2 Simple (Free) Apps for Animal Sounds

My nephew-in-law (is that what you call your brother-in-law's nephew?) who is just learning to talk is very interested in animals. I looked for a few free animal-related apps on my iPhone, and was impressed with both Pet the Animals and Vocal Zoo (note: both links likely will open a web page, then the iTunes Store, but will not download the app unless you authorize it). Pet the Animals features a variety of full-screen animals, that, when petted, will make a sound and "purr" (the phone will vibrate). Vocal Zoo features a grid of animals that will make their sounds when touched. Both kept little Ryan very amused- he kept running away from the phone and coming back giggling, while attempting to imitate a lot of the sounds.

Language Lens

• Animal Sounds are clearly a great way to elicit speech sounds.
• Cause-effect relationships (and a good point, for OTs) can be a great target for both of these activities.
• With older students, apps such as Vocal Zoo could be a good context for barrier/ "I Spy" description activities.

Time for Bikes?

The Urban Outfitters website has a nifty bike designer that could serve to develop some advanced descriptive vocabulary around bikes. The interactive design tool is intended to be a launchpad for an actual bike purchase, but you can change different attributes of the bike and see their names without buying anything. Kids would enjoy designing their own bike and searching for the changing attributes as they click (e.g. grips). Using this site would be a good context for a descriptive writing task, especially with the goal of combining details into a sentence, as in "My bike has a blue frame with a brown leather saddle."

Sports Trading Cards

For an activity that would be very motivating to kids interested in sports, check out the Kids World Sports Trading Card creator. Kids World Sports is a documentary series on PBS geared toward tweens- though the card creator can skew younger- featuring kids striving toward excellence in particular sports. If you are interested in further exploration, other areas of the site showcase some sporty kids' stories.


Language Lens:

• The activity targets the skill of association, as backgrounds, animations, pictures, words and sounds can be pieced together to create a trading card. Kids can be asked why they are selecting elements in order to elicit causal connections.
  

Simple Machines, Complex Language

Cross-posted on Mindwing Concepts' blog:  Please click over to see my post that describes an awesome interactive website from Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.  The site places the abstract curriculum content around simple machines in the context of an engaging and problem-based task that also taps narrative and expository structure.  Plus, the site is so beautiful, you would think Pixar created it!

According to the FTC guidelines, I will disclose with each of these cross-posts (and in other references to Mindwing products) that I have a contractual relationship with Mindwing as a guest writer. In no other instances am I compensated to review or endorse products or technology resources (i.e. websites).

FREE TODAY- Recommend this one to parents

Today is App Friday on Moms with Apps, and cool app A Family Matters is free today. The app is an engaging series of conversational/activity/game prompts that target all sorts of language skills- background knowledge, vocabulary, comprehension, phonemic awareness. It presents tasks that can be completed with topics relevant to various settings, such as an airport or restaurant. Think of all the parents who ask, "What can I do at home?" This app will provide some structure (and models for the future) of how to engage their child in language-enhancing conversations.

WordWorld

WordWorld is a cool resource from PBS, who have of late done quite a bit of web development to catch up with the BBC's excellent interactives. WordWorld is a pretty open-ended, exploratory site, so you would want to allow for a child-centered approach, but along the way, you will find some excellent reinforcement of letter identification, rhyming, and sound-letter connections. The concept behind the site, a companion to a PBS show, is the use of "WordThings," items which are composed of the letters of their words, with the letters being oriented, colored and textured to resemble the actual word. This would lead to a lot of great descriptive discussion about what the words/items look like, and perhaps an extension project (for older kids, perhaps) of creating your own WordThings.

Movie Poster Maker

The Movie Poster Maker from Big Huge Labs could be used for a variety of purposes in language intervention. The tool allows you to upload a picture and add the text that would normally appear on a movie poster (tag lines, stars, rating, etc). It's a pretty simple interface, but you unfortunately don't get much of a preview.  It would be a good idea to be structured when creating the posters with a student (so you don't waste time). When completed, you can save the photo as a jpeg on your computer, print, or share in other ways.

Here's one I whipped up in 10 min!

Language Lens
This tool could be used for self-description, say, in a pragmatics group, or to connect with curriculum content. Maybe make a movie poster about a book, with taglines requiring a persuasive reason to see the film. Taglines could also serve to convey a main idea about a curriculum topic that wouldn't normally be the subject of a blockbuster, like Gases: Without them you'd be breathless. I just made that up. Ha.

Can You Find It? App

How often have you administered the dreadful CELF-4 Concepts and Directions subtest (especially when they are like, 7 years old) to a kid who bombed it, and wondered how exactly you are going to address those issues without dying from boredom?  Give Can You Find It? a try.  This app, costing $.99 at the iTunes Store (at the time of this review), is a riddle-style game targeting key spatial and temporal concepts in a fun task. I greatly enjoyed playing it myself!

The app allows you to pan to bring other items into view, and double-tap to make a guess to "find it!"

Thank you to The iPhone Mom for mentioning this app.

Weboword- Nice Vocabulary Cartoons

Weboword-Vocabulary Visually looks like a great resource for SLPs. I am not at all a fan of SLPs selecting vocabulary to teach in an isolated manner. Where do you start? How are they supposed to learn these words within our limited service delivery models? Sometimes it's the best you can do, but I much favor the "Robust" and contextual vocabulary instruction advanced by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan in the book Bringing Words to Life, and subsequent commercial products such as Scholastic's Text Talk. Some years ago at my school, we implemented this approach thanks to a wonderfully supportive literacy specialist (Deana Lew, a SpeechTechie visitor) and principal. It was great for me, because I knew I had done something to build kids' vocabulary without trying to do so in a futile manner in my once- or twice-a-week sessions. I could then work with the body of vocabulary that was being taught in the classrooms, or the trade books used to introduce them contextually.

Thus ends my vocabulary rant. Back to Weboword. This website features terrific cartoons that illustrate specific vocab words. It would be a great model of visualization strategies for vocabulary studies, if one were to pick a few examples, then have students sketch the vocabulary words they are studying right now.


Again, if you haven't already, I strongly recommend reading Beck, et. al.-- these strategies are now widely embedded in balanced literacy programs. You can read a selection from the book at Google Books.

Free App TODAY: My Pictures Talk

The iPhone/iPod Touch app My Pictures Talk from husband/wife team Grembe Inc. is available free today from the iTunes store.  View a full description of the app at Moms with Apps.  This app allows you to record sounds to go with a photo on your device, and would be a great and motivating opportunity for kids to practice speech and language skills. You can use your camera or Safari (push the home and sleep/wake button at the top of the device simultaneously to save a screenshot in your Photos app) to get the images you need.