All Aboard! It’s Christmas Eve and that magical train is here to take us to the to the North Pole! The Polar Express is here! 
This packet is a companion to the Chris Van Allsburg book: The Polar Express. You must purchase the book separately to use this book. I have no association with the publisher or book author. The Polar Express is a perfect book to use in the winter for speech and language therapy with upper elementary to middle school students. It allows work on skills in a fun set of activity with a high level of vocabulary. THis book companion is designed to support instruction of typical speech and language goals using lessons related to the book. The document is 62 pages in length. I will use it this year with 1st -8th graders. Please look at the companion thoroughly to determine if it will meet the needs of your students. 
The companion includes: Articulation: Pages 3-10. /r/ 117 words, /s/ & /z/ 104 words, /l/ 65 words, ‘th’ 13 words, ‘ch’ 13 words, ‘sh’ 3 words. Cut out each of the tracks and use them to practice mixed articulation. Use the blank worksheets to practice and record trials. Color each image as you say a target word. Use the included homework page by adding each child’s target words to the windows of the cars. 
Vocabulary: Pages 11-21. 12 tier 2 vocabulary cards are included from the story. Practice these words in a variety of ways to help your students master receptive/expressive tasks. Word/definition matching, synonym matching, cloze sentences, and sentence creation tasks are included. 
Sequencing: Pages 22-24. Use the 10 included cards in order to sequence and retell the story. Extra plain vocabulary cards are included for various activities. 
Story Retell: Pages 25-29. Use the included worksheets for story retell. 
Comprehension: Page 31-36. Two levels of story comprehension questions are included. 
Writing: Pages 37-41. Three writing prompts are included, First Person POV, One Christmas Gift, and 5 Senses Writing. Compare and contrast and visualization activities help students focus on the style of writing. 
Main Idea & Details: Pages 42-43. Work on identifying the main idea and details from each page. 
Describing: Pages 44-47. Identify adjective and adverbs used in the book and describe items from the book. 
Figurative Language: Pages 48-53. Discuss similes and metaphors with your students using the included poster. Sort phrases by the type of figurative language and then illustrate one of the book’s phrases. 
Verb Cards: Pages 54-59. Use the included pages to identify the past, present, and future tense of given verbs. Use the sentence strips to write a sentence using a given word form. 
Inferences: Page 60. Use this page to make an inference from the story. The left column lists a part of the story. On the right side fill in what inference would be made from that information. 
Coloring Page: Page 61. The coloring page can be used as a reinforcer for any activity. 
Game Board: Page 62. Use the game board for any speech room activities. PLEASE download the entire preview document to see the full set of activities! This document was created using Smarty Symbols. Smarty Symbols is a registered Trademark of Smarty Ears, 2013. All rights reserved to Smarty Ears. I hope you love this book as much as me! Many of my students’ classes will be using this book and I’m so excited to follow up with it in speech! I love that it works with many of my goals for older students! Just click over to TpT to see the details and purchase my Polar Express unit! I hope you can hear the bells! If my unit doesn’t meet your needs be sure to check out Cheri’s companion or Carissa’s units! These fabulous ladies posted units last year 🙂 Want to win a copy? Enter on the rafflecopter widgit below! a Rafflecopter giveaway
Join the SRN newsletter!
I'm so glad you stopped by! If you'd like to keep up with the newest posts and get exclusive free downloads, please sign up for the newsletter! Your first freebie is ready as soon as you subscribe and confirm your email!
With my mod-severe kiddos we are working on some Thanksgiving-themed articulation, making Crazy Speech World’s turkeys, and talking about good/bad manners, all on their levels!
Hi5!
making turkeys and targeting vocab in simple seasonal books
We’ve been teaming with the OT’s and making turkeys with contact paper working on sequencing, following directions, and Thanksgiving vocabulary!
With my students we have colored turkeys and we also have made collages with pictures of things we are thankful for.
I love to use adapted books with boardmaker pictures…I also created a fun matching game using the game Cariboo Treasure Island…I make two sets of boardmaker pictures, one goes on the game and the other is for me. I ask the students to find the matching picture to whatever I present them with, then we put that word into a sentence on a sentence strip. The kids love it b/c they get to use the key! 🙂
We have been working on sequencing stories (using visual aids), seasonal vocabulary using the IPAD, going on scavenger hunts to identify the vocabulary and identify seasonal objects, read books, make turkeys with different colored feathers and write artic or language targets on them.
We’ve been making turkeys, wreaths, discussing expected vs. unexpected behavior at the dinner table, reading Thanksgiving-themed books.
We start with a book and go from there! Sometimes it’s sequencing or a follow directions activity incorporating a craft – we are very flexible! I love to adapt the book so participation is increased – Boardmaker is my #1 go to therapy material.
I use and love the materials and ideas from Chapel Hill Snippets.
I am using the Matt and Molly series, “The Hungry Turkey” to get kiddos talking about Thanksgiving! They love it!
I have some moderate, but with this being my first year am collecting ideas for next year. Thanks all for sharing!
For Thanksgiving, I had kids categorize food items and then put pictures of food they want to eat for Thanksgiving on a ‘plate’ graphic. For higher kids, I had them tell things they were thankful for, and also categorized these–people, places, things, animals, actions, etc. I would love your Polar Express companion—I just got a copy of the book donated to me, and am looking forward to using it in some way this year.
I had a great craft activity (Clothespin Turkey) that I used to target their benchmarks.
We are naming and answering questions with ‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving.
We have been sorting categories and answering wh questions
thanks for the giveaway
I love to use books and a related activity/craft with my little ones and moderate to severe ones!
Stephanie L
Awesome!
For my moderate to severe kids, I typically stick to the basics such as vocab, answering simple questions, ID’ing concepts, etc. I try to incorporate a book or theme of some kind in every activity!
these activities look great! a real help!
Congrats on making top 50! Love, love, love the book companion pacs!
I work with Middle School and High School Life skills kids. We have been planning our “Thanksgiving Feast” since last week. We started with planning our menu. Itemizing menu items into a shopping list. We looked up our items on our supermarket website to get an idea of how much everything would cost. We then took a field trip to the supermarket and purchased the items and used the self check to check out. We began our cooking today and started to prepare stuffing. The kids were all given different steps to follow in the recipe like cutting peppers and dicing onions in a mini food processor. Recipes were printed out via visual schedules and social stories created on the iPad and printed out. The cooking will continue tomorrow with mashed/sweet potatoes and baking some pies. We will also prepare the “feast room” by having the students set the table.
I cant 🙁
I’ve used a Thanksgiving preposition bingo game! This Polar Express unit would be great for my kids who love visuals! Everyone loves The Polar Express!!
Another great idea! Love this book. Would be able to use with so many different students too!
We used Turkey Trouble and talked about his disguises and dressed him up in different things.
We are making some side dishes in the life skills classroom while incorporating the Go Talk and the iPad!
World Most popular Upcoming Latest cars and vehicles, Latest Mazda Models, Racing Cars, International Sport Cars, Concept Cars, PS-Pod, Strange Vehicles, Nissan, Royce Corniche, Ford Concept Cars, Strange Vehicles, Mercedes and More Sport Cars and Vehicles with Pictures and Info
WorldLatestVehicles.com
I have been working on lots of turkey related activities- categories, wh- questions based on a simple story, thanksgiving riddles, etc. This packet would be great for my kids!
We used Scholastic website to learn all about the first Thanksgiving and discussed the differences between then and now!
I team with the teacher, and we work on vocabulary through iPad and crafts.
We’ve made turkeys with our vocab words or words containing our artic sounds on the feathers!