If You Give A Mouse A Cookie Speech & Language Companion Pack

I am really EXTREMELY excited about this post.  After many, many, many hours of brain-storming, learning how to edit slides and juggle between programs, taking care of two sick kids, getting ready for a weekend away (followed by a house full of friends for the Super Bowl), I was beginning to think this would never get done.  I hope that you enjoy seeing it as much as I've enjoyed preparing it!!

It seems like the munchkins I work with always have the same goals on their IEPs.  I absolutely LOVE working with books (if you couldn't tell already from my post on repetition) and wanted to target the goals using the concepts and vocabulary introduced in Laura Numeroff's book "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie."

I always start by holding the book and looking at the cover with them.  I usually introduce it with some sort of absurdity, asking them if they think the book is about a monkey and a banana, for example.  Silly Miss Monica is always getting it wrong!! I know some teachers, therapists and parents feel that they need to read the book verbatim, without interruption until the end, but I feel that the kids internalize the experience  more when they become a part of it.  It probably takes me 10 minutes to get through a 5 minute story, stopping throughout to ask questions and encourage them to relate their own experiences (e.g. What is your favorite cookie? What do you like to drink when you are thirsty?).

Once the book is finished, I introduce a hands-on activity, whether it be "Go Fish," "Memory," or even better yet, something they can take home with them to practice with their family.

I was inspired by a freebie I downloaded over the holidays by Kara at Sped Ventures. I just loved the way all of the pieces were neatly organized.  Take a look at the interactive prepositions book I created, "A Mouse Around The House," which included vocabulary from the book:

Wondering why there are three possible places to put each piece?  Well, simply for the fact that if you ask a child to place an object "next to," for example, and the only option is a piece of Velcro in the appropriate place, you cannot really be sure if they understand the preposition or just the task of placing something where it belongs.

Another common goal for my munchkins is to use plural endings (e.g. babies instead of baby).  When targeting plurals, as in my Singular/Plural Match-Up seen here:

I usually use the cards in a "Go Fish" style activity.  By doing it this way, I am also working on sentence structure, as well as asking/answering questions and verbal turn-taking.  

Another biggie goal is identifying/labeling objects or pictures by function.  Although there are a ton of ways to target this goal, I have found a preschool favorite to be BINGO.  In this activity the calling cards are descriptions of the pictures (e.g. Something you read) and the BINGO markers are little "cookies."

There is a lot to be said about empowering a child to "read."  Using this Emergent Reader is a great way to reinforce vocabulary, increase the length of utterances and create confidence in the child.  By using repetitive sentences, the child is able to "predict" what the book is about.  It is also a great opportunity for them to associate words (even if they are not actually reading them) with spoken language.  I love being able to send them home with a book they can "read" to their family!

I also added this book-themed Game Board to use with any type of drills you need to work on.  The kids love adding cookie cereal along the path!

The final activity was created primarily for articulation goals.  Included are cookie cards for /k/, /g/, /b/ and /p/ phonemes in the initial, medial and final positions.  There are also directions and a template for making a "cookie jar" to put the cookies in after each targeted production.

This companion pack has been a ton of fun to create and I hope that you find it to be a ton of fun to use!