A fun idea to teach speech marks

On a recent trip to IKEA to source resources for Positive Eye, I spotted this fun speech bubble which is sold as a notice board. I thought it would make a fun backdrop for teaching speechmarks and secondly it may make a fun resource for working on the emotion conveyed through voice tone. Also speech bubbles are a visual feature of many books, they are an abstract concept.  This bright green speech bubble brings it into the concrete understanding! You could also make a large speech bubble out of thick card.

Here are my ideas for its use.

Speechmark activities

I first stuck some strips of Velcro to the speech bubble to make a base for the activities. 

Suggestion 1:

Cut out some speech bubbles in card and add velcro to the back. Add to the speech bubble base. 

On the speech bubbles write sentences, e.g. “I love chocolate,” “I really like  watching the ‘Modern Family’ because it is so funny.”  Sentences can be written in braille and print, depending on the needs to the student.

“I hate doing the washing up,” “I don’t want to do my homework.” Place them on the speech bubble base one at a time.

Next: On strips of paper print some different voice tones, e.g. “Say in grumpy voice”, “Say in excited voice”. “Say in enthusiastic voice”.

Child picks a voice tone card and reads the sentence from the speech bubble in that voice! Discussion could follow as to the voice tone that might actually be used to say each sentence, and the likely  facial expression and body language of the person whilst speaking. 

Suggestion 2

Write sentences on card speech bubbles, cut out and have ready to velcro onto the base speech bubble. This time don’t include speech marks. Child to add cut out speech marks where they should be placed, or write them on in black pen. Child to then say sentence out loud. 

There are more ideas for resources at https://www.positiveeye.co.uk/