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Sunday, August 11, 2013

Back to School Blog Hop 2013: DIY Positional Photo Book

It's that time again!
Welcome to the Back to School SLP Blog Hop!
You will get the chance to collect great back to school ideas for SLPs, win prizes and get freebies by touring 17 fantastic blogs!
Use the Linkytools at the bottom of this post to hop around 17 blogs, collect ideas and the clues!
There will be a sentence containing the 17 words you find for the rafflecopter.

I've had the idea for a DIY project using photos for several months. I wanted to make something that would be useful for many years to come by focusing on a common goal for younger students. It came down to either making a photo album for positional words or pronouns. I picked positional words for two main reasons: 1) the relative ease of finding picture worthy opportunities that didn't involve begging people to pose for me and 2) the ability to connect the pictures with other materials I use with my younger students. 
Big Bear and Jessie Bear at your service. 
The subjects in all of my pictures are these two bears from my stuffed animal collection. I decided to use these two as they connect with Teddy Talker and pop up from time to time in our lessons. Jessie Bear is Teddy's best friend and the true constant in all of the pictures. She has been known to appear in pictures with a few other friends for additional practice. (P.S. If you want to know who Teddy is and how I use him in therapy, check out this previous post to see the details about one of my absolute favorite speech room essentials.) I like to provide the Jessie Bear consistency for my students as it reduces some of their cognitive workload.


The project is pretty simple. The stuffed animals and my camera travel with me wherever I go. I take pictures of them in places that will either hold connections for my students or add new vocabulary. I buy photo albums at my local thrift stores for .49 cents and get the pictures developed whenever Walgreen's or CVS has a special running. You can make photo albums for a variety of targets that specifically tailor to your students for a much cheaper price than purchasing photo decks from the various learning companies. If you don't like using stuffed animals, you could use pictures of your pets, you, other toys, or even your students (with permission). 
Comparisons anyone? 
Now, I can't let the blog hop end without giving all of you a freebie to enjoy. The winners of the blog hop will get a special copy of several back to school activities called Speech Binders from me. The freebie is from that group of activities. You can grab your copy of my Conversation Starters here



WINNERS will receive a goodie basket of: TPT products
1 GRAND PRIZE WINNER will receive the following in addition to the activities:
* TpT Gift Card for: 50.00
* App Codes

The rules of the contest are simple:
* You must decode a secret message
* In order to complete this task, you will need to visit each of the 17 blogs and find the OWL CLUE
* The OWL CLUE will include one word that is part of the code. * When you enter the contest through Rafflecopter on Figuratively Speeching SLP's blog, you will be asked to type in the secret code. It will contain all seventeen words that you collect. Have fun and enjoy blog hopping with us! The contest will run from:
Enjoy reading through the blogs, downloading the freebies, and participating in our Blog Hop! Good luck everyone!
Here's my secret word:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

20 comments:

  1. I've taken photos inside before but I LOVE the idea of taking them out into the community-the slide photo is my favorite. Did anyone look at you funny when you were taking the pictures?

    Kelly
    Speech2u

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    1. Luckily, it had just rained the day before so there was only one family in the park. They did look at me like I was crazy, but it didn't take long to snap the pictures. :)

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  2. Great DIY idea. Kids love to see photos. They know they are real, and relate to them.

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    1. Thank you, Kathy. That's exactly why I wanted to make this book. :)

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  3. Love the real like pics! Our younger kiddos do great with this type of activity was well as ASD kiddos...keepin' in concrete! I like it!

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    1. Thank you! It makes a huge difference for my ELL students too even though many of them do not have severe impairments.

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  4. Great idea to use real photos!

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  5. I really LOVE this idea of using stuffed animals in real photos. Creative!

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  6. These are great! I have done things like this before, using my kids and my cat. My students love it!

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    1. Thanks, Jess. I may do a book featuring my puppy if I can ever get her used to the camera. Right now, I can only get pictures of her when she's asleep. She runs off if she sees me coming.

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  7. Great conversation starter activity! I can use this year round! When I do groups, when I get new kids on the caseload... so many possibilities! Fun font. :)

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  8. Love this fun and practical idea for addressing prepositions, pronouns and so many other language areas. And that puppy is beyond cuteness!!!!

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    1. Thank you! Fun and practical is what I aim for in all of my projects. We've had the little one for 3 weeks now and I could take hundreds of pictures of her everyday. She's a bit of a rascal. :)

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  9. What a great idea! I will definitely have to put some stuffed animals in the car and start snapping away!

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    1. Thank you, Jen. It's a lot of fun to find photo sites.

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  10. oh my goodness I love your prepositional idea! And how cute is the doggie with his toy! <3 I would love to have my students go out and place things and say "take a picture Mrs. N of teddy on the stairs" etc what fun practice!

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  11. i'm obsessed with your photo idea- I know your kids must get the biggest kick out of that! And so relevant to them!

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