So, I have all the cards, and I have a way of organizing and storing the cards.. Now what? How do I USE all those cards?  Of course, everyone’s caseloads are comprised of different needs, but here’s a few ways I use Cariboo:<\/p>\n

 *Listening for Details\/Basic Inferences: <\/b>I describe a picture on one of the boxes, and they guess which one I’m talking about– When they find the correct one, they open the box to see if a ball is underneath.<\/p>\n

 *WH Questions: <\/b>This ties in to the basic inferences– after they name the item, often times, I’ll ask them a question about it to get in some extra practice with WH questions– something almost all my students need! I like to use Cariboo to work on story comprehension questions, as well. I’ll have pictures of items or characters from the story and they use those pictures to help answer my questions about the story.  Cariboo makes it SO easy to incorporate those much-needed visuals for my students!<\/p>\n

 *Describing:<\/b> I have worked on some early, simple describing with some of the older preschool students (going to kindergarten) in mixed groups with peer models within the classroom. One of the students describes a picture to their peers, and the peer whose turn it is has to find the correct picture and then open that box.<\/p>\n

*Concepts<\/b>:  I’ve made a couple Cariboo sets depicting basic concepts (ie find the snowman with a tall hat, find the boy standing in front of the tree, behind the tree, etc..), but you could also work on top\/middle\/bottom with any pictures.  For example, if you had the dinosaur set on there, you could “Pick a dinosaur in the top row” or talk about what’s on top vs under the door– Are the pictures on top of the door or under the door? Are the balls hiding on top of the door or under\/below the door?  Was there a ball under there or was it empty?<\/p>\n

 *Vocabulary: <\/b>As I said earlier in the post, I swap out pictures almost every week to go along with our theme. Cariboo makes it super easy to work on picture naming skills (which, again, many of my students struggle with!) and to do rechecks of themed vocabulary words.<\/p>\n

If I were to be told I could only use ONE therapy tool for the rest of my career, it would be Cariboo.  The kids never get tired of it, and as you can see, I can target a variety of different goals with just this one game!  Do you use Cariboo in any ways I haven’t listed here? Tell me your ideas!<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/b>: An expansion pack has now been created to target additional vocabulary, including pronouns and verbs<\/p>\n