Using a document camera during speech therapy can be really helpful because it lets you utilize the materials that you already have for in-person therapy! If you don’t know much about document cameras, you should check out this previous blog post- Picking a Document Camera for Speech Therapy. You can take a look at what activities and manipulatives you already have for fall and go from there when planning for this. Here are a few fall therapy ideas for apples and fall animals to do with a document camera:
Apples
First, in order to give the child some background knowledge on apples, it is a great idea to start your lesson by reading a simple story under your document camera. Here are some great choices for some of my favorite books on apples: (Affiliate links are included in this post.)
After giving your students some background knowledge, I like to fill these apple containers with mini objects or pictures and open them on screen together. This blog post-Making Mini Object Boxes for Apraxia tells you EXACTLY what I did to get small objects donated and how I sort objects for these types of activities. There are so many skills that you can target and work on by doing this fun activity! The students love it and it keeps them engaged. There are many ways to use and differentiate this activity. One idea is to open the container and have the student name what the object is in order to practice their targeted speech sounds. If they don’t know what the object is right away, you could give them clues to help them identify the object.
Another idea is to open the apple container and have the student create a sentence about the object. This is a really great activity because it is a fun way to practice written expression during speech if the student needs that. Depending on their age and ability would depend how long or short you want them to make the sentence. Maybe they need to work on describing words and you could sneak it in this way. You don’t have to have them write it either or you could write it for them if you are short on time so they can see the nice sentence that they came up with.
Next, you can open the container, have the student name the item and then give YOU a direction to do with that object such as,-”Put the lizard on your head” or “put the cat on your nose.” This is a great idea to let them be kind of in charge yet have fun and be silly at the same time during the lesson to help keep them engaged.
The final activity idea is to open the container and ask them a /wh/ question about the object. Some examples would be: What color is the object? Where would this animal live? What kinds of food would this animal eat? What would this object feel like? What is it? These /wh/ questions could be as simple or detailed as you want, depending on your student’s goals.
Fall Animals
In addition to learning about apples, this is also a fun time of year to teach your students about different fall animals. Just the same as earlier, I would begin the lesson by reading a story under the document camera to help give them some background knowledge on the topic.
Here are some of my favorite fall animal stories (affiliate links below):
- The Busy Little Squirrel
- When the Leaf Blew In (Amazon) and it’s also available FREE on Youtube
After reading one of these stories, you could play some fun games with your students under the document camera. One of my absolute favorite games to play is called Porcupine Pop. This game is really exciting for students and it’s geared more for preschool (ages 4 and up). This game is super suspenseful as the porcupine could pop at any minute. You take turns rolling the dice (which you could do for students under the document camera) and you are supposed to press his nose that many times. Eventually, he will POP all of his darts out of his back and the students will SQUEAL with laughter! Something I like to add is asking my students questions before they are allowed to take a turn rolling the dice about the story that we read. This is how I sneak in some speech goals as well to go with this activity.
My other favorite game to play when we learn about fall animals is called The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game. This game is great for working on so many skills even when using it under a document camera. There is no reading required for this game. It reinforces color learning, helps develop matching skills, strategic thinking, turn-taking, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills. The kids also love the squirrel that comes with it.
Tell me some of your best fall ideas for using the document camera!
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[…] publisher-supplied PDFs, worksheets and more. It can be a great thing to use in addition to a document camera set-up, where you manipulate actual […]