~Carry your world, I'll carry your world~

There are some places on Earth that are magical. They hold a piece of your heart throughout the passage of time. You are drawn in and return there in your mind's eye constantly. This place is mine... 

 My heart sings at the sight of this bridge.

 Crossing the bridge to another place in time....

 For whom the bell tolls....

 This is the place that helped me foster my love of learning and helped me find my dreams of being an SLP.

 The paths I walked for 4 years.

 The friendships forged.

My home away from home.

And the unforgiving bricks who are the arch nemesis to all who visit.

Fun Facts for New Year's Day

Christmas is over! I've survived shopping on Christmas Eve and the day after without a scratch. Serena is the proud owner of a new sheep squeak toy and I have a few more keepsakes from Old Salem, NC. The countdown is now on for my first ever professional presentation to teachers at the district's second professional development conference. (I have to say that I really didn't enjoy last year's meager offerings, but this year the list looks huge!) Luckily, I will be presenting with two other district SLPs in front of a group of only 25 teachers. We will be talking about our role in the schools and how we address Common Core. 

Speaking of countdowns, I decided that I really wasn't too happy with my lack of materials for New Year's day. The majority of the afternoon was spent scouring the internet for interesting facts and activities related to the topic. The final result is a packet aimed at getting my older students back into the routine. It includes cards about the New Year, an open-ended dot sheet for reinforcement, and resolution bookmarks. You can grab your copy of it here.

Thoughts on December 22nd.

Whew....it's been a crazy weekend of last minute shopping. I'm glad my father decided to go a little bit earlier than Christmas Eve as I really don't think I could handle those crowds. It was wall-to-wall people in almost every store. The weather was also against us with its spurts of downpours and fog. North Carolina weather is nothing if not unpredictable.

Christmas at my house will be a little less than normal with Serena's impending surgery. We still aren't sure of the total cost of that, but the estimate is pretty pricey. Helping her feel better will be worth it no matter how much it ends up costing at this point. I hate this feeling of helplessness so much. So this year, dad and I are cutting back on our usual Khol's Christmas. We got my mother a DaVinci charm bracelet at Hallmark instead of the very pricey sterling silver ones. She loves charm bracelets and has made a few comments about these bracelets in the past. I have my fingers crossed that she will like my bead choices. My favorite is the little cat face.

I thought I would join up with this month's Love it and List It Linky. I'm excited that it's back to a non-app topic since I currently live in a low-tech world. (Not sure when, if ever, the SLPs in my district will get I-Pads or the like....)

1. Reading Grumpy Badger's Christmas with my language and social skills groups. This book is an incredible find. It is one of those versatile and timeless books that everyone needs in their speech room. (We also read Mooseltoe, The Night before Christmas, Who'll Pull Santa's Sleigh, and the Christmas Crocodile this year. The EC teachers read How Santa got his Job and recommended it to me.) I cannot emphasize enough how wonderful books are to school-based therapy. You can target a variety of goals with them and find/make fun crafts to coordinate.
2. Making mosaic Christmas trees with all of my groups. I think I need to give them the challenge to beat me more often.

3. Sending home practice packets with my students at the beginning of this month. It's time consuming to make sure my students are going home with materials that are appropriate for them; however, I like knowing that I am sending them home with a little something to do to prevent too much loss over the break. I wish I was good enough to make a whole year's worth of practice calendars. It's just one area that I do struggle with in terms of writer's block. I can envision the calendars but I lose all of my ideas when I sit down to make them.

Is it sad to say that I am already thinking of something to do when we get back? If so, I am guilty of being a workaholic. I love this New Year's freebie from Speech Snacks and this New Year Traditions from Around the World. They will do nicely for the three day week in January before I start up my snow theme.

It's here! It's here! Christmas break is finally here!

It was a wonderful Friday.....well, if you look past being stuck billing while the rest of the staff & students were at the Christmas assembly. The teachers put on a musical every year for the students. I've never been able to go thanks to all of my paperwork (but it keeps me from having to be in the show). It's nice to have the day to get all of that stuff finished so it doesn't end up coming home. I'm paperwork free until January! 

Even though I was stuck in my room jamming to a little Pandora, I still managed to get a few holiday surprises. The blue card is from our student council, the yellow card & cinnamon ornament from a 1st grade class with several of my students, the two note cards are from a 5th grader, and a necklace set from a 2nd grader. I didn't get anything from my students last year so I was shocked to get all of this. 

