Halloween-themed Language Tricks and Activities!

I'm excited to join the Frenzied SLP's and Doyle Speech Works linky party on Halloween language tricks and activities!  Why?  I love Halloween.  It's a socially acceptable opportunity to be someone else for a while!  The only person I know that loves Halloween more than I do is my husband, Jerry.  A few years ago, he dressed up as a sumo wrestler and my daughter took this picture of us below, left.  Hey, we even have a black cat which we love dearly even when he sits on our refrigerator and meows for people food!

Sigh, I digress.  Let's talk about language activities that are centered around the Halloween theme!  Here's a few of my favorites:

1.  Go Away Big Green Monster, by Ed Wemberly!  

Here's the Amazon link to the book.  I also bought the puppet that goes with it and I use both with my younger kids to work on body parts, object functions (what do we use eyes for?) and descriptive vocabulary.  I also have my students imitate the phrase, "go away big green monster" at certain points in the book and I pre-record "Go" on a switch or other device for my nonverbal students to participate.  This book is also available in Spanish.

2.  Body Parts Gummy Candy

OK, I am trying not to give my students candy as reinforcers but around Halloween, I tend to be lax about that rule.  I love using these gummy body parts pictured below.  Check out the one on the right, it's a brain!!

I've used it as a reinforcer to accompany Michelle Garcia Winner's  Social Thinking (R) curriculum to reinforce children whose "brains are in the group" (are paying attention to what's being discussed in class).  You could also give students a gummy ear for "good listening."   I have a scarecrow in my therapy room and I have students pick a piece of body part candy and then locate that body part on the scarecrow!  Such ghoulish fun!  You can also work these into a game with middle schoolers working on their /r/ sound (finger, brain, ear) by giving them a piece of gummy candy for every 10 productions.

3.  Real or Pretend?

I love doing this activity with my 3-6 year olds and it's a valuable lesson to review with students with autism.  It's a product at my TPT store called Real or Pretend?  You can use it to help students understand the things that are real about Halloween (pumpkins, crows, spiders, black cats) and the things that are pretend (monsters, ghosts etc).   It's a great way to introduce the affix "un" and use the word "unreal" instead of "pretend."  Here it is in action below!

  

I hope you enjoy this Halloween with your students, children and families.  I've got to head out to our Halloween costume bins (yes, we have several) and start working on my costume for this year.  At minimum, I'll be dressing up as a Badger fan for the game on Halloween!!

Be sure to check out the other fabulous posts and get some Halloween language activities
                                                  to use with your students!

                                                                   Donna