Quick and Easy Ways to Turn Your Blissful Vacations Into Therapy Tools
Vacations or trips can make amazing therapy tools – they’re often full of novel places and things which makes for so many language opportunities. You can work on vocabulary and inferences as well as so many conversational skills.
In fact, on my last vacation, I just happened to record some videos of our destination (Astoria, Oregon) that I was able to use all week with my entire caseload.
In the first video, there was a pan of the area we were in with a strange sound in the background.
“What is that noise? Let’s describe it. What kinds of things make that noise? Let’s describe what we see. What does the weather look like? Where do you think I am?”
“What is that noise? Let’s describe it. What kinds of things make that noise? Let’s describe what we see. What does the weather look like? Where do you think I am?”
In the second video, you can see just a little bit of the thing that was making the noise.
“Ooo, I see something there in the water! What would it be? Do you think that could be what’s making that noise?”
And in the third video, after getting closer to the sound, you are able to see what was making the noise – a sea lion.
While I didn’t take these photos with this agenda in mind – they made the perfect sequence to use in therapy all week with my students from kindergarten through high school.
For a video on this specific group of photos click here.
After I saw how engaged my students were with this activity, I decided to recreate it on my next trip.
Photos and Videos As Therapy Tools
Here are 3 ideas for taking photos and videos on vacation so you can use them in your therapy session.
Guess a mystery sound
- Take a video sequence to lead to a mystery “thing.”
- A video with the sound but no visual clues
- A video or photo with just a few visual clues
- A video or a photo with the answer.
- IDEAS:
- This one is perfect for nature – animal sounds, trees, and water all make great mystery sounds
Make a prediction
- Take a sequence where the students can predict what might happen.
- A photo or video with something interesting in the background
- A photo or video where something has started to happen or someone has noticed it.
- A photo or video of the outcome
- IDEAS:
- Something about to fall, crazy food on a plate, people meeting, a child about to do something
Make an inference
- Take a photo of an interesting or amusing outcome and have students predict what happened before.
- For this one, you may not have images of the steps that led up to it, but bonus points if you do!
- IDEAS:
- This one is all about capturing a picture of something funny! Mishaps and crazy expressions are perfect for this.
