Wow I realized I was a little quiet in the blogging area last week as I was buried in reviewing new toys and games for the PAL Award. It was great fun putting new products in the hands of kids and watch them take off. I always learn so much from them. So here is the first in a series of blogs to share our new PAL Award winners that are the best products to build language and of course, to liven up a speech therapy session turning work to play:
“Say The Word” by Peaceable Kingdom is a terrific game for language learning. Players choose a “Character Card” to start the story and then take turns pulling one of 3 cards from their hand to add on to the plot. The catch is they have to repeat the story from the beginning to add on their phrase or sentence. We found that the more outrageous our add-on was, the easier it was to remember. A Zombie with a marshmallow brain or a robot wearing bunny slippers seemed to stick with us! Peaceable Kingdom gets kids and has a bank of funny, age-appropriate words in this cooperative game. Possible speech and language goals to address through play:
- Syntax goals to include verbs, articles, especially conjunctions etc.
- Association skills to choose an add-on concept that flows with the story
- Vocabulary
- Word finding
- Articulation carryover
- Auditory memory
Kids loved fast-paced “Junior Alias” by Tactic Games requiring players to explain picture cards while others guess, getting a point for each answer until the sand timer runs out. Some are easier than others–rooster (animal that wakes up the farm), ghost (wears a white sheet on Halloween) or hot dog while others made us work at it–fencer, ant hill, and ice hockey player. Explainers are penalized a point if they use any part of the word or pass on a card that is too hard. Kids loved both sides of the fun, explaining and guessing and we had lots of laughs at some of the responses and explanations like an onion whose clue was “a crying machine.” “Family Alias” includes words that are aged up to adult so you can use it with older students. I used this game effectively for:
- Description, adding detail
- Word finding
- Building vocabulary within a category
- Deductive reasoning as players learn to give the most helpful clue to narrow down the answer and hone their describing skills.
“Last Letter” by ThinkFun is just what you listen for in this fast-paced classic word game of calling out a word that begins with the last letter of the word just named. Here’s the twist. Each player is drawing from the word bank pictured in the five cards he has just drawn to begin the game. Each of the 61 cards illustrate an edgy scene with perfectly offbeat scenarios that fascinated kids–a man deserted on an island with an entire mermaid castle depicted underwater below him, an animated cheesy moon watching an astronaut leave his space module and chop away on his surface, a boxing match between robots attended by excited patrons waving money, or kids turning a city street into a swimming pool after opening up the fire hydrant. A great vocabulary builder, We did find some letters easier than others, as I heard a little groan (was that me?) when we got “e” again. Finally a friend yelled “edge” and we were off and running again! “Last Letter” forces players to think outside the box. Honestly, the picture cards are fascinating and could be used as a set to work on just about any goal:
- Processing a picture to gather words that describe it
- Coming up with nouns, verbs, adjectives, emotions, and category words.
- Phonological skills, focusing on first letters and sounds
- Articulation carryover
