Angry Bird Says

What you’ll need:

• Notecards
• Angry Bird cut outs (or other characters to suit your client’s interests)
• Marker
• Glue/tape 

 

My client loves all things Angry Bird.  These easy to make Angry Bird Says cards worked great to target his past tense regular verbs.  

Glue each character on a different card with a verb that you want to elicit.  Have your client pick a card and perform the action.  For example, they may pick a card that says “jump”.  Have your client jump up and down and explain to them that they are jumping.  After, clearly explain “you are not jumping anymore, you are done.”  Then, ask your client “what did you do?” to elicit the verb “jumped.”

Verb Suggestions:

To elicit past tense regular verbs ending in “t” sound:

• Jump->Jumped (perform action)
• Walk->Walked (perform action)
• Skip->Skipped (perform action)
• Hop->Hopped (perform action)
• Wash->Washed (use hand sanitizer)

To elicit past tense regular verbs ending in “d” sound:

• Clean->Cleaned (use hand sanitizer)
• Call->Called (make hand into a telephone)
• Open->Opened (open door)
• Close->Closed (close door)
• Smile->Smiled (perform action)

To elicit past tense regular verbs ending in “id” sound:

• Count->Counted (count to ten)
• Paint->Painted (pretend to paint on a canvas)
• Lift->Lifted (lift any object or lift out of chair)
• Rest->Rested (pretend to sleep)

Rice Krispie Treats

I have been looking for ways to target past tense regular verbs in an unstructured way in therapy.  My clinical adviser suggested that I make Rice Krispie Treats with my client to target specific verbs.

What you'll need:

• Microwave
• Rice Krispies
• Marshmellows
• Butter (I used Country Crock)
• Instructions/targeted verb cards

I wanted to make these easy treats in the microwave so I used the following recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/microwave-rice-krispies-treats-319811

I printed out my own version of instructions with our targeted verbs and accompanying pictures so that the steps would be easy for my client to follow.

Since we have been working on regular past tense verbs ending in the "t", "d", and "id" sounds I chose the following verbs to target:

Scoop ->"t"
Pour ->"d"
Heat ->"id"
Stir ->"d"
Cook ->"t"
Mix ->"t"
Spray ->"d"
Press ->"t"
Slice ->"t"
Taste->"id"

While we were working on a step I would emphasize what we were doing: "we are scooping butter."  After we finished that step I would say "we are all done scooping" and ask, "what did we do?"  This made it clear that I was looking for the past tense version of the verb that we were targeting.  If my client got stuck I would remind him what sounds we put on the ends of our action words (in this case a "t" sound->"Scooped").

We worked on production at the sentence level, but the activity could easily be modified for sentences or conversation.