Oops! A book for Cause and Effect

I haven't been posting very much lately.  Before my spring break last week, I attended a training on inclusion and have been rolling many ideas around in my head about how I want to structure things in my speech room in the future, and in particular how to focus on vocabulary.  Vocabulary can be paralyzing in many ways.  What words do I work on?  How do I choose my words?  How do I write measurable goals for my students?  I've come to the conclusion that anything is better than nothing, and as we know, planned vocabulary teaching is much better than anything we do on the fly so I need to do some good, vocabulary units that go beyond describing and comparing in the future.  I've got stacks of things on my desk at work and my kitchen table, and the ears of the teacher coach, literacy coaches.  Now I have to figure out where to go from here.  Thematic units?  Focus higher level sight words?  Focus on Tier II words?

What are your vocabulary needs?

Now!  On to a therapy idea for today, or in my case the last few weeks.

I very often use books in therapy with my students.  I find that I can work on many, many skills with picture books, and I thought I'd share one of my favorites for cause and effect with you all!  I'd recommend it with kids in grades 4, 5, 6, and 7.  Younger kids may enjoy the pictures and parts of the story, but can struggle with some of the vocabulary involved. (and there is that word again!)

Oops by Jean-Luc Fromental is available on Amazon.

The entire book is a series of events precipitated by someone losing a bar of soap, that prevent a family from reaching the airport in time to go on vacation.  The bar of soap starts it all and each subsequent even is caused by the previous one.  My students have loved the graphic style of the illustrator (my 6th graders who did the book with with this week discussed the difference between author and illustrator so much that I think they finally have the difference down).  I really like in the story how each effect because the next cause and we can discuss how things can be both causes and effects. 

The book takes place in France (I'm picturing Paris in my head as I read it) and is a great way to expand your students minds about international things and people in different countries.  I'm at an International Baccalaureate World School so anytime we can discuss the different parts of the world is a great bonus.

At the end of the book there is a long description of causes and effects throughout the entire book.  If you get the book, I recommend reading this a few times before doing the book in therapy since not all causes and effects are super-clear in the story and pictures.  I think for future years, I'm going to shell out for a color copy so we can follow along with the page before reading the book.

What are your vocabulary needs?
What are your favorite picture books to teach?

Also, 20% off all items in my TPT store tomorrow and Monday and many other SLP sellers are having sales, so it's a great time to clear out your wish lists and stock up on some great products!

Blog-a-versary!

Friday is my one year Blogiversary.  I can't believe it's been a year already since I've started.  I know that I've been a much more creative therapist this year, as I think about materials I can make to help my students, and follow other bloggers and use their ideas in my therapy room.

Now, I can't invite you all to a party at my house (especially since it would involve more organization than I should admit to in such a public forum...).   But I can throw a sale and celebrate with flash freebies on facebook!

My little corner of the internet has an official birthday on Saturday the 23rd.  I'm going to be running a sale for 20% off my entire store on Friday and Saturday next weekend, so get yourselves to my store on TPT and get your wishlists ready!  I planned this before joining the St. Patrick's day sale, so it's a great opportunity to grab anything you missed while busy being green!

I'm going to be doing a flash freebie of an existing item when I get to 100 followers - and have 11 to go at this point.   Next weekend, I'll also be celebrating with flash freebies of new items.  Head over to Facebook and like my page so you don't miss out!

Simple Left Right Activity

When working on some concepts with manipulables today, I found a little gem in my box of animals, and thought I'd share it with you.

So many kids struggle to learn their own left and right, but also have difficulty transferring left and right concepts to other people and objects. 

I did the easiest thing in the world.  I took a sharpie and wrote a L on the left side of an animal and R on the right side.  I start by having the kids identify the animals left and right when they are the same as the student's left and right.  Then we move the animal around and see how the left and right stay the same, and how they relate to the left and right of each students.   

I remember working on these left/right and left/right crossover with pictures on my internship with the old BOEHM therapy kit, and the writing on toys method seems to go quicker with my students.  It's highly visual and tactile.  Plus when using toys, I can get my students to work for the first 20 minutes of the session with a playtime reward at the end.  We play and talk about animals for the last 5 minutes while I write down my data.  What more could I ask for?  I really don't know, but I'm pretty sure my second grade boys would like me to take the sharpie to some matchbox cars...

During play time, we talked about how many colors each student choose and what else we'd see on a farm, and how zoo animals are different from farm animals.  Then we correctly labeled which stickers were on the left and right sides of our sticker sheets!

I wrote on animals from an animal counter set from Lakeshore Learning but any thrift store toys would work just as well.  I've been looking for little plastic people for a while, but no luck yet.

Stuttering is Super!

