Thanksgiving is almost here!! I can barely contain my excitement!
Several years ago I stumbled upon this virtual field trip. You can choose from four video tours that explain The Mayflower, the pilgrim village, the Wampanoag homesite, and Plymouth Plantation. They range from 17 minutes to 30 minutes, but you could easily watch it in sections and/or split it up among multiple sessions. These “field trips” are a good way to target answering comprehension and inferential questions. You could also use this vocabulary list to introduce new vocabulary related to Thanksgiving. To the right of the videos, there are lessons that are common core aligned for grades K-8. These activities bridge the gap between the speech room and the classroom by incorporating not only ELA standards, but social studies content as well.
In addition to taking a virtual field trip, you could have a party! Kiddos are beginning to get excited about the upcoming holiday season. Why not plan a party in the speech room. To get started, you could either have students brainstorm what you would need to do to plan a party or you could use this party planning checklist. If there are too many or too few details, feel free to alter it to best fit your students’ needs. This activity could be used to target sequencing, inferential reasoning, following directions, and pragmatic skills. Once you and your students have worked together to plan the party, HAVE A PARTY! This activity would, most likely, need to be broken down into several sessions, but you could plan and execute a party from start to finish! Invitations with various themes can be downloaded free here. If you choose to serve food at your party, students could be involved in preparation. When it comes to the guest list for your party, the options are endless! You could throw a party for just your speech group or you could invite the whole school! It might even be fun to collaborate with the classroom teacher to plan the party for the whole class! As a follow up to the party, you could ask students to compare and contrast the party you planned to their Thanksgiving festivities at home. When planning the decorations and food, you could use this worksheet where students will use basic inferential reasoning skills and categorization skills to decide which items would be appropriate décor for your party. You could also use these picture prompts as a sequencing activity. If your students choose to do a craft as one of their party activities, the options are endless, from a simple woven placemat to a paper bag turkey.
How are you celebrating Thanksgiving in your speech room?
JCPS Speech 
For the paper bag turkey, I have done a similar craft for years with a little twist. I let my speech friends stuff the turkey with popcorn, secure with rubber band, put face on the front, then have them write words (or I use boardmaker pix for the younger kids) with their speech target sounds/vocab/etc on the back of the feathers and they have to read, define, say their word in sentence that makes sense, etc (depends on their goal) before they attach the feathers to their turkey. Then they can take the turkey home and “carve” him open and eat the stuffing, but FIRST they have to pluck all the feathers off (who wants to eat turkey feathers!!), saying their speech target words again before they can carve it. Great for primary and prek, they love it! Sundy 🙂
Thanks for sharing Sundy–what a great idea!