Turkey loves nothing better than a good trick…except maybe a good disguise. So for Valentine’s Day, he decides to secretly deliver a card to each of his friends. But when he dresses up as a cat to deliver the purr-fect valentine, he’s quickly found out. It turns out that outsmarting his pals is harder than he thought. Luckily, Turkey has more silly surprises in store.
This cute pun-filled Valentine’s Day book can be used in speech therapy to address vocabulary and social/emotional issues like giving compliments and things not always going our way. It is also great for sequencing and for targeting linguistic verbs as well as for a variety of speech sounds! Discover more of the speech and language teaching concepts for using Turkey’s Valentine Surprise in speech therapy below:
Frequent Speech Sounds:
/t/ initial
/v/ initial
/d/ initial
/g/ initial
/s/ initial
/k/ initial and medial
/f/ initial
/l/ initial and medial
/kr/ medial
/sg/ medial
/er/ medial
/st/ medial
/z/ medial and final
Themes:
Valentine’s Day
Book Details:
Turkey’s Valentine Surprise
Key Teaching Concepts
complete episode
vocabulary
sequencing
predicting
verbs (linguistic)
verbs (mental)
illustration study
figurative language
text features
repetitive text
social/emotional
order of disguises Turkey tries
order of cards delivered to each friend
disguise, exchange, delight, admirer, mutt, wattle, crept, scoured, clever, feline, hustled, determined
Turkey was upset each time his attempts were unsuccessful. His friends still loved his valentines. They all gave him compliments. Turkey also took some time for himself and tried to distract himself from disappointment.
puns (you are like no otter, otter-ly, purr-fest, feline, toad-ally, I’m talon you, love you to pizzas)
idiom (shake your tail feathers)
verbs (linguistic)
verbs (mental)
compare/contrast Turkey’s costume to real animal
large, bold text for emphasis
words written on valentines
elongated vowels for emphasis
ellipses
dashes
dialogue
repetitive text
What did each character think about Turkey’s disguise and him wanting it to be a surprise?
Notice the cow’s body language.
Notice how they are looking at Turkey at the party.
What do you think Turkey will dress up as?
How do you think he will dress up like each animal?
What do you think each animal will say when they read their card?
What do you think his last idea will be?
If you are interested in using Turkey’s Valentine Surprise and other Valentine’s Day- themed books in speech therapy, then check out these print-&-go cheat sheets. Perfect for when you don’t need a full book companion.
If you are interested in seeing other Valentine’s Day books to use in therapy, then check out the Seasonal Teaching Points Book List for a printable copy.