Polar Bear, Silly Directions and Listening and Spoken Language Therapy Plans

What are your LSL therapy plans for this week?

We are reading, listening, and learning along with the animals in the classic story "Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?”, then playing one of my favorites the Silly Directions game?

Silly Directions is an active listening and spoken language game for children of many ages and stages that can be leveled up or down to meet their needs. This game gets kids listening, moving, thinking, and learning.

The directions are designed to be fast, fun, and effective for children who are deaf and hard of hearing and for others who can benefit from practicing listening skills. Kids can expand their receptive language, increase their auditory working memory and processing skills while being engaged and active. 

This game can help children learn to: 

• follow auditory directions

• recall and process directions

• 'chunk' auditory information

• remember critical elements in sequential order

• use compound and more complex sentences 

• ask for clarification if they have trouble remembering

• expand vocabulary:

Silly Directions can target:

- Similes - Children learn comparisons with similes. Similes use the words like or as to compare things —“Arch your back LIKE a cat.”

- Adjectives - Children hear and build vocabulary while naming the objects. They learn the adjectives that describe the objects — a BOTTLE of ketchup, a MONARCH butterfly, a GARDEN hose…

- Body Parts - Children hear and expand the names of body parts — forehead, waist, chin…

Look inside the Silly Directions Game

RAFFLE WINNER of Listen With Lynn Resources

Congratulations to Katelyn Wilk, a Speech Language Pathologist who won a gift certificate for my Listen With Lynn resources at the recent Carter Hears! - DHH Educators Series conference.

I am proud to be a sponsor of Carter Hears! Their team is a group of innovative, connected, compassionate, genuine, and dedicated people who are #changingthefaceofdeafed. Carter Hears! is regionally and globally recognized for its excellence in Deaf Education!

Follow Carter Hears on social media or to the website for future workshops @carterhears

https://www.carterhears.com

ALDA Chicago Workshop Auditory Rehabilitation Post CI (Association for Late Deafened Adults)

On the 26th of June, I presented at the 2022 ALDA Chicago Chapter Workshop. (Association of Late-Deafened Adults). It was an outstanding event. I enjoyed sharing, answering questions, and chatting with members and other professional colleagues.

The organization has been meeting in greater Chicagoland since 1987, with a motto to provide support, education, and camaraderie for adults with hearing loss.

Learn more at about the National ALDA Organization and the Chicago Chapter. Click Here to view or download the ALDA brochure.

Andy and Carol Ban are dear friends of mine. We first met in the early 1990s soon after I relocated to Chicagoland. We served together on the Illinois Chapter of A.G. Bell. What rich memories!

Egg-Citing Spring Conversation Activities For Listening and Language

Kids love these Egg-Citing Spring Conversation activities and so do parents, listening and spoken language therapists, and teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing. This resource targets seasonal vocabulary, back-and-forth conversational, and social skills. It's perfect to level up and down and for mixed groups of kids and to play at home while building listening and spoken language while having fun!

This EGG-Citing game includes a variety of starters: NAME - DESCRIBE - TELL - WOULD YOU RATHER -TONGUE TWISTERS AND RIDDLES.

Three-Ways To Play

1. Hide the plastic eggs in your classroom, therapy room, home, or yard. Begin the hunt and have the child find and collect all the eggs in the carton or a basket.

2. Add following direction listening clues while hunting for the conversational eggs. Look for an egg by where you hang your jacket, under the table, and so on. Examples are provided.

3. At play with family and friends at their holiday get-together. Encourage the child to lead the conversation starters. Spend plenty of time practicing so the game is entertaining and fun for all. It’s a terrific confidence and language-building opportunity for the child.

This Egg-Citing resource includes

• 18 Egg Conversation Starters in holidays shapes

• Egg carton label to hold plastic eggs

• Listening and Spoken Language playing tips

• Serve and Return prompts to expand a conversation

• A role play example back-and-forth conversation with the adult serving as a conversational starter with the child’s returns

Check out the two money-saving Spring Bundles and over 20 Spring listening and language-building games and activities.