As speech therapists, we love a holiday to use as a theme in our lessons with kids! Here is my post from last year which is worth revisiting for some ideas to get a little “boo” out of kids we are working with:
Halloween is such a fun holiday for kids and provides lots of material to make our speech therapy sessions special!
ASHASphere has a guest post this past week,Appdapted: Halloween Themed Apps by Speech Pathologist, Jeremy Legaspi, which provides a short review of 16 Halloween apps and how to use them for speech therapy–thanks, Jeremy, for the nice list!
As for recommended Halloween books, those of you who know me know that I don’t like the gory, mystical themes of Halloween and prefer the cute and fun themes to share with kids so I thought I would list some my favorites:
- The Hallo-Wiener by Dav Pilkey. Kids can’t get enough of this book! It can actually be used to discuss the theme of bullying as poor wiener dog, Oscar, is laughed at by his fellow dogs for his shape and called names. Innocently, his mother refers to him as her little Vienna sausage and gives him a giant hot dog bun for his Halloween costume. Not wanting to hurt his mother’s feelings, he wears the costume and bears all the taunts. Who would know that the other dogs would need someone to rescue them from the ghastly monster? In a cute quirk of fate, Oscar is just the right size and shape to take on the “monster!” I’ve used this book for wh-questions, inference, and even as a bit of a social story (particularly the beginning) in language lessons.
- Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler. This poor skeleton woke up with the hiccups and nothing seems to help. Every time he goes “hic, hic, hic) the force of the hiccups shoots the soap out of the shower, launches his jaw straight out or detaches his arm at the shoulder. Ghost does his best to scare him but that doesn’t work either until Ghost gets smart and digs in the costume box for just the right prop to get rid of this friend’s hiccups. This book is great for audience participation with the little “hic, hic hic” traveling across the page.
- Sheep Trick or Treat by Nancy Shaw. In anticipation of Halloween, the sheep friends make their costumes–a dinosaur, mummy, vampire, witch and two-sheep ape. They set off for the barn to collect their healthy treats of apples, oats and sugar lumps. A wolf hiding in the woods sees the sheep and can only hope to get his tasty treat on their way home. But the sheep stand up when they hear the wolves and guess who is the one who gets scared? This book is in delightful rhyme like the rest of the “Sheep” series by this author and illustrator. There is plenty to talk about as the story takes a twist and kids can explain why.
- Just Say Boo! by Susan Hood. This newcomer to Halloween books is among some of the safest to read to little ones, celebrating the fun of the holiday without scaring anyone. Also in delightful rhyme, we are taken out trick-or-treating with the kids as they learn to just say Boo! to anything scary.Here is my full review.
