No Plan Articulation Activity: Hot & Cold

I haven't updated in a while (completely swamped with triennial and initial evaluations!). If your life is any bit like mine, it is unlikely that there is much time for planning a therapy session (not that there is a lot of time for that anyway). I know that my articulation students are tired of mindless drill, so I thought I should give a brief update with a quick, cheap, easy, and functional therapy activity that my mentor showed me during my school-based internship. All you need for this game is a deck of Super Duper articulation cards (or any other deck that has the cards in pairs). First, separate the deck so that you end up with two identical decks. 

Make sure there is one of each card in each deck.

Next, take one of the decks and line up the cards in your therapy area, so that they are arranged in a rectangle. The order of the cards does not matter.

Set up the cards like this.

You are the "keeper" of the second card deck. To begin the game, shuffle the cards and look at the card on the top. Make sure your students can't see it! Only you know what the picture on the top card is. 

Only you get to know the secret picture.

On their turn, students have to guess the secret picture by figuring out its surrounding pictures. So they ask questions like, "Is the word around a ___?" I purposely used this carrier phrase for my /r/ group, but you can modify it to suit your needs. You will then say "hot" or cold" depending on whether the secret card is surrounding the card they guessed. So for example, if the target word is "four" and students ask, "Is the word around a bear?", you would say "Hot". Students then keep asking until they have enough clues to guess what the word is.

The Four is surrounding the Bear.

This activity takes no prep -- the hardest part is separating the card decks and spreading them out. And kids think they're playing a game. Does it get any easier?

~Viola