Raise your hand if you love no prep, engaging lessons that target a wide range of goals!
Oh, and as you raise your hand, hold out your fingers so I can put some adorable BANDAIDS on them!
Today, we’ll move from a First Aid Kit to a Learning Kit as I share 5 ways you can use children’s bandaids to teach speech and language skills!
1. Phonology:
I love using character bandaids in minimal contrast therapy. Ask your students to close their eyes and hide one of your characters behind the minimal pair card you’d like them to correctly pronounce. Next, your student must “guess” where the character is hiding by saying the target word (no pointing allowed)!
2. Compare & Contrast
Compare the characters on your fingers. Take my Sesame Street friends pictured above for instance.
Elmo and Cookie Monster Similarities:
- Monsters
- Furry
- Could use some pronoun practice from an SLP (just kidding! Sort of…)
- Friendly
Elmo and Cookie Monster Differences
- Colors
- Noses
- Favorite Foods
- Elmo is more social and Cookie Monster is more focused on cookies!
3. Pragmatic Language
As you compare and contrast the personalities of these vibrant bandaid characters, you’ll find a helpful segue for your students to compare themselves to their own peers. During your discussion, you can easily delve further into topics such as perspective-taking, friendship and theory of mind.
4. Prepositions
A powerful way to teach prepositions to young children is through finger plays. I often modify the nursery rhyme Where is Thumbkin and ask students to watch my model and then follow the directions themselves. For example, when using Sesame Street Bandaids, I might sing “Where is Elmo? Where is Elmo? On my head, between my eyes, under my nose” etc.
5. Grammar
Engage your students in role-play that requires them to correct your character’s grammatical errors.
Elmo: I goed to the store today.
Big Bird: You mean you went to the store today, Elmo?
Sometimes silly, playful therapy that doesn’t feel like work builds an experience that sticks more effectively in the minds of our students.
There you have it! I hope these 5 fun ideas help those skills stick! Do you have any other ideas for using bandaids as a teaching tool? If so, please let me know in comments!
