New products!

I have not been blogging much this fall.  Work is getting crazy!  I don't know how all of you with 100+ caseloads do it.

I have 2 new activities for articulation and language for mixed groups and RTI.

Each contains:
One page of language activities including: WH questions, basic concept comprehesion, describing/comparing, sentence comprehension and conversation questions.
One page of themed articulation words sorted by speech sound.
Two pages of quick game cards that can be used with the provided materials or separately.

The packs are (linked to TPT):

Winter Themed

 and Christmas Themed.

Carryover Linky

I put up a previously planned blog post earlier today, but this morning is a double as I found the Carryover Linky from Crazy Speech World and got very excited.

 

Carry over is HUGE. If my students don't use their speech sounds outside the room, we are really not making good use of their time at school.

I start talking about carry over at the initial IEP meeting.  I show parents blank copies of speech homework and talk about what it is and what it is for.   I did a previous post for my homework sheets in words, sentences and a homework sheet tied to Rory's Story Cubes (links are to Google Docs).  For first grade students I usually do modified homework sheets where they only have to practice 2 times, or say their words 5 times.  It depends on the student.

My general spiel for parents about home work is:
"Homework is about giving your child more chances to practice the correct way to say (their sound).  When I send homework it is for something your child can do 90 to 100 percent of the time at home.  The homework gives your child a chance to practice their speech sounds in somewhere other than in the speech room.  It makes your child think that you are listening to their speech sounds.  If you notice on the sheet, the homework takes about 5 minutes and you should do it 3 times.  Speech homework is about doing a quick practice and then you can move on to the other things your family needs to do."


As students move through therapy I make the homework more complex.  I'll even photocopy some pages out of some of my non-fiction books to highlight all the S, R or TH (or whichever) sounds that is on the page.  I'll draw a line on the page and write signed by it.  I try to make homework relevant to the student's level in therapy. 

If you clicked the links, you notice that my homework sheets are blank, and each word needs to be written in.  This allows for my students to pick different words every week for their homework.  When we first start picking words, I encourage my students to pick words that are meaningful and they need to be able to say.  I've had names of brothers and sisters, friends, pets, favorite toys - talk about words we need to say!

Once I get to a point where I'm expecting students to be using their sounds in the classroom, I put a reminder on their desk.  I usually put superman symbols on the desks of my S students and bought some really cute robot clip art for my R students.  The first use of the reminders is a visual for students to see and remember their sounds.  I cannot be in classrooms as much as I want to - I'm in a huge building with 6-8 classrooms in every grade level, and students in all but 2 classrooms in 1st-5th grade.  My second use of the reminders is related to this.  I have the classroom teachers, silently, touch the desk symbol when they notice error sounds.  This teaches my students that their sounds are also important to their teachers and not just to me.  

Make sure you check out  Crazy Speech World for the rest of the blog posts about carry over.  I'm really excited to read them and see what works for other people!

Left Right Activity and Facebook Freebie

Much like everyone else, I spend tons of my time teaching basic concepts and thinking about teaching basic concepts.  This week, I made up a (reasonably) fun activity to practice left and right.

 The student is given directions to roll a dice with either their left or right hand to practice.  This student has small post-its with left and right written on them on the table to help keep track.  When the dice is rolled, we keep track of how many points each hand gets.  I used one of my big foam dice because most of my students think that they are more fun.
 
It is a super simple activity that gets students to think about which hand they are using.  I did it with two students yesterday and they both really enjoyed it!

I also have put a Thanksgiving Themed Freebie up on Facebook.  Like me on Facebook to access it!

Language and Articulation Mixed units!

Inspiration has finally struck, and I managed 3 new units in a little over 24 hours!  These new activities look at targeting language and articulation in the same groups, but can also be used with language only students or articulation only student.

The Picture to talk about is slightly different than the coversheet and may contain more items to talk about

Each unit has:
1 page picture to talk about
1 page of language questions targeting: WH questions, basic concept comprehension, divergent naming, convergent naming, describing, comparing, listening comprehension and conversation questions.
1 page of articulation words
2 pages of game cards (can be used with the included activities or separately).

