This week I paired the “What’s Scaring You?” adapted book along with a simple ghost craft. This was a great therapy lesson for my students. First I read the adapted book with my students and then we made silly ghosts!
“What’s Scaring You?” focuses on various Halloween vocabulary terms and the prepositional concepts “on”. To set up the book I placed a hard piece of Velco on each Halloween picture on every page. This way the student does not just place the ghost on the piece of Velcro but has to look at all 3-4 pictures on the page to determine which picture to place the ghost. I placed a piece of soft Velcro on the back of each ghost and cut them out. I store the ghost pictures on the grid page which I attached to the right side of the final page.
This book is pretty simple and repetitive so my verbal students are usually able to help me read the book after the first page or book. As I read “What’s Scaring You” I point to my student on the you part which they think is so funny. Then we softly shout “BOO” as we pretend to scary each other in the group. We move back to the book and finish the phrase “A ghost on….” The student takes one of the ghost pictures and places it on the correct item. For my non-verbal students, they might make a verbalization for the “BOO” part or pop their hands out as I say “BOO”. If the student has an AAC device usually many of the pictures are on the voice output device or we can adapted what the student produces on the device. For example; for the first page I had one of my students with a Nova Chat device produce “ghost on house” using their device. We have to remember we need to sometimes adapt the exact phrase when using different AAC products but it still gets the point across.
For the second page, “A ghost on the witch” we don’t have to use the term witch if we can find it on the student’s device. We could change it to “on girl” or after we ask the question “where is the ghost?” the student can respond “on her” or even “on she” if using a core board which would let me know the student understood the question.
After the students finish the book we move on to the ghost craft.
I found this simple ghost craft on the following link: https://www.first-school.ws/t/crafts-halloween/ghost-windsock.htm. This is what the picture looks like when you print it out.
Here is how I adapted the craft to work on following directions and color concepts. First, I made each of the short dotted lines on the ghost a different color. I just used the colors of the rainbow so I could include lots of different colors. This is the line the students have to cut on so it also helps my student know where to cut. Then I outlined the ghost in yellow or any color would work so the student knows where to cut. 
I first help the students cut out the outline of the ghost. Make sure you save one strip of white paper to use as a handle on the top of the ghost.
Then I have the student cut each line of the ghost. First cut the red line, second cut the orange line, third cut the yellow line, etc. until all the dotted lines are cut.
I fold the ghost around and staple the ghost instead of gluing it. I found the glue was not working and my students could not hold the ghost in place long enough for the glue to dry so I just starting using the stapler. I had some of my students help me use the stapler…..trying to work on those fine motor skills! I attached the strip of white paper to the top for a handle. Then the ghost is done. The student had fun flying their ghosts around and saying “BOO!”
Have Fun!!!!
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