Speech Therapy Lesson for Making Frankenstein Milkshakes!

Fall is finally here and along with it comes super fun Halloween activities!  I wanted to blog today about making these super fun Frankenstein milkshakes because they were a huge hit with my kids this week and made targeting language, social skills, and following directions super easy.

Although I normally begin my cooking sessions with some kind of literacy activity like an interactive book, the teacher I collaborate with and myself decided to change it up this time.  We went on youtube and pulled up a kids' version of the Monster Mash song/dance!  We modeled the dance and sang it for our students first, then replayed it and helped our students dance to the song as well.  It was an engaging and motivating way to start the session.  There's nothing like a mini dance party at the beginning of a session to get the energy in the room up!

If you're working in a 6:1:1 class like I was, you will need to either remove some of these steps or have some kids double up on jobs.  The other alternative, which I did, was to take a few steps and let everybody due them, such as putting a straw in a cup or handing one cup to a classmate.  Think about your own students and trust your gut!

1. Put ice-cream in blender
2. Pour milk in blender
3. Put green food dye in blender
4. Turn on blender (in my group everyone took a turn pressing the button)
5. Pour milkshake into cup
6. Put cool whip on top of cup
7. Put cookie crumbs on top of cool whip
8. Take cup (in my group everyone took one cup)

 My coworker used Boardmaker Plus to create these visual sentence strips for students, and graciously shared them with me!

If you're doing this lesson with a 12:1:1 class, I recommend the following steps:

1. Take out all of the ingredients and place on table (ice cream, scooper, green food dye, etc)
2. Scoop ice cream into blender
3. Pour milk into blender
4. Put green food dye into blender
5. Turn on blender
6. Pour milkshake into cups
7. Scoop cool whip into cup
8. Sprinkle cookie crumbs on top of cool whip
9. Put straw in cup
10. Pass out napkins
11. Pass out cups
12. Throw garbage out

I made sure to ask the teacher to take pictures of all of her students throughout this activity, completing their jobs, interacting with one another, and then trying the milkshake at the end!   This way, I was able to put together a one page handout to send home.  The handout displayed one picture of each student in the class mid-lesson, allowing parents to know what was done in speech!  I got some great feedback from parents letting me know that it led to good interactions and communicative exchanges with their children later in the day 😀🎃

Have fun and Happy Halloween everyone!