I also thought I would show you a new therapy tool that Santa Thrifty bought herself. Hehehe....I got it back in October when it was on sale but held off on using it until December. I don't know what it is about me and hidden picture scenes. I'm going to blame my mom and her love of doing the Highlights puzzles with me growing up. My students looked at me like I was crazy when I pulled it out (I haven't forgotten how badly the Highlights Hidden Puzzle game already went over with them this year). Looking for hidden pictures must really be a foreign concept to this generation. They really don't know what they are missing out on.

The Super Duper version has the advantage of less objects and a picture key. It is much easier to find the objects when you know what they look like. Each picture targets a specific sound and you can adapt them to the student's articulation level. I used them for sentence level tasks, such as "I want to find the X first." or "I found the X beside the frog." I use Chipper Chat chips with mine rather than the dry erase markers to avoid all the extra cleaning. Plus, my students love anything that involves that magic wand.

What do you do when it's the week before Christmas break?

It's the last few days before Christmas break and everything is a little bit crazy. The kindergarten classes went on a field trip to watch the Polar Express last week and this week it was Polar Express day. The students and teachers wore their pajamas down a "night-time train track" filled hallway. Santa made his appearance in the afternoon and most hearts were filled with glee. (I say most because one of my students informed him that he had no magic and his workshop was not real.) The first graders focused on Christmas around the world, which left this SLP running around the school hunting for students. The 2-5th graders probably had some sort of activity. It just didn't pop up on my radar.

So with an off-kilter schedule, what is an SLP to do? Well this year, I decided to pull out a book that brings the holiday spirit while addressing some social skills issues at the same time. Grumpy Badger's Christmas is a relatively new find for me that I picked up at a garage sale for .25 cents. It was money well spent. Grumpy Badger doesn't like Christmas. He just wants to go to bed for the winter without any interruptions. However, he cannot escape the Christmas celebration of his neighbors. This book is great for addressing issues such as: emotions, dealing with a grouchy person on Christmas, how to refuse a present politely, apologizing, and forgiving. I combined it with both my story rope for wh- questions and emotion sticks. 

We played emotions memory match. The difference of the shapes seemed to make this game go much smoother than store bought versions that I have tried for vocabulary. 

I also found this wonderful video from the McKay foundation which talks about bullying. It had nothing to do with Christmas, but I loved the facial expressions of the characters in the story. 

I also can't wait to hand out one last homework packet for several of my students. It's for /k, g, and y/.

There's S-no-w Time Like Winter

It's so hard to believe that Christmas break is just around the corner! I cannot wait to have a break. It's nice to be able to re-charge the batteries and spend more time with family. The past few weeks have been full of late evenings to catch up on billing, IEPs, and re-evaluations. We did get one two hour delay, which was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed getting a little extra sleep. It also inspired me to start planning for a January snow theme. I created a short pack of snow themed conversation cards and song inspired mad-libs. 

Grab a copy of S-no-w Time Like Winter here.

Want to see some other activities I've found? I don't know that I will use all of these but I do like to keep my options open.

• Snowman craft freebie- I'm planning on using this little guy to talk about emotions as we give the snowmen faces. My younger students will have to earn the pieces by requesting in X word length utterances.
• Following Complex Directions
• Winter Inferencing
• Antonym Mittens
• Winter Worksheets- I like the cloze ones.
• Jan Brett Activities- I love to read The Hat and The Mitten during January. Jan Brett offers many cute printables that coordinate with her books for free. My favorite is the Put the Animals in the Mitten as it is terrific for sequencing. It's just silly to not take advantage of them. 
• Snow Day Penguins- Open-ended Reinforcer. I'm not sure how well this will end up printing out in black & white. It's worth a try though.
• Roll and Color Winter-Themed Reinforcer. The Christmas related pages won't work, but there are still plenty of general winter pages in this packet.
• Spin a Snowman Reinforcer
• Indoor Snowball Toss
• Snow Shapes- Identifying shapes activity that also involves following directions.
• Blank Snowmen Flashcards- Can use these for all sorts of things.

Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree....

I decided that my students were in dire need of a challenge. All that I've heard since December has started is "Santa, Santa, Santa," "I asked Santa for....," and "Oh no! Santa's stuck!" (We read that book last year....I didn't even pull it out for my display this year.)

Enter the Mosaic Christmas Tree Challenge.......  

I like to use scraps of paper from the scrap box in our workroom. There's no reason to ruin a perfectly good sheet of construction paper when we have plenty of little pieces that work well for mosaic art projects. I grabbed two shades of green, one shade of red, and one shade of yellow to hand to the students as they work towards their targets.

Step 2) Cutting down the scraps into even tinier scraps. It took about 30 minutes to get all of the pieces to size. At the end, I started ripping the pieces to save time. I like to keep my crafting materials semi-organized in little baggies. It reduces some of my Friday after school cleaning and I'm sure that the janitors appreciate my attempt at keeping the little tiny pieces off of the floor.

