Skill Focus – Giving Directions with Oh The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss

Do you remember that learning moment you had when you were in school where the teacher asked you write the steps for making a …. in my case it was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then all of the kids in the class wrote down something like: put the peanut butter on the bread, then the jelly on the bread, put the pieces of bread together and eat it. Then, the teacher stood up at the front of the classroom and chose one or two essays to follow and promptly put the jar of peanut butter on the whole loaf of bread then smashed it down further with the jar of jelly. Bring up funny memories? I remember that moment clearly. The object lesson was that we have to say exactly what we mean when we are asking people to do something. Now, these days if I were giving someone directions I would not be as specific as my teacher had wanted us to be, since I am aware of common knowledge (no one making a sandwich would really put the jar of peanut butter on the loaf of bread, we all know to pull out a few slices!) but learning to give directions and take/follow directions is a really important skill. Today we will be doing some following directions obstacle courses to learn about giving and following directions!

Take a moment to collect a few needed items including but not limited to a blindfold, pillows and a stuffed animal or other toy. Other items you could add would be chairs, piles of books, other stuffed animals or other objects that you can climb over, around or under.

Then, you’ll need to set up your obstacle course. You can set up the pillows and other objects around the room. Place the “prize” in a location. I would practice the concept of following directions without the blindfold on before you practice with it on, but it’s your call!

We took turns giving and following directions. It took lots of practice, I ran into quite a few pillows and the couch at least once! She struggled with turning instead of stepping. We laughed a lot and more importantly we began to develop the skill of giving and following very specific directions.

“And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you’ll find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind”

How did you and your child do? I hope you have as much fun as we did! Let me know how it went! Leave a comment below 🙂

Skill Focus – Sight Words Fishing Game with Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss

In Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss, he describes one of the places you may end up as “the Waiting Place” where people are waiting for all sorts of things to happen. He mentions “waiting for the fish to bite.” I love fishing and there is often lots of waiting. And then some more waiting. And then hopefully I catch a fish. Here’s hoping! Anyway, a fun little fishing game can be played to work on sight words. Here are two ideas:

First, use a spring loaded curtain rod with a short curtain or piece of cloth on it (this set up could also be used for a puppet show, so it’s a good and inexpensive investment!). Take a stick or a simple fishing rod from the dollar store (you could even use a real rod and reel, but I know not everyone has those) and attach a paperclip to it. Then print out the fish sight word pages (here, here, here or here) and cut them out. Have your child stand on one side of the curtain and “cast” over the curtain. You can practice waiting or you can just attach one of the fish to the magnet and give a soft tug. Your child reels in his catch and reads his fish. If he reads it correctly, let him keep it. If not, review the word and toss it back (catch and release!). Play until he has all of the fish.

The second way (and what I usually do with kiddos when we are “fishing” in therapy) is I sprinkle the fish on the floor near a sturdy table and let the child sit on the table. This could also be done off the side of a couch. Just make sure to stay near your child for safety. Have your child catch fish by gently swaying the paperclip over the fish until the paperclip lands on one. You can attach the fish to the paperclip. Then the process is the same as above. Your child reels in his catch and reads his fish. If he reads it correctly, let him keep it. If not, review the word and toss it back (catch and release!). Play until he has all of the fish.

We had a great time playing even though she modified the rules a little! It was catch and release no matter what 🙂 Regardless of how you play, having fun while practicing is the real goal! Sight words help children read faster, improving their comprehension of the text they are reading. Have fun fishing together!

Here is the list of Sight Word Pages:

• Pre-Primer Sight Word List
• Primer Sight Word List
• 1st Grade Sight Word List
• 2nd Grade Sight Word List

As a side note, I used the blank fish at the beginning of the documents to work on some speech sounds in therapy yesterday. We fished off the couch and then hid them around the room for a “Finding Nemo” style game! There’s lots you can do with these Sight Word Fish!

Skill Focus – Writing … Create Your Own Letter with On Beyond Zebra

I just can’t stop… I really like this book and all of the great reading skills that can be addressed using this book. My plan had been to create one or two posts for each Dr. Seuss book, but this is number 3 and I really could keep going (I have one more in my head, but I think I’ll save it for later…). But after this post, I’ll move on to another book. The summer is quickly flying by and there are lots of Dr. Seuss books to read!

We had so much fun with this activity. After we read the book for like the 5th time, we decided to make up our own letters. So I created the writing prompt style page (get it here) and got a box of crayons. She went to work, looking through the book to get ideas and then came up with this:

I would encourage older children to write more about their letter’s name and the creature it will help spell. Keep in mind the developmentally appropriate writing skills for your child’s age. You can see the whole list here. If your child draws the letter small enough, he can draw a picture near it that shows the creature he can now spell. (If this does not make any sense, read the book and you’ll understand more about the new letters that help you spell great new creatures!). If there’s not room, use the back of the paper.

I knew that she would excel at this activity because she is constantly making up new words and songs and people’s names and … you name it and she likes to make up a new name for it! So, her letter is the “Paxter Wanwi” and it will help her spell the creature “Naninona.” Interesting, right? Well, maybe not so much but the act of being creative and putting new thoughts down on paper is a great skill that will lead to better things in the future.

You can see in the image below, that my husband got in on this activity, too. He created a letter called “Waz” to spell the creature “Waz Mataz.”

I created the letter “ihs” so I can spell the creature “ihspeech” who repeats only one phrase “I heart speech! I heart speech!” He would be very motivating to have around the house 🙂 You can see this letter at the top of this blog post.

Print out a few copies of this sheet, one for each member of the family. Have fun reading and creating together! Let me know what interesting creatures you can now discover because you, too, did not stop at the Z!