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!

Back to Blogging

I did it!! On Friday, I finally, officially have saw all of my students!  I got pneumonia, already, in September.  Yuck.  I missed a huge 6 days of work and finally have managed to get all of my students.  Next week was supposed to be my 1 in the 3:1 model, but I'll be making up most of the missed sessions.  I'm still coughing, but am feeling much better and even am working on new materials.

Starting therapy this year has been interesting.  The past two years I've had primarily upper elementary (2nd - 6th)  and a mix of upper elementary and middle/high school (I had younger students if they were in the EBD, DCD or ASD programs.  This year there were some structural changes and 6th grade has moved out of the building, leaving me with 1st through 5th grades.

I'm going through a bit of transitional shock as I'm working with my first graders.  It seems like, in the past 2 years, I've forgotten the difference between 1st and 2nd grade.  1st graders are squirrelly!  Wow.  I'm definitely switching up my therapy style for a few of my groups for them.  I am extra happy that I always offer kids the choice to stand or sit in my room, and discussing the option is part of the first day speech rules talk.  I've never had more standers.

I introduced some of them to Chipper Chat today, which as usual was a resounding success.  I find it great for behaviors.  I give kids chips on everyone's turn.  They get 1-2 chips on their turn for doing their best work, and a chip on their friends turns for being respectful.  I do want them paying attention, so if they have something to share, or want to help if someone is stuck, my students are encouraged to raise their hands.  They do love that magic wand, and love it more with my magic trick!

Three chips will stick together when directly above the magic wand.  With two chips you can get about 2 feet apart in every direction, but you need to start above the wand.  I especially love this for my kids who are screaming magnet. 

My super-good news of the fall is that I wrote, and got a grant through my school district.  $600 of new therapy materials divided among me and the 2 therapists I work with.  The last of the boxes came yesterday.  I was laughing Friday morning because the back-ordered Linguisystems item came before any of the Super Duper products did. (Both arrived completely a week from when I ordered).  After school on Friday, I had given up hope on FexEx arriving before I left for the weekend.  As I was standing in the office, waiting for our (amazing) interpreter to translate a form, the truck arrived. It was perfect timing, and the FedEx guy was a little surprised to have the person with the name on the box waiting in the front office.

I didn't take a picture of all of the contents of the boxes, some of it it's for birth-5 and the high school so as happy for my friends as I am, those aren't going to be the things I'm using.  I *might* have even given Turtle Talk a little hug I was so excited it was finally here.

We also got some great things from Linguisytems that aren't pictured.

Anyone else ready to admit to hugging new SLP materials?  Or have a particularly interesting start to the school year?

This Year in My Speech Room

Wow, it's been a while since I've written anything on here.  I've been so busy with the start of my school year, getting ready to see my students and enjoying my last few weeks of nice weather!  It really has been a whirlwind.  I've been in classrooms, and once again, have proved that I shouldn't be able to interact with regular education students.  I'm going into the 3rd week of school with 5 referrals and got interventions out for 4 of them last week.  I somehow managed to get a schedule with no major conflicts out and was approved by teachers on the first try.  I said it on my facebook, but I'm not sure if I should be thrilled or, afraid, very afraid. 

All of that being said, I think today is a good time for a peek into my therapy room!  I finally finished getting things together yesterday, and believe I am ready to start seeing kids.

One of my goals for the year is to be more visibly organized.  I say visibly because I am one of those people who lives in a state of organized chaos.  It looks disorganized to anyone else, but I regularly shock people by knowing knowing exactly what weird place something is in.  All of the pictures show me before starting my schedule, so let's just all be hopeful about maintenance!

Word Wall

I only have students in 1st through 5th grade this year.

Let's start with the thing I'm most excited for this year.  My IB Word Wall.  I don't know how many other therapist are working in IB (International Baccalaureate) Schools.  Brief background: In IB schools science and social studies are taught in 6 themes which rotate throughout the year.  All grade levels have a unit in each area so what students learn one year is directly connected with what happens the next year.  As a part of IB, we are all expected to connect to the units in the therapy room.  This year I'm focusing on vocabulary used in each unit.  I'm planning on focusing on 2-3 words for each unit.  Some of my kids could handle more words, but for others life will be good if they learn 2 or 3 words per unit. 

I have the central idea for each unit posted with the grade level.  The grades are written on the stomachs of the owls.  I know that the idea for most word walls is to keep vocabulary that is learned up on the wall for students to view.  This would be very distracting for some of my students.  So, I put a library pocket up for each grade level.  It will keep the words on the wall so we can review them, but it keeps the focus on the current words.  Right now I'm still missing the vocabulary, but hope to hear back and get it up next week.