Step 3) Draw the tree. It's not the greatest, but it will be covered up pretty well by the end of the project.

Mine is on the left. I really didn't do a great job of earning tree pieces.

Step 4) Start the challenge. My students earned 1 piece of paper (they picked the color) for every correct production/answer/target. I earned the pieces that they lost. It may take a few sessions to complete, but I really love open-ended activities that allow them to express their artistic abilities. 

This is after my third group of the day. They are super competitive about everything. I think they let me earn like 5 pieces total. My tree probably won't get finished in time for Christmas.

P.S. Here is my inspiration for the project. (There's some really cool versions made out of vintage jewelry too.)  I also discovered that an OT blogged about a similar idea that adds little ornaments to the tree after I started looking up all the different kinds of Christmas tree mosaics. I don't follow any OT blogs, but maybe I should start. 

Puppy update

Today was the big day. Serena went to the specialist vet and had her ultrasound.

As our local vets were afraid of, she does indeed have a liver shunt. It appears to be a big one and her liver is tiny. She's going on three different medications to help her liver and those have to be regulated before surgery. There are possible complications & risks with the surgery (seizures after surgery, another shunt forming, or not making it through the surgery). However, the life expectancy for dogs who don't have the surgery is very poor.

Please continue to keep us in your thoughts/prayers and sending positive vibes her way. It's going to a couple of long months this winter......

NC SLP Institute Part 2

I haven't forgotten about my promise to write my thoughts from the second half of the SLP Institute. It was just put on the back burner so I could spend as much time with Serena as possible before her big vet. trip.

The second half of the Institute was spent in the company of about 30 School Psychologists. Dr. Andrew Shanock from the College of St. Rose presented on the importance of collaboration between SLPs and SPs. Honestly, I really did not know what to expect when we started this session as I haven't spent a great deal of time conversing with the School Psychologist who serves students at my school. He's split between several buildings and spends most of his time at the other schools that he serves. 

The majority of Dr. Shanock's presentation focused on the similarities between our assessment tools. There is no way I will be able to do much justice to the way he presented the material in person, but it is very astonishing information. We are making our students do many of the same tasks to get our respected scores. We never learned about the tests School Psychologists give in graduate school (beyond needing to look at their scores for similarities) so I was really surprised. Collaboration between our professions could reduce some of this redundancy and unnecessary pressure on the students. However, this collaboration will not happen over night. You have to build good working relationships with the members of your IEP team and make time to compare notes during every evaluation/re-evaluation process. Dr. Shanock's suggestion is to start by reviewing previous evaluations and then start collaborative testing on re-evaluations.

 I made this very simple table based off of the information we were given as a little reminder of the similarities between our assessment tools.

It will be a very time consuming process to develop this level of collaboration. (It will be well worth it, but very time consuming.)

I've never had to teach a child what a smile is before.....

The lead EC teacher at my school recently approached me with a problem. She introduced two of our younger students to Reading Mastery. For those of you who are not familiar with this name, it is a highly structured reading program that mixes decoding skills with vocabulary, basic comprehension, following directions, and a little inferencing for fun.  One of the early stories has a picture of children who are smiling and the child is supposed to state how they know the children are happy. Neither student knew what a smile was......I've never had to teach a child about smiling (and frowning, crying, etc) before even though I have done lessons on emotions before to teach respect for each other.

So I thought about it for an evening.......

I knew that I would have to incorporate The Way I Feel into the lesson. Honestly, it's one of my best resources for emotions and the students love it. My typical method is to read the book using my best funny voices for each page. My students get to practice making faces in a mirror for the second reading. 

The angry page is always the fan favorite. It's probably because they get to stomp their feet and growl at each other.  

As great as this book is for teaching emotional vocabulary, I also needed something to reinforce the concepts in an even more basic way. It ended up being my second attempt at writing a social story. The concept of my "Feelings all over my face" is really simple. It focuses on the parts of our face and what our face does when we feel a certain way. The final sheets of the book are meant to help them write it so I could involve multiple senses. It also includes a link to a cute youtube song on feelings. You can grab your copy here. 

I'm not good at waiting....

The wait until December 10th is about to drive me up the wall. Patience is not a virtue that I possess in great quantities. I use most of what I do have at work and then am left to worry myself sick at home. I've enjoyed spending lots of quality time with Serena this week and her new liver medicine seems to be going fine. Thank you for all of the prayers and positive thoughts. Please keep sending them her way as my parents prepare to take her to NC State next week. 

