My love of stationery stems back to my childhood. I would covet a new set of erasers or pencils, leaving them pristine in my drawer, waiting for the right time to use them.
Now that I am older I still love stationery and love walking through stationery stores. The array of sticky notes and tabs seems endless. So it is no surprise that I possess an impressive collection. I started using sticky notes in therapy a few years ago and found them to be an inexpensive, fun visual way to support my therapy goals.
So what Sticky Notes do I use in Therapy?
Of course my first love is the speech and thinking bubble. A fantastic way to build understanding. Sometimes I write while other times I draw. I use these with books and videos and while playing social thinking games. They are a great way to help kids understand the abstract concept of what people are thinking. Talking bubbles are great for predicting what a character is going to say. They are also great to laying out the turn taking which occurs in a conversation.
Next is the hand. A great way to count down the five clues or reasons while playing a guessing game or five quick repetitions for articulation. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it is way cooler than my own hand. I have recently coupled the hand with character stickies to ‘assign’ points when completing tasks. Another hand theme is the thumbs up, thumb down. I use these for commenting on good and bad points. In social thinking groups, students use them to indicate when comments are changed from bad to good comments, or to give feedback about social skills when reviewing videos. I also have some pointing fingers which are great for highlighting a start point for homework tasks.
On eBay I found cute mama and babe animals. I use these for following instructions. They are easy to stick to objects when demonstrating prepositions. The difference in size and types of animal enables me to increase the key words in instructions. They are also great as characters in narratives or as participants in articulation games.
My favourite activity when working on conjunctions was initially presented with leaves. So when I found a leaf sticky note I was sold. The leaves are great because they can be moved around to demonstrate how the sentence changes when the conjunction is moved. I most often write conjunctions on the leaves but also use them for writing phrases. Stickies provide maximum flexibility when working with conjunctions.
Who doesn’t love a moustache? These are great for “who am I” (head bandz) guessing game. To be honest some of my four-year-olds love them much more than a sticker. I often have moustached little men leaving my clinic room at the end of their sessions. So much fun!
And finally my new discovery – Little people. So far I have used these as finger puppets. They are great for impromptu narratives with quick character changes. The little feeling puppets are also great when working on emotions.
Having just been distracted by eBay, I have another lot of stickies heading my way. Maybe a Stickies part two later in the year?
What are your favourite uses for sticky notes?
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