fan. I easily found other Pocoyo resources on YouTube (as is often the case) and discovered that the series’ vignettes were perfect for targeting both macrostructure with Braidy, the StoryBraid®, microstructure aspects (verbs and pronouns) as well as Social Thinking® and play skills, all targets for my client...
Penguins: The COOL Topic For Narrative and Expository Text!
A recent posting shared on MindWing’s Facebook page (http://tinyurl.com/pierrewhitneyslp) showed a fantastic SGM® lesson by Whitney Chitty Smith of “Let’s Talk with WhitneySLP,” related to the book, Pierre the Penguin, A True Story, written by Jean Marzollo and illustrated by Laura Regan. After viewing this terrific post (Thank You, Whitney!), I immediately went to the top drawer of my desk and pulled out the book. I had started a blog entry for this book back in November and had never completed it!...
FREE “Frosty the Snowman” Lesson
My 2-year-old daughter (and Maryellen’s granddaughter), Casey, loves to watch an old VHS tape of Frosty the Snowman at her grandparents’ house. She gets frustrated when the tape has to be rewound, since she was born into the “magic” of the YouTube and OnDemand era!! She recently got the Golden Book of Frosty and says, “Mommy, can we read Charlie the Snowman?” (I think she gets the name confused with “A Charlie Brown Christmas”!) Reading it with her and singing the Frosty song, which tells the story, reminded me of a lesson that we had posted 10 years ago...
“Featuring” Expression of Feelings Using Feeling-Frames
During Maryellen’s last two webinars, Story Grammar Marker: 2 Key Things That Set It Apart and 5 Elements of the Critical Thinking Triangle in Action!, she used a feeling-frame with the boys who participated in the lesson to highlight how characters were feeling and what they were thinking in the story, Those Shoes by Maribeth Boltz. The frames have been particularly motivating with students. They can be easily made using tongue depressors and popsicle sticks. Craft stores carry colorful ones in various sizes. We have found the easiest way to hold them together is with glue dots, also available in craft stores. These activities would go nicely with our new product, The Critical Thinking Triangle in Action! and are very adaptable to students and materials!