A Book and a Game a Day Challenge: Printable Cards

Whew! We are finished with our 2020 A Book and a Game a Day Challenge. On January 1st, I wondered if we would make it two weeks. We were able to complete a whole month!

I noticed some really cool things about our family over the course of this challenge. The first is how often my husband, Rich, reads about my AAC work with Nathaniel over social media rather than us talking about it directly. We have eight children, four grandchildren, volunteer work at church, Nathaniel’s medical life, the dog, the garbage man who didn’t come today, and more to talk about. Despite the fact that we really value working on communication with Nathaniel, talking about that AAC work often doesn’t make the cut when we are trying to squeeze in the last “Oh, did I tell you….” before day’s end. We have the same issue with the skills we are working on with other therapies. Nathaniel’s PT will often ask me how much support he needs for X activity or how he’s doing with ___ at home. I don’t know! Rich is the one that tends to work on physical therapy goals. Updating me on the progress he sees is something we don’t talk about regularly. The insight here is that families, even those with one parent is giving his or her full attention to the child’s education and needs, are busy.

We gained another insight in noting what Rich did with the information he found through my social media posts. Towards the end of the second week, I overheard him modeling some core vocabulary while reading a bedtime story. Just before starting to read, he had looked back at Facebook and a recent post I made. He picked two of the words in the list and modeled them as he read. By making the information about modeling simple and accessible, he was able to jump in. When the information crossed his daily life path, modeling did as well. By the end of the third week, he was putting some of our book and game combos together or suggesting different words than I found in a book. We wouldn’t have been consistent over the month without his involvement.

We did talk about what was likely to happen when the month ended. Unless the book and game combos and their respective core word lists were visible reguarly, the moments of connecting and language modeling would likely end. The social media posts would be buried in a newsfeed. The photos and graphics would be buried in my phone and computer. We decided to print the little cards I made daily. We will use the cards to put games, books, modeling, and connection into the path of life. Every night before bed this last month, I selected the book and game for the next day and put them on the dining room table. If Nathaniel and I didn’t get to them in the course of our homeschool day, we did them after dinner. These printed cards will make it super easy to continue the same practice. The hard work of paring the combos and selecting words is done. We don’t want that work to be hidden away in the digital or cyber worlds and forgotten.

I think these cards are really going to help us. They are very custom to us. They use the games and books we have. I highly doubt anyone’s game closet or bookshelf looks exactly like ours. But I want to make the cards available here so that if you have even one of the combos, you can keep a suggested list of core AAC words to model with your book or game.

I changed the cards slightly from the online versions. The text is now in black to make it more legible in print version. Each card also has the name of the game and book title directly on the card.

Index to all the games and books mentioned on the cards can be found here.

Start with the document above. Look for games or books you already own. Then head over to my member area to print your cards. Because it represents a significant amount of time and work, I am unable to make this resource free. The member area is a growing collection of resources and includes access to my five video series called GrAACe Filled AAC at home.

Thanks for following along with our month of reading, playing and modeling! If you have game or books that your family enjoys pairing together, please comment below. Also, As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.