Gingerbread Play House

I had a large box laying around, so today we made it into a gingerbread house for Adeline and her friends.  I covered the box with brown packing paper and then glue gunned on lot of goodies.  Adeline loved putting all her animals into the house.  We talked about "in the house" and the names of the animals as they went "in". 

 I think she will enjoy using some new language with her house this Christmas season.

The Learning Program

I love making books for Adeline.  This has helped her in both speech and reading.  I am so happy that books are one of her favorite things and she loves to read.

The other day I discovered an amzing find, the Down Syndrome Foundation of Orange County  has added many new books.  They could have done this awhile ago, I just have not been to their web site for awhile.  When Adeline was little I used some of their flash cards.  They now have many printable books.  They are great.  I stayed up very late printing up books.  Here are two that I have finished putting together.  Adeline is already reading them.

Here is the Pets Book;

      
The Learning Program has many more books available.  I am gratful for this foundation that has made these resources availble to download.  

Reading and Speaking Phrases

Adeline is saying many single words and some phrases but I would like to see her put more words together.   She also reads many words and a couple of books but I would like to see more word combinations when reading also, so I created this book.  I think I will be making many more this weekend since this worked so well.

I have been doing a little research and have read that a good place to start helping a child speak phrases is to use a describing word plus and an object.  Adeline knows her colors and "cat" so this is what we started with.

  
I first pointed to the color and said "purple", then pointed to cat and said "cat" then to the words "purple cat".  Adeline seems to be very interested in this book and by the said was saying the phrase.

To make this book I just found a simple cat coloring page, printed up seven copies on cardstock and laminated them.  I am going to be doing a butterfly book next.

This activity helped practice our reading and speech together.    

Adeline loves Elefun

Adeline received Elefun for Christmas and it is one of her favorites.  The elephant shots butterflies out of his long trunk and Adeline tries to catch them with a little net.

I am not sure I like this game as much as Adeline because I am constantly having to put the butterflies back in.  I think we need more butterflies.  The things I like about this game is the language that is used during this game.  We use words like, catch, reach, up, butterflies, elephant. they are coming.  So I believe that the pros outweigh the cons and I will play Elefun

Making Predictable Books

The other day I wrote about how predictable books have been so helpful for Adeline.  They have been helping her speech, and helping her learn new concepts at the same time.   I wrote how predictable books are written with specific characteristics that enable children to read or learn the text easily.   The text is usually repetitive with rhyme.

Today I made two predictable books for Adeline follow the pattern of Brown Bear, Brown Bear.

  
The first book focused on bears and colors.  This is not the complete book but it is some of the pages in Color Bears.

The second book that I made focused on butterflies and numbers.  This also is not the complete book.  I went up to five in this book.  

 When I am making these books I feel that is important to not have many words on a page.  I also make the font large so that Adeline can really focus on the words and I can easily point to each word as we read.  Predictable books are fun and full of learning for children.

Learning with Predictable Books

Yesterday I shared with you how we have been working on Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  I have been thinking about how beneficial this book has been to Adeline and how much she loves to have me read it to her.  I think one of the reasons for this is because this book is predictable and repetitive.   So I have been doing a little research on predictable books, this is what I have learned.

Predictable books are written with specific characteristics that enable children to read or learn the text easily.  I feel that children with speech delays benefit from this style of book greatly.  These books are written in a way that makes it easy to guess what will happen next.  The text is repetitive with rhythmic.  This helps the child to memorize the story easily and possibly say more words then they would typically.

Choose a predictable book and read it to your child every day for a week or so and you will be amazed at the results.

Here is a list of some of our favorites:

We're Going on a Bear Hunt,  by Michael Rosen
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?  by Bill Martin
Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?  by Bill Martin
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  by Bill Martin
Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr Seuss
Are You My Mother?  by P.D Eastman
Jessie Bear, Jessie Bear, by Nancy White Carlstrom
Is Your Mama a Llama, by Deborah Guarino

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

I am so excited, Adeline is starting to put two words together, and a I believe that a huge part of it is due to Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  

Brown Bear, Brown Bear is a predictable book.  These books are important for young children because they can easily learn and memorize language.  Adeline can say "what do you see?".  She has heard this story enough that she is able to repeat phrases from the book.  Predictable books with basic vocabulary and simple rhyme patterns let children anticipate what words come next.  

Today we did some activities with our Brown Bear book.

The first activity that we worked on is putting the front and back of the animals together.  I really thought that this might be to difficult, but Adeline loved the animals and put them right together.
I used the printables from 1+1+1=1.

We then added the words.

We worked on coloring.  I printed up some pictures from dltk.

Later, I added a picture of Brown Bear to a shoe box and we put some of the animals "in".  We worked on saying the names of the animals while putting in.

I have not worked on this but this a great resource for teaching Brown Bear, Brown Bear with sign language.