In the meantime, I've been feeling a touch of the holiday homework blues. It's really the one type of activity that I loathe fixing. Why? It takes me hours to find things that are both appropriate to my students' successes and parent friendly. It doesn't go much better when I try my hand at making a file. It always ends up in a very bad case writer's block that never seems to stop. There's no way that I can be the only one out there with this struggle. So I'm going to do my best to throw out a holiday lifeline. 

I created a packet after struggling to find what I wanted for free online. I'm sure there are some great paid products out there, but I just cannot justify spending money on something that I will a) have to get translated for half of my caseload and b) not get back. The packet includes three different calendars: one for basic language targets (k-1), one for slightly higher level targets (describing & answering wh questions), and one for articulation practice. Our wonderful EC assistant made sure my Spanish translations were on track (surprisingly the translator I used was mostly correct). 

You can grab your copy of my December homework packet here. If you want some other materials to create a larger pack, I have found a few suggestions for you......

The best of Teachers Pay Teachers:

• Winter Pre-K Pack- This large pack of activities is great for basic winter vocabulary.
• Christmas Pre-K Pack- This is another large pack of activities that work on basic vocabulary. 
• Spanish "I Can" color- Involves basic vocabulary.
• Alphabet Writing practice- I have students that need the extra help. 

The best of Google search:

• Winter Word Search
• Christmas Decor Word Search
• All About Santa

Everyone needs a little bit of DIY time now and then....

I recently shared a new tab for social skill resources. We have a new student at my school that has propelled my research into all things social story related. I've even tried writing one about balls hitting people when they bounce. (It's quite possibly the worst thing I've written since about 5th grade. I will not be subjecting anyone to that eyesore.) 

One of the products that kept appearing in my search was the Social Thinking curriculum. I know there is a team of bloggers writing about these products and they can do a much better job at explaining them. My district doesn't have the program and probably won't be getting it soon due to the budget cuts. However, I can still make some coordinating materials in the hope that things will change next year. All it took was a little inventiveness and the discovery of Jill Kuzma's character description freebie.

I printed out three copies of the character descriptions. Two of them were cut up for DIY projects and the third visited the laminator immediately upon printing. 

  

 The first DIY project is a file folder matching game.
-Take two vanilla folders and glue them together. You need to make sure that you can still close the folder up before you glue them.
-Character descriptions, which should be glued directly to the folder.
-Laminate the folder and separate character pictures (you may want to print these on cardstock or glue to poster board for added strength)
-Attach Velcro to the folder and the character pictures.
-Stick the character picture above the correct description

The project took me 3 days due to our lamination policy. If you have access to your own machine, it doesn't take long at all.

The second DIY project is another matching activity. It can also be used for role-play.

-Glue the character pictures to poster board and cut into small squares.

-Glue character descriptions to sentence strips or print on heavy cardstock.

-Laminate descriptions & character pictures.

-Attach character pictures to craft sticks with glue or tape. (I used tape.)

Again, this project took about two days due to the lamination rule.  

My plan is to eventually let my students have a specific character trait to look for when we read stories. When they notice that a character is behaving like an "Unthinkable", they will raise up their character stick and explain what they noticed. It will take plenty of work before they are ready to try this activity; however, I think it will be a great way to connect the curriculum to other experiences when the time comes.

Edublog Nominations

I wasn't really intending to participate in the Edublog Nominations since I have quite a bit weighing on my mind.....but I wanted to show my appreciation for several of my favorite bloggers out there. (Plus, Serena is hanging out with my mom so I actually have some use of the computer tonight.)

-Best individual blog- This was really hard for me to decide. In the end, it has to be Chapel Hill Snippets with Figuratively Speeching coming in second place. I love the adaptable books that Ruth shares on her blog and am very thankful that she also shares forms her district develops. I use the Teacher Rating lists constantly. 

-Best group blog- Speechie Freebies (Was there ever any doubt?)

-Best student blog- Speechie Musings 

-Best ed tech / resource sharing blog- Speech Techie

-Best teacher blog- The Adventures of Room 83

-Most influential blog post of the year- I have to hand it to Kelly at Speech2U for her Saturday Soap box posts. They are the highlight of my weekly blog reading. The points on her recent posts about goal writing are phenomenal. I agree with them 100% after two years of shaking my head at some of the goals that I see from transfer students.  My favorite post is her most recent one on making sensible goals: I don't know where to start when you write a goal like that. Every graduate student should have to read this series. 

-Lifetime achievement- This one is difficult for me because I started out reading two very terrific blogs from their beginning stages. I think they are both crazy talented and have made a huge impact on the SLP community. Crazy Speech World gets my vote this year as I really love her DIY posts. 

