Spider Web Fun in Speech

I have been working with this adorable little guy who is 3 1/2 (Just a few months older than my daughter). He is very much your typical three year old boy: He is active and loves “boy” activities like building things, sports, superheros and well..anything that keeps him moving!

I LOVE little boys. They keep me on my toes. They keep me thinking and spark my creative side.

In October I saw this cool Spider Web Gross Motor Activity on one of my most favorite sites No Time For Flashcards. I immediately wanted to do it…but I never got around doing it here with my daughter and I wasn’t seeing clients at the time. So I kept it in my head for the future.

This past week my little guy and I were focusing on /sp/ blends and I just KNEW that he would LOVE making a giant spider web on his living room floor (um, who wouldn’t??). So I grabbed some painters tape (so it wouldn’t adhere to their rug too strongly) that we had in our garage, grabbed some spider rings and glow stick bracelets from my speech cupboard (ALL of my speech stuff is stored in our garage…someday I’ll have to post pictures!) and headed to their place.

He LOVED IT! Here was our finished product:

Here is how our session went:

• First we read two books with lots of /sp/ words as part of our auditory bombardment (I use a Cycles Approach). We read Eric Carle’s The Very Busy Spider: A Lift-the-Flap Book and  Iza Trapani’s The Itsy Bitsy Spider (one my my daughter’s most FAVORITE books!)

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• Next we began to build our spider web. My little guy had to say each of his /sp/words 10 times and then we would lay down a section of the web. By the time we had completed the web we had said 150 correct productions (in about 10-12 minutes).

• Once the web was built, I scattered 10 /sp/ picture cards all around the web, as well as 10 spider rings. Then at the top of the web I placed a glow stick bracelet. My little guy had to “climb” all over the web and pick up the cards and spiders and then when finished he could get the bracelet. The first round I had him say each word 3 times and say “spider” every time he picked up a spider. So he said 40 correct productions. The second round I had him say each word 5 times and say “spider” two times every time he picked one up. That was 70 more productions…so we were at a total of 260 correct productions. (Note: In No Time For Flashcards, they were focusing on gross motor so her son was trying to walk around the web without “falling off”. You can do it this way or modify as needed. Since my main goal was to get as many productions out of him as possible, I didn’t care if he “fell off”. You can decide exactly how you want to “play” the game!).

• After two rounds, my little guy wanted to earn a third glow stick bracelet so I had him say 5 words 10 times each, for an additional 50 correct productions. In about 35-40 minutes my little guy produced 310 correct productions of /sp/ words while having a BLAST!

How you can use this in the schools: This would be SO fun to do in the schools in a group. You can make the web ahead of time either on the floor of your room/office or maybe on the ground outside (you could even use chalk to draw a web). Have your children take turns playing, having the appropriate cards laid out for each child. To make sure they keep the pace, use a timer…allow them only 60 or 90 second to collect their words and put out 10-15 cards and have them say each one 10 times. if every child only gets 2 turns you should still get a MINIMUM of 200 {correct} productions. I say correct, because that is the goal right? I only “count” their correct ones as “counting”. Make sense?

It doesn’t have to be Halloween to do this activity, nor do they have to working on /sp/ words…you really can do this any time! And with spring sneaking up on us in just weeks, you could use it in an insect unit/theme too!

Your kids will love it…even Elementary kids! let me know if you try it out!

Cheers!