Next up!  My therapy table.

As a general rule, I like to keep most of my supplies within arms reach from my table.  I take out individual materials and games out as I use them and put them back when I'm done, but I have found it useful to have different things I can quickly grab in case what I originally planned isn't working for my students.  Above the white board, you can see the principals used in IB.  I like some decoration, but tend to keep things pretty plain for my students who would be distracted by too much visual stimuli. 

Under the whiteboard!  My favorite place to keep lots of different things.

Some supplies rotate in and out of this area throughout the year as needed for my students.  The TPT activity file is new this year, so I'm excited to have things more organize, rather than having all things that are not card decks in the same upright magazine file.  You can't see the file cabinet to the right, but it stores extra therapy data sheets, scheduling things, preferred toys for one of my ASD students (since he can't open the drawer) in the top drawer.  The bottom drawer is my "paper drawer" and has copies of following directions sheets, articulation sheets and many other activities. 

Quick peek at things that are on and below the table on the right side.  On the table, are student folders, kleenex/hand sanitizer and a pencil bucket.  I keep my sticker sheets in front of the folders.  Below the table are chlorox wipes, the prize box and pencil boxes for student supplies: pencils/highlighters, markers, crayons and colored pencils.

Storage for those pesky, ever multiplying and wonderful TPT cards.

Both of the white containers are (not quite) full of TPT cards.  They aren't full because I did want some room to grow without having to reorganize everything (for the umteenth time).  I have them organized by goal area in each of the drawers.  The top 3-drawer unit was a goodwill find, and the bottom ones came from Joann Fabrics.  The green one, has miscellaneous stuff in it:  mirrors, glass wipes, index cards, toobaloos and more.  The middle drawer has SuperDuper cards that I own, and the bottom one has TPT cards for grammar.  Hopefully, this will help me find TPT cards as I'm moving from making them as I go, to using ones I have.  I keep holiday/season themed TPT cards in Photo boxes on my bookshelves.  Those will probably end up under the whiteboard as it's appropriate to use them.

Storage Shelves (even I'm beginning to wonder how there's more to write about!)

Inside the Word Wall Cabinet

This is where the games live.  Out of sight, out of mind.  I don't mind giving students a choice in what we do sometimes, but I prefer them to choose from two games, not infinity (or whatever, number I'm up to.  For a complete list of my games see a complete list in google docs.  The bottom shelf of games, is school owned and not included on my list unless there are duplicates. 

The middle two shelves have some supplies on them.  These shelves are most representative of my organizational system when I really let things go.  Last year, I shared the room with a therapist who has similar skills so things are pretty mixed up (we probably would have driven anyone else nuts, so wish me luck with my new office mate!).  I really wanted to share the messy shelves, because I have to believe that there are others out there who, while impressed with all the super-organized rooms posted about, really just won't get there (like me). 

The bookshelves!  My favorites.  The keeper of the book.  There are 4 shelves this big across the front wall of my speech room.  This shelf, and the top 2 shelves of the one next to it contain things that belong to me personally and not the school (I also have somethings stacked on top of the bookshelves.  There are more books on the other side that are separate.  I did try to organize the books this year.  You'd think after all of my years working in bookstores during college, this wouldn't have been so daunting a task.  I eventaully decided to go with theme (holidays ect), a section with 'my personal favorites,' series are separate and together, and the books I use for articulation practice are also separate.  (as a side note, I picked up A Little Book of Slime at a Scholastic warehouse sale, and can't wait for some of my S kids to give it a shot!)

Whew!  This got long.  As I was rereading, I got a little laugh about my IB word wall, and how most of the post falls under the IB them "how we organize ourselves."

I hope everyone is having a great time with their students, or is excited to get started as I am!

Zombie Inference Cards

I don't know were everyone else falls on the subject, but I love making my kids make inferences and love zombies almost as much as they do!  Last May, one of my second graders, couldn't think up the word "alien" but called it a "zombie" and did the cutest face with gestures and zombie moans and everything!  It was was adorable and was one of those "me without my video camera" moments.  I knew then that I had to make a Zombie unit.  I've actually been working on this one on and off for most of the summer (I got distracted by my Halloweentown unit) and finished to get this up for the back to school sale.

40 inference cards are included.  Some of the inferences have more than one "right" answer to promote flexible thinking skills.  Game cards are included.

Check it out on TPT!