Decibella and her 6-inch Voice ( Books Teachers Love )

Welcome back for the second month of Books Bloggers Love! We are a group of 12 teacher bloggers who love books and want to share our love { and resources } with you each month. The best part?! Each month, you will have a chance to win 4 of the 12 books we blogged about!

One great thing about the huge online teacher community is how many amazing people I've met. If it weren't for a group of special education teachers, I never would have found this book to use with my little friends.

Decibella and Her 6-Inch Voice is the story of a girl, Decibella, who likes to shout out her feelings and thoughts.

Throughout the story, Decibella learns about the "5 volumes" and how to use the different voices in different situations. It's a great story to use when teaching about social emotional situations, especially to our friends with special needs!

Julia Cook is a great author whose books work to "actively involve people into her fun and creative stories and teach them to become life-long problem solvers." If you're in need of social stories for your general ed or special needs classroom, you'll want to take a look at her books! You probably already know a few titles too. :)

Social stories are something that my classroom library lacked last school year. I actually just purchased this book to use during the first month of school, so I'm going to share with you how I'm going to use it with my friends.

After we read the book together as a class, we complete the following activities:

The first thing we will do is talk about Our Voice and use the Voice Chart to discuss when certain situations allow for our vocal volume to change. The kids will be able to cut and paste the different levels of their voice, along with matching pictures. For my higher level students, I will let them write the levels in the boxes and draw their own picture to match the different levels.

After we talk about Our Voice and its volume levels, we will use the clip cards to choose which vocal level is appropriate for the situation / picture shown. For my students with fine motor skill deficits, they will use clothespins to choose the appropriate volume.

Some of my other students will use dry erase markers and circle the appropriate volume of voice. Laminating these cards will really help with this!

Next, we will start sorting situations based on the Level of My Voice. This one is great because there is a version A and a version B, and I plan on laminating them and adding Velcro so we can use them all year. You never know when you'll need to pull the book back out again!

This is one of my favorites because it asks the students to brainstorm their own scenarios for using their voice at school, at home, and in the community. It will really get them thinking about their behaviors in the 3 different places... in real life. Even better is that I can send it home and their parents can discuss their choices at home too. We are a team!

This is not necessarily an activity we will do together as whole group. I plan on putting this in a workbox for the students to complete on their own time. I still need to add Velcro to it, that way they can bring the ovals over to me to check without them falling off. :)

Last, but certainly not least, and my most favorite part of this book companion is the craftivity to finish off the lesson. The students will each make their own version of Decibella and then write a promise to control their voice in school. I'll use their finished products to create a bulletin board outside of our classroom.

{ Grab the book companion here }

You can grab the book on Amazon below.

 
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