SeaMantics: Thinking Activities for Semantic Development (2005). By Elaine Krassowski. Thinking Publications, 424 Galloway Street, Eau Claire, WI 54703. $40.00. Reviewed by Cathy L. Burrow, Cheverly, Maryland.
This product is designed for children in grades 1 - 5. The overview of this kit describes SeaMantics as "a collection of activities, which uses an ocean theme, designed to improve children's semantic representations and strengthen their semantic networks". This product does live up to its description. The content of SeaMantics comes in a sturdy blue container. The kit contains a user's manual, 1 die, 4 full-color ocean scenes, and five separate card decks.
Card Deck 1 (pink) - This is the Naming & Categorizing deck. Its purpose is to give a child practice with grouping and categorizing words.
Card Deck 2 (blue) - This is the Word Associations deck. Its purpose is to give a child practice in identifying the features that characterize words as well as explaining how words relate to one another.
Card Deck 3 (green) - This is the Compare-Contrast deck. Its purpose is to give a child practice in comparing and contrasting how various objects are the same or different.
Card Deck 4 (yellow) - This is the Verbal Reasoning deck. Its purpose is to give a child practice in solving and explaining analogies as well as riddles.
Card Deck 5 (white) - Treasure Chest Game Cards - These cards are used specifically with one particular game in the kit.
The SeaMantics kit is a versatile instrument which includes clearly written directions and a variety of fun game ideas to help children improve targeted areas such as word knowledge, verbal reasoning, etc. The appendix includes many reproducible graphic organizers, charts and picture cards. One of the primary strengths of SeaMantics is that regardless of a child's level of functioning, an experienced therapist can adapt it to fit the needs of an individual child as well as groups of children. I could not find an explanation of the purpose for the Treasure Chest Game cards and their inclusion in the kit almost appears to be a form of "overkill". However, overall this is a useful instrument and I would recommend its purchase and use.