Stuttering is super!  I struggle to help my some of my students who stutter maintain their self-esteem.  I’ve been meaning to do a stuttering unit for a while because I need more therapy materials, and had to make it once I got the idea to use superheroes.  Super kids who stutter are here!

Check it out in my TPT store!

This is the picture that is used for the overall description of Easy Onsets, Pullouts and Cancellations as well as the game board for the dice game for the Silly Stutters.

This is a huge 66 page unit that addresses: Stuttering Facts and Myths, Silly Stutters, Easy Onsets, Pull-Outs and Cancellations are included.  Each section contains a brief explanation of the therapy technique and therapy objectives.   I choose a variety of different preview sheets for each section so you can get a feel for the unit as a whole.

Stuttering Facts and Myths

8 pages, 36 cards, blank cards are included.  18 fact cards and 18 myth cards.

Silly Stutters

3 pages, dice game for what kind of silly stutter to use is included and descriptions of kinds of stutters.  (Cards are the same as for Pull-Outs and Cancellations to save cutting and laminating time!)

 Above is the types of stutters page.  The dice game is more open ended because not all students do every type of stuttering and I want it to be functional for all students.

Easy Onsets

28 pages, practice in words (72 cards), phrases (54 cards) and sentences (54 cards). Game cards are also included.

Overview page, same page with different content is used to describe Pull-outs and Cancellations.

Easy onset practice in sentences.  The stars indicate a pause.  If you notice I found little super heroes that most of our kids should be able to identify with. 

Pullouts and Cancellations

Both have an overall description and cards to have for in front of students.

21 pages, 90 therapy cards, plus game cards, and a game board.

Overview page that has directions, therapy objectives and therapy tips!

Cancellations (2 kinds of cancellations are described)

The cancellations with the green stars are the Van Riper method and are described in many textbooks about stuttering.  The cancellations with the yellow stars are the kind of cancellation that is described in many commercially available therapy materials.  I included both so that the unit would be functional for therapists working with either kind of cancellation with their students.  Please use your clinical judgment in selecting which method to use and I would recommend choosing just one since they do have the same name and I didn’t want to rename one of them.

Example of cards for students to explain each stuttering technique.  Content is the same as the city scene page, pictured with Easy Onsets.  Each kind of cancellation has it's own pages in the Unit.

Example of word cards for Silly Stutters, Pull-Outs and Cancellations.  There are 90 cards in total, plus game cards, plus blank cards to add your own words!

A 2 page board game is also included to use when working on pull outs and cancellations.   Students start by drawing a word card.  When kids land on a spiky symbol (does anyone know the technical name?) they do a pull out, and when they land on a star, they do a cancellation.

Can you help the Stuttering Heroes find their friends?

 Whew!  This one took a long time to make, and I'm happy to finally be able to share it with everyone!

Grab it here in my TPT store!

Easter Activities!

Easter is coming faster than I can count!  Also, the week before Easter we have spring break which does tend to speed things up a bit!

Last year I did a big post on Easter Activities! so check it out for some great ideas!

I updated the download for the Peeps activity since I am thinking about doing it again this year.  I have a few students who have been talking about it ALL year, so it was definitely memorable. There is no way to talk about this activity that isn't funny, so it's fun and memorable for the adults involved too!

Grab the updated experiment pages for the Peeps activity for free in my TPT store!

Possessives Unit

I have a few kids who need to work on possessive nouns, pronouns and have/has.  So many of my materials don't have pictures that go with the sentence, which can be confusing for some of my students.  When I saw this clip art, I had to make a possessives unit with pictures that correspond to each sentence.

Check it out on TPT!

This unit has a total of 124 cards and can easily be used with any activity or game in your therapy room!

The possessive noun / pronoun cards have fill in the blanks that can used for either one depending on your therapy targets.  This works for every sentence in this section, since we all spend so much of our valuable time cutting and laminating materials, I wanted these cards to do double duty.  There are 12 cards each of girls and boys to provide equal practice when you are working on pronouns.

Their and theirs have separate cards, with 12 each.  Theirs is pictured above.  Their uses the same pictures with different sentences.

For the its cards, you will have have your students add "The" when working on possessive nouns so the sentences make sense with both words.

Has and Have have 32 cards for each.  Most cards working on people, other with animals and objects pictures.  Boys and girls are equally represented, with the girls cards pictured below.

Example of have cards:

If you have kids working on possessives make sure you check out this activity in my TPT store!




Remember to like me on Facebook, I'm doing a flash freebie when I get to 100 likes!

Where is Pool Party

This simple activity targets working on Where Questions, Locations and you can even start working on He and She!

The locations targeted are:
in, on, next to (both sides are included so you can talk about left and right), over, under, in front, in back/behind.

 18 cards featuring 6 different kids are included!

Grab this freebie in my TPT store! 
The freebie is back up - 10/7/2013 and will remain up.