To continue my Vehicle Theme in speech therapy this month I read the book “Toot Toot Beep Beep” by Emma Garcia and made puff paint cars with my students. “Toot Toot Beep Beep” is another one of my favorite books and I always have fun when I use this book in therapy.  It’s great because it is a simple book.  Each car is a different color and makes a different sound.  I printed out and laminated small color pictures for each car so the students can match the correct color with the car in the book while we read the book.  I added soft Velcro to the back of the color pictures and a piece of hard Velcro on all seven different cars in the book.

Toot Toot Cover

The first couple pages have great car pictures and we count all the cars and name the colors of the cars.  On the page which reads “the cars go up and down, in and out, and round and round, all day long”.  The students and I pair hand gestures with the page.  So we reach our hand up and then down, we put them in and out, and them move our hand around and around as I read that page.  The movement paired with the language is great for the students.  The students can all complete the movements and for the verbal students they can try and say some of those words as they make the movements.

When I read the book I make different hand gestures and car noise for each page.  I try to be really animated and excited so the students will imitate my actions.  I even had my non-verbal students making some noise to pair with the book which was amazing.  For example, “beep, beep goes the little red jeep”.  I push my hand like I’m honking a horn and say “beep, beep” for the red jeep.  Then I have the student find the red picture and attach it to the book.  I change the view field of colors depending on the student.  For some of my low students I just give them the red picture, say red, and have them place it on the red jeep.  For other students I might show them a variety of colors and have them select the red card and say “red jeep” as they place the red picture on the jeep.

I continue to do this for each page.  There are seven different color cars and they all make sounds.

After we finished the book I had the students make my go to puff paint out of glue, shaving cream, and food coloring to make cars.  I like making this puff paint glue because it is easy and a great craft to work on following directions, sequencing, modeling action verbs, and turn-taking with peers. To make the paint you need glue, shaving cream, and food color.  I just make small amounts of paint with each group so the students all get to help pour, mix, and pick different colors.

Car Craft Material

I set up the activity by lining up the 3 ingredients and modeling the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd concepts…1st -glue, 2nd-shaving cream, and 3rd-food coloring.  I have the kids help me by saying “Ready….Set….Pour!” for the glue as we pour it on a paper plate.  Then the kids take turns shaking the shaving cream before we add it to the mix….”shake, shake, shake“.  After you add the shaving cream and glue have the kids pick a color and add a few drops of food coloring to the mixture.

We pass the mixture around and take turns stirring the mixture…”stir, stir, stir“.  I also model “around and around”.

Then have each student request a paper plate which has been cut in half to make the car.  Have the students paint on the half paper plate.  They can work on requesting “more paint” each time they need to add more.

I also used this activity to model different shape concepts which is why I used a square for the front window, rectangle for the back window, circles for the wheels, and half circle for the head lights.

The students were so proud of their cars!