The language and articulation lists are in black and white to save color ink.  An added bonus is you have a choice to laminate to save paper, or print in black and white to save laminate! Not laminating could also allow you to take data on the sheets.

I also love that the therapy stimulus items are separate from the game cards because many of my children find having both together to be pretty distracting.

All are available on TPT!
Farm Language and Articulation
Outer Space Language and Articulation
Thanksgiving Language and Articulation

Spooktacular Sale!

On October 13th and 14th, I and many other SLP TPT sellers will be having a sale!  All items in my TPT store will be 20% off.  Use the promo code FB100K for an extra 10% off!

I've been using lots of things I've made as well as other grabs off TPT this fall and this is a great chance to pick up some more things.

My students have been LOVING using my Halloweentown Inferences set this week, which is targeted at both articulation and language students.  I'm loving seeing the many different ways my students organize their towns.

Get your wishlists ready!  I know I'm thinking about mine!

Dollar Store Dash Linky Party

I tried to do the Dollar Store Dash Linky party as true to the directions as possible.  I completely failed with the only spend 5 dollars part of the challenge.  This is probably why I don't spend more time in dollar stores.

I will limit my activity creation to only $5 worth of products, but will admit what else I bought.

I bought 3 things for the 5 dollar part of the challenge. (6 dollars worth of things are pictured, but the you can only count $5 and use manipulables you already have or buy less cones or only one box set).

The stuff:
1. Frogs - 8 pack
2. Two sets of 2 googly-eyed monster boxes
3. Three colored traffic cones ($1) each.

The activities:
1. Use frogs with the traffic cones to work on concepts such as between, under, left and right.
2. Use frogs with the boxes to work on concepts in, out, on, off and big and small using the boxes.  For older kids I might start to introduce things such as "both."
3. Cut a slit in the top of one or both of the bigger monster boxes and use them as card eaters.
4. Use the traffic cones as visuals to work on slowing down kids who have fast rates of speech.
 5. What did the Mummy/Frankenstein eat? Activity: Hide other items in my speech room inside the boxes.  Either show one student what it is and have other students guess, or describe it myself and have all of the students guess.

Other things I managed to collect:
Prize box items (princess rings, glow in the dark snakes & scorpions)
Tootsie Roll pops (to live at my desk)
A bunch of National Geographic kids books that are great for working on articulation generalization and connecting to classroom units.  I'm particularly intrigued by the "Book of Why" and the possibility of using it to address why questions.

Click to see the rest of the Linky Party and the post that started it all at Teach Speech 365

Basic Emotions Activity

I have a few kids on my caseload with understanding emotions goals and needed something else to use with them.  One day last spring, I was talking to my ASD teacher friend and she told me about a training she went to.  One key thing was that for kids who don't understand emotions very well, focus should be on a few basic emotions rather than shades of difference between afraid/nervous, happy/excited/thrilled, sad/despair ect.  This made so much sense to me.  I have so many students who have so much trouble telling the difference between happy and sad for characters in a book.  I needed somewhere to go before using more complex emotions activities.  I'm seeing this as a great tool for my students with EBD and ASD labels as well as those who we suspect have Fetal Alcohol Effect.

It's on TPT!

Picture cards for targeted emotions are included.

I created an identifying emotions activity focusing on four basic emotions: happy, mad, sad and scared.Thinking further about the kinds of students that I will use this activity with I decided to leave the stimulus cards in simple text format with game cards completely separate. 

There are two levels of stimulus cards.  Level one has identifying emotions in other people, and Level two has identifying personal emotions (how would you feel if...).  There are 36 stimulus cards at each level, 9 for each targeted emotion.

I have a simple game attached to the unit.  It can be used with these stimulus cards or as a quick game for other therapy targets.  This makes your purchase more flexible, gives you non-distracting stimulus cards and allows you to use the same game when addressing a variety of therapy targets in the same group.  Game play is very simple to take focus off the game: students draw a card on their turn.  Warm Fuzzy cards are worth one point.  Cold Prickly cards are worth no points.

Check it out on TPT!