Thursday, January 10, 2013

Thursday Thank Goodness for....Games!!

Ok I found 9 new games at Goodwill for 10 dollars- yes 10 dollars! At first I thought, there is no way I can utilize some of these games in therapy. Then, I thought-- this game is 1.50 or 1.00 you bet I can find a way to use it in therapy.

1. "In a Pickle":
For this game you have 320 cards featuring nouns of all shapes and sizes. You pass out 5 cards to each student. You can play the game many ways, but I decided to make it a team effort.
1. You lay out 4 cards in front of the students. The goal of the game is to put cards in order from largest item to smallest item. For example: a dog would fit inside a hippo and a water tower is larger than a hippo-- so you would lay the water tower card down, then the hippo card then the dog card.
2. I let the students play cards until there were no more plays.
3. Whoever got rid of the most cards in that round got a point. If there was a tie-- then the students with the tie each score a point.

You could also play this game individually. In that version, the student can only play cards on the card in front of them. My students didn't get as much exposure or interaction this way- so I am going to continue playing it as a collaborative group effort.

Here are some pictures from "IN A PICKLE". This would be a great game for junior high or high school caseload.




2.  The Ladybug Game
For this game, I found it was pretty young looking. This would be a great game for preschool or elementary school. I did happen to use it with my lower level junior high girl group of students. The goal of the game is to get from the START to the HOME space in the roses =) Basically the students draw a card, then do as it says. It might say "Move ahead 2 spaces" or "Go back one space". When the student draws an "aphid" card he/she gets to collect the number of aphids as it states on the card for later. Now be careful because there are Praying Mantis's out to get your ladybugs- be sure you have a pass or back to the beginning of the game board.

Here are some pictures from "THE LADYBUG GAME".





3.  Battle of the Sexes. 
Now for this game- the idea was not to use the game in school- but ONLY the game board. The game board is set up to where the players try to move their pawns from one end of the game board to the other. So I put all the girls on one side and all the boys on the other. The first to get to the other side of the game board WINS!




4. Such and Such
This is a game that is answered in pairs- there is a set of 5 clues on each card. All of the answers are in pairs such as: salt and pepper, mom and dad, Big and RIch. This activity was great for having my kids think in pairs or associations using real life pairs.




5. Commotion Game
This game was neat to utilize in my therapy sessions. I played it a little bit differently than the rules. I drew a category card then had each of the students name as many items in that category as possible. The student with the most unique answers for that round received a point. SO if two students listed DOG in the animal category it did not count, but if only one student wrote down giraffe then that counted as a unique answer. They loved it!


6 and 7. Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land
Well we are all very familiar with these games so I will keep it short. You can use Jenna's Candy Land cards that are available on her teachers pay teachers page OR you can just utilize the game boards/games as a incentive game to play along with your students therapy tasks. 




8. Think Alike
I used this game as an association game. So I had one "leader" chosen by me each round. The student receives 5 words on a card and has to write down an association for each word on the card. Then I set the timer and the other students had to guess which association word the leader wrote down next to each word. I took away the timer at times for the younger students who had more trouble. Again a neat game to target associations and vocabulary in a game setting.



9.. Farkle Frenzy
I utilized this game as an incentive game. Basically I pushed the top of the farkle tower to determine which number would be the main number. The students would be able to roll the die after each therapy task turn. The first student to fill the their staircase by rolling the main number would win the round.



I hope each of you support your community by going to your local Goodwill and see what games or treasures you can find there! Happy Therapy Sessions!!!!




23 comments:

  1. I work with a lot of students with ASD so we use games to work on turn-taking skills, being a good sport, following directions, etc. as well as targeting other skills including colors, numbers, shapes, 1-1 correspondence, vocabulary, etc. I can find a game for almost every goal that my students have.

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    1. I know! Aren't games just the best for targeting SO many different things! That is why I like to find new ways to use them!

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  2. I think games make my groups more cohesive. I can use them with mixed groups and use each students individual work. The kids love it and say they dont play games much. I have some kindergarteners who never have played a board game. Its motivational too.

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    1. I agree! I think there is a lot of learning that takes place during a game (cognitive growth!)

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  3. With my older kids we are using old game boards by covering them with new paper and an entirely new game based on a story's characters, events, vocabulary, comparing and contrasting, etc.

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  4. Hello,
    I just saw your guest post on social groups and then headed on over here. I love your blog-very creative ideas! It's funny-I'm having someone guest post on my blog next week on social groups. I'll definitely place a link to your post when it's up!
    Nicole
    allisonspeechpeeps.blogspot.com

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    1. Wonderful! Thank you Nicole! I LOVE how blogs can share and link ideas!

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  5. I'm known for my games it seems and the kids are so disappointed if we don't get to play one! Some of my most popular insentive games are "Go Away Monster", "Oreo Cookie Factory Game", "What's For Dinner?", "Peanut Butter & Jelly". "Mystery Garden" is one of my favorites for language processing, too.

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    1. Very Cool! I have mystery garden and have used Peanut Butter and Jelly before, but the others I have not heard of! I will look into them! Thanks for posting!

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  6. I just visited my Goodwill store and found Whack a mole, Cadoo, Silly socks and a farm floor puzzle for about 8 bucks. Goodwill is great.
    I introduced Spot It! To several groups today and everyone loved it. I was able to address lots of objectives with it too

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    1. I love looking at Goodwill for therapy items! I re-make a lot of items into therapy items! I do laundry life skills education with old clothes and kitchen life skills with plates and stuff that I find there!

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  7. I was just writing about Pickles to Penguins today! I also love "Spot It" as a quick reinforcer/pragmatic game. "Anomia" is a great game for older kids (I usually like to filter out some of the harder categories like "Jazz Musician").

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    1. Oh! And I love my Jenga for /r/ & /s/ for my articulation kids (and they do too!).

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    2. Thanks for posting! I haven't heard of any of these games except for spot it and jenga!

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  8. I love using games to work on social skills such as turn-taking and good sportsmanship. I love to play memory with my students. I have a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse version and I have used it to elicit language from the younger students to increase MLU. There are also a variety of other object cards that I use for categorization and so forth.

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    1. Very cool! Thanks for posting your thoughts!

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  9. One of my favorite games for therapy is 20 questions the board game :http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4306762.
    This game helps with categorization, figurative language and auditory memory. I usually go through the cards and hand pick cards for each class based on age and ability. Many cards are simply not used at all because the y may be outdated like one "person" card is Roger Rabbit. I am sure none of my students have seen that movie. I use this also for artic- reading sentences.

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    1. Awesome! Good idea! This is why I like asking questions to everyone out there- I LEARN so much!

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  10. Just saw you at the Love It and List It link-up. Can't believe you have some games I've never even heard of! Thanks for the fun new ideas!

    Julie
    Wide World of Speech Therapy

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  11. I love "In a Pickle"! One of the few games I bought my first year doing ESY when I got middle school students for the first time.

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  12. Great list!!! I have some shopping to do! Goodwill here I come!

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  13. Sadly, the Goodwill by me doesn't have much in the way of games. I used to live near an awesome one that always had tons!! My new go to store is Five Below!!

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