Barn Dance! Language through Literacy

Whew! This is quite a time of year for the speech therapist. In our district we have December 1st deadlines to get children counted towards our teacher units. There is always a great deal of testing to be done in October and November for us, as I'm sure there is for everyone else as well.

So, what did I do before leaving for the break? I'm so glad you want to know.

I used Barn Dance! by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault (Authors) and Ted Rand (Illustrator) with my language groups. Most teachers are familiar with Bill Martin Jr. from his work with Eric Carle. This book is more complex in its story, but has a beautiful rhythm for which Mr. Martin seems to be known.

I have criteria for choosing my literature to use with my language groups. I usually try to make sure that my literature is entertaining, has clear characters, that comprehension questions can be asked, and that the story can be retold. (I may have to do another post on all my criteria, but this hits the high points.) It doesn't mean that by not meeting the criteria a book is bad; it just means that I want specific skills addressed when working with my language impaired children, and I look for literature that supports those skills. 

This book was entertaining. It is about a boy who sneaks out of his house in the middle of the night to witness a hoedown hosted by the scarecrow in the barn. The boy and the scarecrow are clear characters but most of the other characters are only mentioned once. The specifics of this story might be hard to retell though the overall events could be retold fairly easily. I mainly chose this book because of the cadence, the fun illustrations, the ability to lead into other activities, and the feeling it evoked. To me, this book is best paired with some other activities.

During the story we identified animals, any unfamiliar vocabulary, identified actions words, and of course, worked on our rhyming. 

With my lower groups I pulled out the ever faithful Fisher-Price Farm. This farm is something I purchased very early on in my speech therapy career and has been invaluable throughout the career. Anyway, after reading the book and identifying animals throughout and talking about what they were doing, I used the fisher price farm animals. I gave the children some directions with the animals. (Put the cow in the hayloft, put the horse in the stable, etc.) For some reason, my kids always need a whole lot of work with directions and the more complex prepositions. My lower functioning kids love to make the animal noises. My barn has the sounds so sometimes we discuss whether the sounds match the animal I have put in place to trigger the sounds. 

We closed by doing our own mini square dance. I downloaded Turkey in the Straw.  Before listening to the song we discussed that the animals in the book danced to music. I told them that there was a type of dancing called square dancing and we were going to try. We made a circle, I called out simple directions (circle left, stop, circle right, stop, in, out, stop, hands down, clap in rhythm, stop, march, etc.)  We practiced all of these directions. Then I put on the music, The kids loved it. Because this can get out of hand quickly, I set the volume low and gave instructions in a soft tone of voice.  

I wanted to make a scarecrow craft incorporating listening and directions, but I ran out of time. I will have to do that next year. I have also heard of other people making haystack snacks to accompany this book. I will have to try that next time.

The kids enjoyed this activity as much as I did. I love to incorporate movement into my therapy as much as I can. 

I have included a link to my rhyming freebie here. I hope you enjoy this and it sparked some ideas for you. 

This post does include amazon affiliate links.

A Time to Be Thankful

I think that we often skip over Thanksgiving as we are rushing towards Christmas. I know that many people post something they are thankful for every day on facebook in the month of November. I won't make an exhaustive facebook list, but I felt like I needed to take some time to say what I was thankful for as far as being a speech therapist.

This school year has been one of the most difficult ones I've had since I have come to the schools. There are more children with more diverse needs and less of us to serve them. There is more paperwork and more accountability and many more extra responsibilities but there are still so many children to see.

I feel like the times that things are difficult are the most important times to stop and give thanks; otherwise, all perspective can be lost.

1.  I am thankful I have a job where I am needed- by the children and by the staff. I feel fairly secure that my job will not be going anywhere any time soon.

2.  I am thankful that for the majority of my children I see progress. Sometimes it feels like I am spinning my wheels, but when I look at the data I can see forward momentum, and that is exciting.

3.  I am thankful I knew what I wanted to do from the time I was in highschool and that I still find joy in this profession.

4.  I am thankful that there are ways to be creative in the therapy room and outside the therapy room The amount of creativity and thoughtfulness going into language and speech therapy at this time is mind blowing.

5.  I am thankful that I am not done learning things yet. Every week brings new challenges but new opportunities to overcome those challenges.


I hope that this November finds you with many blessings and time to reflect on those.