Therapy Cards Activity

I can't take the credit for the original idea to laminate the library pocket cards and put magnets on the back - that comes from Speechroomnews but, I did modify it to suit the needs of my own speech room.  I did envision putting all the pockets on my board and having all of my kids screaming "bazinga" (I'm far too big of a Big Bang Theory fan not too...).  Unfortunately, I live in a state of organized chaos and have far too much stuff living under the white board for it to be a practical activity.

I use pockets and put them on a small whiteboard on my table.  I put therapy cards in the pockets and the students select the cards from the pockets instead of just picking the top card from the deck.  This is a great activity to use when using therapy decks with "gotcha" cards.  Kids feel they have more control over their pick for getting an extra turn or putting some or all of their cards back.  I've been using this for a few weeks and my students are really excited when they see this on my table. 

Pocket Assembly:
I purchased the library pockets and magnets at Joann Fabrics (don't forget your 40% off coupons!, print them from the weekly email or download the app on your phone).  Laminate the pockets and open back up with the edge of a scissors.  Put magnet strips on the back and you're ready to go!

A quick peek into my speech room space (the below the board area is blocked by the table) but you can get the idea of my organizational skills and a semi-desperate attempt to collect homework!

What do you do to keep your card deck activities fresh?

Past Tense Verbs - Launch of my TPT

I'm going to start with the second part of the title.  After a lot thinking, I've finally decided to do it and start a TPT store.  I've had A TON of materials sitting on my computer half done for over a month because I've been really unsure of what to do about clip art.  If it were just in my speech room, I wouldn't be as worried about copyright issues, but putting them up for download by others on the internet is a different story.  Push has come to shove and I need to make a decision.  I know what I have and *I* want to finish use it, and I hope you all do too.  Based on that, I've decided to start buying clip art.  Mainly because of the expense of this, I'll be offering some of my materials for sale on TPT.

I rushed to get a lot of things done for the Cyber Monday sale so make sure you check them out in my new TPT store.   I'm planning on more detailed blog posts for them at a later date so stay tuned, but I wanted you to have a chance to get them at the sale prices.

Here is the first one!

Animals Regular Past Tense Verbs!

48 verbs in three levels of play representing all three pronunciations of the -ed ending.

Level One: Students work at the word level and conjugate singe words from present into past tense.

 Level Two:  Students change present tense verbs into past tense verbs in given sentences.

 Level Three: Students create their own sentences with given words. (using the same cards as level one).

Cute animal pictures are on the verb cards.  During the game students collect animals to fill their zoo.  If they get a Lightning card, one of their animals escaped and they must give one back.  The person with the most animals at the end of the game wins!

These cards are available for Purchase in my new Teachers Pay Teachers store!

Check out the Animals Past Tense Verbs activity on TPT.

Check out all of my TPT items here.

Cookies For Santa

An update on the cute Kleenex boxes!  I've been thinking that my students will not be happy just giving any object to Santa.  So bring on the cookies!

Four of the Eight cookies are pictured

Found extremely cute clip art cookies.  Printing and laminating the cookies will allow my kids to giggle over the Santa box 'eating' the cookies.  Then we can start hiding the cookies and working on the concept "under" during the activity.

Grab the Google Doc Here.

Oh for the Love of Target Brand Kleenex Boxes!

I have been using Kleenex boxes frequently in following directions activities this fall.  I've been thinking about doing a post on this but hesitated becuase most of my boxes were purchased months ago.  I almost did since there are many things about decorating Kleenex boxes on Pinterest, but my latest find takes away all denial for the need for this post!   Yesterday I was in target and found the holiday edition to my following directions activities, and conclusive proof Target is continuing to provide us Kleenex boxes for speech therapy.

These of course are all still full of Kleenex.  I never thought I'd hope for some seriously runny noses!

 I have been using a group of four farm animal boxes that I picked up last spring.  I have a cow, pig, chick and sheep.  This fall I added an owl, so cute animal boxes seem to be a theme at Target.

I couldn't quite get all four boxes in a picture without major florescent bulb glare in the speech room, but you can see how cute they are!

Even the butts are cute.

My kids were excited to see a new edition to our animal family at the end of October.

Alright, alright.  You didn't come here to see cartoon animal butts, cute as they may be.  So on to the therapy we go.

I use these animals for basic following directions tasks.  I have most frequently been using my Attribute Apples set as my objects to work with directions.  For some directions it gives the kids the feeling of feeding the animals which they love.  I won the Attribute Apples in a giveaway from Speech Room News over the summer, and I love them.

My kids have been working on 1-2 step directions.   They give a green apple to the pig and a green apple to the sheep or put a wormy apple in front of the owl and a red apple in the cow.  We put apples between animals, behind them, put them on top, put them in, take them out and more.  The attributes of the apples give another optional level to the directions which some of my students really need.  I usually use 2-3 animals at a time and rotate out which ones we're using to vary the task a little.

Overall, the activity is so simple and doesn't take much planning.  I don't have cards on my table and I'm not reading things.  My students really love interacting with the different animals.  The ultimate favorite is "helping" the teacher dump out all the accumulated items inside each box at the end of the session.  I'm feeling a little nervous-excited to see what happens when Santa hits the table!  I probably should start looking for some toy cookies....

 Once you take the plastic out the holes are the perfect size for little hands to reach in and take things out!

One note, is that my students with poor impulse control can be a little rough with the animals.  The poor piggy box has even been spit in.  My school was been out of laminate for a while and just got more this past week.  I bought extra owl boxes to experiment with dissection, lamination, and reassembly.  I'm a little unsure of how I would reattach everything with the plastic - any suggestions?

Also - in shopping for boxes of your one, one thing I noticed in my quest for experimental owls, was that I couldn't find them at the Super Target store near me, and only at the smaller one.  I don't know if it's because they already sold out there, or if they carry them at all since I didn't even see a spot on the shelf.

Speech Reminders

I'm at that point in the year where many of my students are making to to me at the correct times and on time, but many others are not.  Some of my students are having trouble telling time and knowing when to leave their classroom.  I was talking one of my fellow special education teachers today, and she shared a wonderful idea with me to solve the problem.

I created the reminders by making them in Powerpoint.  I found the clocks by searching the times on Google image search.   The clocks that I used were the first or second image that came up.  I then added the text.  I'm really excited to have this help some of my kids and be less disruptive to the rest of their classrooms when getting them to me!