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using Merry Christmas, Splat in speech therapy
Frequent Speech Sounds:

/s/ initial
/spl/

Themes:

Christmas
problem solving
being good

Book Details:
Diverse Characters: N/A
Age Recommendation: Early Childhood, Elementary

Merry Christmas, Splat

By Rob Scotton

It’s the night before Christmas, and Splat wonders if he’s been a good enough cat this year to deserve a really big present. Just to make sure, he offers some last-minute help to his mom, and in typical Splat fashion, he messes up completely! That night Splat stays awake hoping to see Santa Claus. But when Splat misses him, he’s sure his Christmas is ruined along with his hopes for a really big present.

This silly Christmas book can be used in speech therapy to address predicting. It is also great for noticing character expressions and for targeting sequencing, as well as for targeting initial /s/ and /spl/ sounds! Discover more of the speech and language teaching concepts for using Merry Christmas, Splat in speech therapy below: 

Key Teaching Concepts

Narrative Structure:

complex episode

Narrative Concepts:

vocabulary
problem solving
character analysis
sequencing
illustration study
predicting
verbs (regular past tense)
verbs (linguistic)
text features

Sequencing:

order of events Splat takes to show he has been good enough to get a really big present

Vocabulary:

impressed, shrugged, quiver, twitch, plumped, exclaimed, huffed

Character Analysis:

Splat tries hard to make sure he has been good enough but doesn’t realize his help is unwelcomed.

Social/Emotional:

facial expressions
body language

Grammar:

verbs (regular past tense)
verbs (linguistic)

Text Features:

exclamation marks
italics
ellipses
dashes
large font

Inferencing:

What did mom mean when she said “Oh dear”?
How does mom feel about Splat helping?
What does Splat think about all of his “help”?

Predicting:

What do you think Splat will do to help get everything ready for Christmas?
What will Splat tell Santa when he sees him?
What do you think Santa will do with Splat’s letter?
Where do you think Splat’s family is?
What do you think Splat’s really big present is?
What do you think Splat can do next year to show he has been good enough?

Problem Solving:

Splat tries to help out in various ways so that Santa will bring him a really big present.

If you are interested in seeing other Christmas books to use in therapy, then check out the Seasonal Teaching Points Book List for a printable copy.