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Community Helpers Day 2: Firefighters

A second occupation we focused on during Community Helpers Week was firefighters.  I think it’s safe to say most little boys think firefighters/firetrucks are the coolest, so my kids especially loved these activities!

First up, we read Clifford the Firehouse Dog and worked on answering WH questions!
With my artic kids, we played my Tic Tac Trucks game.  We used the Chipper Chat tokens to cover the pictures & the “magic wand” to pick them up.  Some of the older kids got the concept of Tic-Tac-Toe, but for a lot of others, they were perfectly content just to try to cover all the pictures on the board! It worked out just fine both ways! 🙂
 We also used an app called “Fire Rescue” — it’s $1.99 in the App store, and well worth the $2, in my opinion!! It is great for the preschool kids.  It targets following simple directions, such as “Drive the firetruck to the house that’s on fire” and “Take the firefighter to the ladder.”

The mazes also touch on some simple problem solving– which, be the way, I always find it interesting when I do activities with my students that are similar to things I used to do as a kid (mazes, Memory, etc…) and how I have such a different perspective on them now–obviously as a kid I just thought they were fun games, but as an SLP I see them as vocabulary, problem solving, recall, etc!

“Fire Rescue” also has these puzzle games where it gives the outline of a fire-related picture, and you have to put the puzzle pieces back in accordingly.  If you just get the piece in the general vicinity of the correct location, it puts it in place for you, which I like for the younger ones!  These puzzles are great for making simple predictions (“Can you tell what our puzzle is going to be?” “What do you think we’re putting together?”) and for fire-related vocabulary (fire hydrant, siren, etc…).  After the puzzle is complete, the audio kicks in and gives a brief description of what the item is and what it is used for– vocab & functions right there!
The app also incorporates basic concepts into it, like the truck being empty/full of water and if you have enough/need more water.  The narration also gives directives like, “Help the firefighter climb UP the ladder/climb DOWN the ladder” and “The firetruck is dirty.  Let’s wash it!” and “Look, now the firetruck is sparkly clean!”
As for a fun craft with a firefighter theme… I always do Jenn’s firefighter craft that you can see here on her blog for fire safety and community helpers! I love doing crafty activities where parents can see exactly what we’ve worked on when it’s sent home.
Lastly.. for another fun fire-related activity, see my blog post from October on “spraying” out fires in the speech room!

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3rd time’s a charm trying to post this 😆😅 3rd time’s a charm trying to post this 😆😅 Loving 10 Lucky Leprechauns for a St Patrick’s Day book for the littles— my own 2 year old has loved it and so did a lot of my preschoolers last week! 

Super similar in style to “10 Fat Turkeys” — each page adds a leprechaun doing a different action (great for -ing verb practice!) and has a fun repetitive line (“Fiddle de fizz, tis magic it is”) 

Use this book for /l/ and /f/ sound practice too, with your speech sound kids! 

For an easy no prep activity, have a character swing from a vine (pipe cleaner, ruler, string, etc) to a target card like one of the leprechauns in the book! We worked in s-blends too with “swing” and telling the leprechaun to “stop” 💚🍀
❄️ It’s the most wonderful time… of the ye ❄️ It’s the most wonderful time… of the year! ❄️ 
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1️⃣ Decorate them with Halloween stickers (turn it into a speech sound trial reinforcer or following directions activity!)

2️⃣ Put candy mini erasers in the houses (or, make it a silly game and do categories! Put different categories of mini erasers or mini objects in the houses and have them give the trick or treater something from a named category)

3️⃣ Put a person in the house 

4️⃣ Pull up Knock Knock Trick or Treat from @supersimpleofficial on YT

5️⃣ Use Super Simple’s free character printables and use them to go trick or treating at each door! Practice things like predicting who comes next based on the shadow, WH questions, “he/she/they are….” and imitate actions from the characters on the video (steer the ship like a pirate, dance like a ballerina, etc!) 

So easy and minimal prep! Tag an SLP friend below who could use this idea! ⬇️
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What other books would you use this apple tree with? 
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I sent these free story pieces to my email list last week but if you missed them, grab them with the link in my profile! ➡️ @rockchalkspeechtalk
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This book works great for…

⭐️sp and sw blends (repeated lines “I spy” and “Swim away”)

⭐️long a sound (“way” is repeated on every page) and I used “hey!” instead of “hello!” on each page

⭐️ Bilabials: I seem to always have 1-2 kids these last few years working on bilabials! “Me” is on every page, and you can use “bye” instead of “see ya later” on each page, too. The last page has tons of bilabials! (up up up, deep, mama (x3), me)

⭐️initial /d/ if you have a backer (down and deep are repeated on each page)

⭐️CV words “hi” and “me” (and “bye” if you use that instead of see ya later

⭐️Core words: down, in, I, see, look, me, go (when I pair with a sensory bin, I also use “like” “get” and “out”

⭐️Repetitive Lines: Makes it more engaging when the kids can chime in and “read” it with you!

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Find it on TPT with the link in profile ➡️ @rockchalkspeechtalk

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