This month I decided to use my Farm adapted book series in therapy and do some Farm themed activities.  I found some new games and crafts to pair with the different books.  The series includes Farmer, Farmer What Do You Hear?, Farmer, Farmer Who’s in the Tractor?, and “Farmer, Farmer What Do You See?”.   These Farm Themed adapted books focus on learning farm vocabulary terms along with various language concepts such as answering “wh” questions sequencing terms, and prepositional concepts.

This week I’m reading Farmer, Farmer What Do You Hear? and pairing it with the game Listen & Play Farm Bingo.  This is a perfect combination!

“Farmer, Farmer What Do You Hear?” is a fun adapted book to help the students work on identifying farm animal sounds with the correct animal.  This book is a little more challenging than some of my other books because the students are not just matching animal pictures but the students need to identify what animal makes the given sound.

To set the book up, I put soft Velcro on the back of all the animal pieces and cut out the animals.  I add a piece of hard Velcro on the storage page dots and place each animal on a dot.  I attach the page to the last page in the book so you can flip it out while reading the book.

While reading the book, I have the students touch each word square so they can follow along with the book as we read it together.  I change the level of prompting depending on the students’ needs.

If these animal sounds and animal vocabulary terms are still new concepts for my students I provide the students with the answer after I make the animal sounds.  For example, “baa baa who can it be?” and then I say “it’s a sheep” and give the student the sheep picture and we practice saying “baa baa” or “sheep” as the student places the picture on the question mark.  I use this more errorless learning approach for my students who are just beginning to work on these concepts.

For some of my students after we say the animal sound and ask “who can it be?” I give the students a visual choice of 2 animals.  Other students are able to listen to the animal sound and find the correct animal from all the farm animals on the pieces page.  I also find that even my more limited verbal students try and imitate the animal sounds.

Another speech therapist I work with found this Listen & Play Farm Bingo game which is really a perfect match for this book.  You can find this game at lots of different stores or online.

I like this game because the animal pictures are simple and clear plus there is an animal picture card to pair on each student’s board.  Sometimes for my younger students or lower functioning students putting on a chip is too difficult for them and they want to actually be able to match the animal picture card to their board.  It also works out well that there are only 9 animals because the visual field is not too overwhelming for most of my students and the game goes quickly.

For me I have the students fill all the animals on the board and not try and get only 3 in a row.  I like to get more practice and make sure they find all the animals.  You can have your student press the game button and it makes an animal sound 3 times or you can make the animal noise.  I change up the game depending on the skill level of the group.

For some of my groups it was easier for me just to make the animal sound because the button was too distracting or difficult for those students.  I made the sound and then asked “who can it be?” or “who is it?”  Some of my students could easily identify the animal who made the sound or they would point to the animal on their board. Other students I gave them a choice of 2 animals.  “moo, moo…..cow or sheep?”  I also have some students still learning these concepts so I just made the animal sound and held up the animal who made the sound.  “baa baa” and I held up the sheep card and say “sheep”.

I had other groups who used the button while playing the game which was good turn taking practice.  I had one student press the button and identify the animal who made that sound.  That student then got the animal picture to place on his/her board.  Then the next student in the group got to press the button and put the corresponding animal on his/her board.  If the student got an animal they already had on their board we could practice saying “I have it” or “pig again”.  This made it a little more challenging for the students.

One of my students using a PECS book exchanged each animal picture with me and then I gave him the animal game piece to place on the board.  I had another one of my students find the animals on his NovaChat.  Since these are common farm animals they are easy to find on voice output devices.

Here is another quick activity if you are keeping with the animal sound theme!  – Fisher-price-Little People See N’ Say Farmer Eddie Says.  I use this with some of my younger and lower functioning students.  I have them sign “more” or produce a verbalization before he/she pulls the tab.  I had success with 2 of my non-verbal students making verbal imitations after hearing the animal sound….especially with the dog sound.