CCCSLP - Online Activities

Online Activities that Facilitate Conversation
with Preschoolers and School-Aged Children

The activities below are singled out because they have many characteristics of learner-based software. They leave the direction of the activity and the focus of the speech or language goal up to the user, so the teacher or clinician serves as a partner in the conversation with the child. The activities provide an interesting, interactive context for communication.

Click here for a page of activities related to Community People, Places, and Things

Preschool Activities (Facial features/body parts/grooming theme):

Mr. Potato Head (no ears).	To flip horizontal, right click on item. Reset puts stuff back on the face instead of clearing it off, so the starter set of facial features has to be removed at the beginning -- I do "go away" as in Go Away Big Green Monster to get the stuff off my Potato Head and start the game :-) Can change vegetable heads.
Funny Face	Simple Funny face maker, no visible choices, just click through options
Sesame Street Monster	Very simple Sesame Street Monster maker (body, head, face – no ears)
Carve-a-Pumpkin	Pick a Pumpkin – make a jack-o-lantern face (eyes, nose, mouth) and then hear a song.
Build a Snowman	Ten Little Snowmen – build a snowman (hat, arms, scarf, eyes, nose, mouth) then hear a song.
Build an Alien	Build an alien (body, head, face, etc) and see him populate the planet with Arthur's friend Buster.
Oatmeal Art	With Bert's help, (Sesame Street) decorate your bowl with oatmeal, marshmallows, apples, etc.
Dress Muffy	Choose outfits for Muffy for a variety of special events.
Dress Holly Hobbie	Choose outfits for Holly Hobbie for a variety of activities.
Halloween Costumes for Edgar and Andrew	Choose Halloween costumes for the bunny family.
Teach Dora’s puppy	Teach Dora's puppy to sit, roll over, fetch. Excellent for talking about verbs and locatives.
Bear Bath Time	Help Bear take a bath, brush teeth, comb hair, dry hair, wash hands, and more. Excellent animation and opportunities for talking about verbs.

Online Activities that Facilitate Conversation
with School-Aged Children*

Pirate Games	Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean 2 official movie site -- to access games, choose Menu on upper left after the opening fanfare. Includes Talk Like A Pirate. Preview these! Some games may not be appropriate for your child.
Telling Tales Writing Activities	Activities intended to stimulate young authors to write. Activities include: • Identikit Stories – Start the story with fill-in-the-blank drop down choices. An open text box is provided to finish the story in any way the writer wants. • Characters – Use a selection of character profiles to stimulate development of original characters. The website offers examples and a form to help guide the writer into developing a character description. • Story Starters • Story Skeletons
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler Scavenger Hunt	This Yahooligans activity complements reading the book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E. L. Konigsberg, Atheneum 1967). Yahooligans provides extensive planning, implementation, and assessment suggestions to help teachers and clinicians reinforce comprehension and group discussion about the escapades of two youngsters who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The scavenger hunt takes readers all over the Internet to find and solve problems with resources and information mentioned in the book.
Literati	Literati is a word game in which up to four players compete by creating words from various letter tiles. Similar to Scrabble, players create words by placing tiles at intersections on a 15 x 15 grid.
Wacky Web Tales	This Education Place site offers a fun way to work on parts of speech and generate a wacky story -- web version of the old "Mad Libs" activity.

* Thanks to Christine Appert for her contributions to this list!

Print Resources/References

Cochran, P.S. (2005). Clinical computing competency for speech-language pathologists. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.