Simply Speech organized a sale and I'm joining in! Head over to my TPT store and pick your favorites now! Save 20% on the 2nd and 3rd of January!
A school based SLP navigating the muddy waters of low budgets, high numbers and a wide variety of student needs. These are some of my therapy ideas, tricks, tips and activities!
Saturday, December 29, 2012
New Year! New Materials!
Simply Speech organized a sale and I'm joining in! Head over to my TPT store and pick your favorites now! Save 20% on the 2nd and 3rd of January!
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Cariboo Cards!
The cards are designed to fit the game perfectly so you don't have to do any laminating. Just print on cardstock and cut out and you're ready to play! Because Cariboo is played with a key and kids don't handle the cards the game doesn't really need to be laminated.
I have made both a Language set for Cariboo and an Articulation set.
Cariboo for Language!
Cariboo for Language has two versions - Categories and Action verbs and both games have several ways to play.
Check out Cariboo for Language in my TPT Store!
Ways to play categories:
Describing – students need to describe the item before they
can open a door
Category naming – students need to name the category the
item goes to before they can open a door (some categories can be divided into
smaller categories – ie: fruits/vegetables from food
Category matching – shuffle extra cards and students match
the card they draw to a door from a matching category and label one way they
are alike.
Naming Items in Categories:
Students draw one of the cards with the category labels on them, they
need to match the category with an item in it.
For a challenge – what else can they name?
- Vocabulary Building
- Is/are verbing
- Regular and Irregular past tense verb practice (contains a mix but more than 15 of each to fill up the entire Cariboo board)
- He/She/They Practice
Check out Cariboo for Language in my TPT Store!
I also made Cariboo for Articulation which is divided into two sets available for purchase on TPT.
The Early Sounds set contains the sounds: P, B, M, N, -NG, T, D, G, K, F, V and L plus 2 pages of L blends.
All sounds have 15 cards of each word position.
Check out the early sounds set on TPT!
The Late Sounds set contains the sounds: S, Z, R, TH, SH, CH and J as well as 3 pages of S-blends, 1 page of Z-blends, 2 pages of R blends and 8 pages of vocalic R sounds.
All sounds (except TH) have 15 cards (a full Cariboo game) of each sound in each word position. TH sounds have 15 cards of voiced TH sounds and 15 cards of voiceless TH sounds across all three word positions.
Grab the late sounds set in my TPT store.
Make sure you check out all of these items in my TPT store.
I put 3 pages of the D sounds up as a Freebie on TPT so you can check out the cards!
Grab the D Freebie here!
So now the big question - What other goals do you want to work on while playing Cariboo?
Monday, December 10, 2012
My First Giveaway!
Giveaway is over!
Congratulations to:
Shannon G with a copy of my Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms monsters and
Amy C with a copy of Robot inferences!
All items are still available for purchase in my TPT store.
I've decided to hold a giveaway for the items in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Comment below with your email and the product you want for a chance to win! I'll randomly choose two winners and send you the PDF of the product of your choice! If I get more than 50 comments I'll choose three winners!
Now all you have to do is think about what you want most!
Asking Questions Monsters is an activity working on asking questions, answering questions and using following questions in conversation!
Past Tense Owls is one of my past tense decks using higher level vocabulary.
Past Tense Robots is another of my past tense decks using higher level vocabulary and has 100% different vocabulary than the owls deck.
My third past tense deck has animals! (Can anyone tell what I've been working on this year?) Check out my Past Tense Animals here.
I love my Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms Monsters!
If you're working on inferences check out my Robots Inferences Cards.
This giveaway ends on Sunday December 16th! So comment below to enter. Make sure to include your email and the product you're hoping to win in your comment. I'm planning on choosing two winners. If I get more than 50 comments I'll choose three winners.
Congratulations to:
Shannon G with a copy of my Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms monsters and
Amy C with a copy of Robot inferences!
All items are still available for purchase in my TPT store.
I've decided to hold a giveaway for the items in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Comment below with your email and the product you want for a chance to win! I'll randomly choose two winners and send you the PDF of the product of your choice! If I get more than 50 comments I'll choose three winners!
Now all you have to do is think about what you want most!
Asking Questions Monsters is an activity working on asking questions, answering questions and using following questions in conversation!
Past Tense Owls is one of my past tense decks using higher level vocabulary.
Past Tense Robots is another of my past tense decks using higher level vocabulary and has 100% different vocabulary than the owls deck.
My third past tense deck has animals! (Can anyone tell what I've been working on this year?) Check out my Past Tense Animals here.
I love my Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms Monsters!
If you're working on inferences check out my Robots Inferences Cards.
