Making a Halloween Monster Mobile!
An Experience Story is an excellent opportunity for repeated practice with selected language and vocabulary targets while maintaining the child’s interest and motivation. One big reason:The Child is the Main Character!
Read more about it! The Power of Experience Stories, How to Use Experience Stories, and Making a Mummy Doll Experience.
Expressive Language Targets
The book we used has two expressive language targets (what the child will say).
NOUN-VERB-NOUN (We glued the paper)
NOUN-PREPOSITION-NOUN (paper on the cup)
Receptive Language Targets
The students for whom I planned this experience also practiced understanding and answering questions. Notice that the answers to these questions would use the expressive targets.
Q: WHO? A: N-V-N Q: WHERE? A: N-prep-N
Vocabulary Targets
Not all vocabulary practice is boring! Our kids need to know the names of popular (and literary Halloween characters.) So my students were instructed that their 3-monster mobile should include at least two of the following:
a GHOST FRANKENSTEIN a JACK-O-LANTERN
The Experience in Future Tense
These photos are PowerPoint slides used to practice future tense (with a high level of teacher support) on the day prior to the experience (making the project). If your students aren’t ready to consider past-present-future, then skip this part of the lesson.
The Heart of the Experience: The Story Book
These photos show a classroom version of the Experience Story Book. The Cover would highlight a photo of the class, each student holding his/her Monster Mobile and each student’s ‘signature’ on the by-lines.
Each page features
- a photo taken during the Experience or an illustration of that moment( represented by the box)
- text that includes a language or vocabulary target