I used these different Halloween sorting activities last week in therapy and they worked out really well with several of my groups so I thought I would share them as a free resource for you to use with your students.  I’m working on size concepts with my younger students so I created a Big and Small Jack-o-Lantern Sort to target this skill.  For my students working on building up vocabulary skills I created a Spooky Synonym and Antonym Sort

This activity is just like it sounds.  The students need to sort the different Jack-O-Lanterns by size.  I set up the activity by putting the Big and Small Cards at the top of the therapy table.

I held up one jack-o-lantern and modeled the size concept and then put it under the correct big/small card.  Then I modeled the other size concept and put it under the correct sign.

There are some variations depending on your students’ skill level and exposure to size concepts.  Some of my students are just starting to learn about size concepts so they needed a lot of prompting to help them place the jack-o-lantern in the correct spot.  The focus for these students is receptively being able to sort the two different sizes.

Another receptive task I used with my students who are staring to understand big/small concepts is I held up a big and small jack-o-lantern and I provided a verbal instruction including the size concept.  For example, “take big” or “find the big jack-o-lantern”.   Then I could take some good data on following a 1-step direction involving a size concept!

You can also use this as an expressive language task.  Hold up one of the jack-o-lanterns and have your student verbally or with an AAC system tell you the size of the jack-o-lantern.  Once they tell you “big” or “small” you can hand them the pumpkin and he/she can place it in the correct spot.

For this activity the students need to determine if the set of words on the ghost are synonyms or antonyms and place it in the correct spooky house.  The activity includes 45 synonym and 45 antonym pairs so you can get a lot of practice out of this sort!

Some of my students needed more support and prompting then others.  For some students I read the pair of words and may have paired each word with a symbol or gesture to help them identify if the two words were similar or different.

Click the links if you are interested in either of these activities –  Enjoy!!!!

Big and Small Jack-o-Lantern Sort

Spooky Synonym and Antonym Sort