This giveaway ends on Sunday December 16th! So comment below to enter. Make sure to include your email and the product you're hoping to win in your comment. I'm planning on choosing two winners. If I get more than 50 comments I'll choose three winners.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Higher Level Regular Past Tense Verbs
One thing I'm always worried about when planning therapy is making sure that I'm using a wide variety of stimulus materials. I don't want my students to learn grammatical rules in a limited situation, or to apply them to a limited number of words. Part of this is really varying that number words that I'm using in therapy. Most of the past tense verbs activities use, and reuse the same, simple past tense verbs again and again. I started thinking about using past tense verbs as a vocabulary building activity. The higher level vocabulary increases the number of verbs I'm presenting to kids to conjugate and makes the words more appropriate to the older students on my caseload.
I started writing words down and ended up with so many I made two separate activities. The two different activities have completely different words! I wanted to make two activities so I could vary the activity a little for my students. When we get tired of robots we can move to the owls and vice versa.
Past Tense Robots
The first activity is the Regular Past Tense Robots card deck. It's available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
The robots activity is divided into three levels and is 18 pages long.
Level One has students working at the word level. 48 verb cards are provided with 16 verbs with a D voiced -ed ending, 16 with a T voiced -ed ending and 16 with a ED voiced -ed ending.
Students draw cards and changed the words to past tense verbs. This is the time I discuss any unfamiliar vocabulary words.
I've also included a mat to show the spelling for the ending and the three different kinds of voicing. I've found that this helps some, not all, of my students learn the voicing rules for past tense verbs. Students can sort the robot cards by what kind of sound the -ed makes.
Level Two has students work in sentences. Sentences are provided on the robot cards with the target verb underneath in red. Students need to change the verb and put it in the sentence.
Level Three requires students to make their own sentences using the target verbs and uses the same cards from level one.
Game Cards are also included. Students can draw robots from the deck and collect them. If they get a "gears are stuck" card they must put one robot back.
Grab the Past Tense Robots in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Past Tense Owls
My second past tense activity is my Past Tense Owls. This card deck contains 48 verbs that are completely unique from the robot deck and also have 16 verbs with each voicing of the -ed ending. The structure of the activity is the same as my Robots one.
The owl activity is divided into three levels and is 18 pages long.
Grab the Owl Verbs activity in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Level One has students working at the word level. Students draw cards and changed the words to past tense verbs. This is the time I discuss any unfamiliar vocabulary words.
I've also included an Owl mat to show the spelling for the ending and the three different kinds of voicing. I've found that this helps some, not all, of my students learn the voicing rules for past tense verbs. Students can sort the owl cards by what kind of sound the -ed makes.
Level Two has students work in sentences. Sentences are provided on the owl cards with the target verb underneath in red. Students need to change the verb and put it in the sentence.
Level Three requires students to make their own sentences using the target verbs and uses the same cards from level one.
Game Cards are also included. Students play by attempting to collect as many owls as possible. Cards with two owls are worth two points. Special cards have sleeping owls and suns on them. If students draw a sleeping owl one of their owls fell asleep and they lose one owl. If they draw a sun card, all of their owls were caught out in the sun and they lose all of their owls.
Grab the owl activity her in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
I started writing words down and ended up with so many I made two separate activities. The two different activities have completely different words! I wanted to make two activities so I could vary the activity a little for my students. When we get tired of robots we can move to the owls and vice versa.
Past Tense Robots
The first activity is the Regular Past Tense Robots card deck. It's available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Level One has students working at the word level. 48 verb cards are provided with 16 verbs with a D voiced -ed ending, 16 with a T voiced -ed ending and 16 with a ED voiced -ed ending.
Students draw cards and changed the words to past tense verbs. This is the time I discuss any unfamiliar vocabulary words.
I've also included a mat to show the spelling for the ending and the three different kinds of voicing. I've found that this helps some, not all, of my students learn the voicing rules for past tense verbs. Students can sort the robot cards by what kind of sound the -ed makes.
Level Two has students work in sentences. Sentences are provided on the robot cards with the target verb underneath in red. Students need to change the verb and put it in the sentence.
Level Three requires students to make their own sentences using the target verbs and uses the same cards from level one.
Game Cards are also included. Students can draw robots from the deck and collect them. If they get a "gears are stuck" card they must put one robot back.
Grab the Past Tense Robots in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Past Tense Owls
My second past tense activity is my Past Tense Owls. This card deck contains 48 verbs that are completely unique from the robot deck and also have 16 verbs with each voicing of the -ed ending. The structure of the activity is the same as my Robots one.
The owl activity is divided into three levels and is 18 pages long.
