I'm again going back to a classic. When pulling out my fall materials I came across Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington. In this sweet story, Jamie plants a pumpkin seed and after watching it grow all summer, picks it and ultimately creates a jack-o-lantern. The best part, he saves some seeds for the next spring.
This is an excellent book for sequencing. I've created a pumpkin sequencing freebie that can be used to retell Pumpkin Pumpkin. Included within this download is a collection of sequencing template from 3 through 7 steps to use for any book which you may find in your collection.
I love sequencing activities for developing speech and language skills. After quick drawings to sequence the events of the story, having the student verbally retell the story with their sketches aids expressive language recall! Asking a few questions with before and after {Did the seed sprout before or after he picked the pumpkin?} allows students to practice with these temporal targets while also having a visual of challenging concepts. I have quite a few students working on /k/, especially during carryover in the medial position of words, so a retelling would give plenty of opportunities to produce this target in the words pumpkin and jack-o-lantern. Finally, just a bit of open ended conversation about picking pumpkins and carving pumpkins to work on sentence structure, vocabulary, and social language.
Check out more books to use in therapy over at Speech is Sweet today and every Wednesday!
