“Thanksgiving Cats” Speech & Language Extension Activities

If you have a preschooler at home, I love reading “Thanksgiving Cats” by Jean Marzollo at home. The book includes a fun description of a family of cats preparing for a Thanksgiving meal. “Thanksgiving Cats” has wonderful pictures for descriptive language, vocabulary, and answering recall questions. It’s also easy to work on speech sounds while reading aloud.

There are many lessons that can be built off of this book. Below are some ideas:

• Learn about Thanksgiving - Explore the history of the holiday. This is a great opportunity to build vocabulary, make inferences, and answer questions.
  

• Build vocabulary by naming and describing new foods.
  

• Make a craft - Focus on following 1-2 step directions and prepositions while crafting
  

• Practice Sequencing and Story Retell - Use a graphic organizer and/or picture cards to help your child sequence and retell the story’s events.
  

• Adjectives & Attributes - There are many opportunities to practice using descriptive language while looking at the pictures.
  

• Practice Speech Sounds during Reading Aloud - Model these sounds for your child, and then have the child say the words back
  

Readers: Have you tried any storybook extension activities at home?

About the Author: Melissa Goff, M.S, CCC-SLP, is the owner of Sunflower Speech & Myo Therapy, PLLC, in Charlotte, NC.