Grab the Owl Verbs activity in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
I've also included an Owl mat to show the spelling for the ending and the three different kinds of voicing. I've found that this helps some, not all, of my students learn the voicing rules for past tense verbs. Students can sort the owl cards by what kind of sound the -ed makes.
Level Two has students work in sentences. Sentences are provided on the owl cards with the target verb underneath in red. Students need to change the verb and put it in the sentence.
Level Three requires students to make their own sentences using the target verbs and uses the same cards from level one.
Game Cards are also included. Students play by attempting to collect as many owls as possible. Cards with two owls are worth two points. Special cards have sleeping owls and suns on them. If students draw a sleeping owl one of their owls fell asleep and they lose one owl. If they draw a sun card, all of their owls were caught out in the sun and they lose all of their owls.
Grab the owl activity her in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms
My synonyms, antonyms and homonyms packet grew and grew as I worked on it. I ended up with a massive 80 page document that should keep my students and me occupied for some time.
Grab it in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
2 levels of Synonyms
- 27 synonyms at each level
3 Levels of Antonyms
- 27 Antonyms at each level.
3 Levels of Homonyms
- Level one has two groups of 21 pairs.
- Level two has 12 sets of triplet homonyms
I edited the original download to include a "monster cheat sheet" to show which monster is pictured at which level. Each level has a single monster picture on the card to prevent mixing of the different levels, or to allow for re-sorting when we mix them on purpose.
Synonyms
The Synonyms have two levels. They are loosely divided by the vocabulary level of the words included. Each level has a total of 27 word pairs on 54 cards.Synonyms Level One |
Synonyms Level Two |
Antonyms
Antonyms are divided into three levels loosely by vocabulary level. Each level has 27 word pairs on 54 cards.Antonyms Level One |
Antonyms Level Two |
Antonyms Level Three |
Homonyms
Homonyms are divided two levels. Level one has two levels of double homonyms with 21 word pairs on 42 cards and sentence strips. Level two has 12 triplet homonyms on 36 cards and included sentence strips. Homonyms were not divided according to vocabulary level.Homonyms Level One, group one pictures |
Homonyms Level One, group one sentence |
Homonyms Level One, group two pictures |
Homonyms Level One, group two sentences |
Homonyms Level Two, pictures and sentences |
I put a lot of time and work into this one, so I hope you all like it as much as I do!
Grab the Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms packet in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store!
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Robot Inference Cards
One thing I always need more of is simple inference activities. Many of my students have a lot of difficulty making inferences, and this has been highlighted by our new school wide reading assessments. I have many inference activities, but wanted to make another one because I don't want my students to simply memorize the inferences on the cards I have, but I want them to work on making connections.
This need was highlighted after an inference-making therapy session with one of my students the week before Thanksgiving. After our fourth consecutive session on inferences, we're talking about the holiday. She mentions that her favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the mashed potatoes. I state that I too love mashed potatoes, but am sad, and using a sad voice say "Guess what my mom's not making this year." She excitedly says "What?" *facepalm* We really do need more practice and work on making inferences, and to do that we also need more things to practice with.
I was already working on this activity, but this moment, really stands out in my mind as the reason I hurried to finished it.
This activity is available for purchase in my teachers pay teacher store in my teachers pay teachers store.
Each card has a short 1-2 sentence story and a basic inference question about the story.
While playing the game, students draw a card and collect robots. If they get a gears are stuck card, they have to put one of the robots back. The student with the most robots at the end wins the game!
Available for purchase in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
This need was highlighted after an inference-making therapy session with one of my students the week before Thanksgiving. After our fourth consecutive session on inferences, we're talking about the holiday. She mentions that her favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the mashed potatoes. I state that I too love mashed potatoes, but am sad, and using a sad voice say "Guess what my mom's not making this year." She excitedly says "What?" *facepalm* We really do need more practice and work on making inferences, and to do that we also need more things to practice with.
I was already working on this activity, but this moment, really stands out in my mind as the reason I hurried to finished it.
This activity is available for purchase in my teachers pay teacher store in my teachers pay teachers store.
Each card has a short 1-2 sentence story and a basic inference question about the story.
While playing the game, students draw a card and collect robots. If they get a gears are stuck card, they have to put one of the robots back. The student with the most robots at the end wins the game!
Available for purchase in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
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!
What do you do to keep your card deck activities fresh?
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?
Sunday, November 25, 2012
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.
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.
Friday, November 23, 2012
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!
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.
Four of the Eight cookies are pictured |
Grab the Google Doc Here.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
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.
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.
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....
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.
These of course are all still full of Kleenex. I never thought I'd hope for some seriously runny noses! |
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.