The word "leprechaun" is a pretty hard word, whether you have difficulty with speech and language development or not! It's got a lot of syllables, it's not a word we encounter too often and it's got some harder sounds, like /l/ and /r/. So, we really made a point to bombard the students with this word during our St. Patrick's Day theme. I was really impressed with the students who got it!
One way we exposed the students to "leprechaun" was to make Leprechaun Hats!!
Vocabulary- leprechaun, green, shamrock, hat
Requesting- for example "I want a hat"
Sequencing- First, Next, Last
We started out by talking about leprechauns--what they do, what they wear, what they look like, etc. We also talked about what we needed to make our leprechaun hats (a hat, a black band, a shamrock, a beard, a long black band, glue and a stapler---There is no pattern--we just drew until it looked right ;)).
First, we had students request the hat (they continued to request each piece at each step)
Then, they glued on a shamrock
Next, they glued on the beard
Last, we measured their heads to staple on the long black band
When they were done, we reviewed the steps we did to make the hats and they got to look at themselves in the mirror.
I think they looked pretty cute!!