What I Did Today and Yesterday

I am busy making new things, but I know I like seeing what other bloggers are actually doing in their speech rooms.  I didn't take pictures of all the activities, but will post the few I managed to snap.

Paperwork... I've got 3 IEP meetings tomorrow, so I've been getting my things ready.  I typed IEP meeting notes from two previous IEP meetings.  I completed exit paper work on two students.  I sent home a prior written notice for an initial evaluation for one student, and called another family to start the process.  I sent home an IEP meeting for another intial evaluation.  Then, I worked on writing one of my 6 current evaluations.  I also started organizing my list of progress reports to be completed for report cards at the end of the month.  (This whole paragraph probably seems familiar... and I need more prep time!)

Students!  My students have been doing a lot of books in the past few weeks.  In a previous post I mentioned that my school is trying to read a million books in February.  All the pages we read in speech can count to the total.  This week I'm reading Big Chickens, that I mentioned in a previous post, and Froggy Goes to Hawaii. I love using the Froggy books for social skills, since he is a great example of what not to do and talking about why.  He creates so many problems for us to identify, solve and talk about what he could have done differently.  I'm also reading Fox in Socks to one of my ASD kiddos since he has chosen this has his sole motivator during speech sessions every time I see him.  I'm not what's going to happen first - memorizing the tongue twisters, or my tongue just falling out.  Oh well, the giggles are kind of worth it.

I also did my Camping with Pronouns activity with a few students, and the pronouns section of my Sports Grammar pack with another.  The boy I did the sports ones with seems to be finally accepting the fact that "he" is a legitimate word that exists, and he has to use it, so I'm counting that as progress.

Some of my other students told jokes from my Joke Telling Unit - and then we went on a "field trip" to the main office to share our jokes with people in the building.

I've been putting this one off forever, because I really don't like the Wizard of Oz.  It probably stems from my sister watching the movie over, and over, and over again when we were growing up.  I even hid the tape at one point.

Long story short, I liked the therapy materials, included so I'm going for it anyway.  I started using Jenna from Speech Room New's Yellow Brick Road Social Skills pack on Tuesday.  I found a great game for the Wizard of Oz at goodwill that fits the whole pack perfectly. We used the nice words, and my student said that every since one was easy.  Then we went into his classroom today and practiced using nice words, a little less successfully.  Taking perspective is up next, so wish us luck!  Also, you should probably be wishing for my sanity as I'm introducing it in other groups tomorrow...

The game is out of print, but it appears to be available on amazon starting at 10.00.  I'm surprised at how many kids have recognized the game in my room and have expressed an interest in it, especially because the movie is so old. 

When I got home, I worked on cutting out my last major unit - the Alien Attributes and the last few pages from my sports set.  I also had to cut out my Superbowl sale purchases.  I got Monster Questions from Sublime Speech, Never Ever Circus from Speech Room News and Mad Scientists Inferences from Live Love Speech.

I'd say I have a big gluing and laminating project tomorrow, but I have theater tickets, so it will continue to take up space on my table for a little while.

What did everyone else do today?