Venturing outside of the speech world....

 I've posted before about our miniature dachshund passing away right after school ended in June. In July, we added a new little addition to our family at my dad's insistence. (Mom wasn't really ready.) It only took one look into her warm brown eyes for our hearts to melt.

She's been a fairly healthy pup (or so we thought) asides from constantly chewing on everything. Our furniture didn't look half as good without teeth marks, my shoes needed some rehab, and the dog bones didn't need any work done at all. The vets did notice that she had a tiny whole in her skull that hadn't completely closed at her first puppy appointment. It did close by her second trip.

She hates riding in cars and baths.

She has secretly been living with a liver problem for the first six months of her life. Our vets suspect that it is a liver shunt as so far all signs are pointing in that direction.


What is a liver shunt?

Well, it is normal for dogs to have a liver shunt at birth according to my research. It is a little blood vessel that redirects blood away from the liver. However, it is supposed to close shortly after birth. The liver needs that blood to get rid of the toxins in the rest of the body. Sometimes, the shunt doesn't close and it becomes a serious condition. The toxins aren't being probably removed by the liver (it's not getting the power it needs) and can cause dogs to have a variety of problems. It seems like the classic symptoms are neurological (seizures, walking into walls, apparent deafness, behavioral changes), not eating well, and bathroom issues. Dogs with liver shunts may also appear small in stature. Our pup really hasn't shown many of these signs asides from being small. She eats well, uses the bathroom well, and has lots of energy.

We took her to get spayed on Monday. The vets realized that something was off about her blood panel yesterday. (Blood panels may be expensive but they are a good thing.) They sent off a test that shows strong signs of a liver shunt.

So now what?

We have to take her to get an x-ray (or ultra-sound) to determine the amount and type of shunt. We are praying that it is only one and that it is in a location that is operable. (The ones inside the liver are very hard to treat.) Dogs who aren't operated on do not have the greatest life expectancy. I read that about 50% of them are put down within 10 months of the diagnosis. Needless to say, I am pretty petrified at the moment. I know that her breeder would probably have had no choice but to put her down. Thankfully, we are able to afford going through all of the treatments & tests that she'll have to deal with in the coming months.  We take her to the specialist on Dec. 10th.

I am telling all of you about this, because it probably will affect my blogging. I don't want to waste the time I have with her in case of the worst. I am praying for the best and appreciate all of the support I've received since mentioning this on my facebook page.

 So until Dec 10th.....

Busy as a bee....

I just realized that my 2 year blogging anniversary has come and gone without any celebration. Oops....In all honesty, I really don't feel like the whole blogging anniversary is that big of a deal. I'm proud of my personal accomplishments that are reflected in each post. The sense of personal accomplishment is all that I really need. It is truly amazing to think back to the days when no one read my blog and now see over 100 page views a day. I'm honored that so many SLPs are reading my blog and (hopefully) finding something useful on it.

Speaking of personal accomplishment, I am relieved (and happy) to say that I have accomplished three more goal banks. The reading, speaking & listening, and language goal banks now go up to the 8th grade. I hope these goal banks will help all of my middle-school based SLP friends out there. Even though I don't work with this age group currently, I did enjoy picking through the standards to see what my upper elementary students will be held to in a few years. 

As always, please keep in mind that the goals I provide are very generalized and need to be tailored to the needs of individual students. The standards build upon the skills gained from the previous year. You may have to go back several grades to identify the standards that relate to your students' needs and goals.  

Middle School (6-8) (language)

Middle School (6-8)  (speaking)

Middle School (6-8) (reading)

Thoughts from NC DPI's Speech-Language Pathology Institute: Part One

It's time for another first experience: NC DPI's annual EC conference. Over my short time in the schools, I have heard a mixed bag of reviews about the annual conference. It's something that is starting to become a common theme whenever I bring up the topic of conferences. The main conference may repeat this notion for attendees, but the pre-conference institute that I attended was terrific.

The low-down: The institute was split into two long sessions. The first session was an SLP specific presentation on Executive Functioning. The second presentation combined SLPs and School Psychologists to focus on the theme of collaborative assessments.  It went from 9-4, which started to seem really long during the last 20 minutes. 

The Executive Skills: Strategies for Success by S. Hutaff & B. Henry was a shortened version of a class they've apparently done before at one of NC DPI's Summer Institutes. These wonderful ladies gave a brief overview of what Executive Functioning using Dawson and Guare's model. They took it a slight step forward from the poster below by breaking down the areas between thinking (cognition) and doing (behavioral) skills. The areas of thinking are: working memory; planning/prioritizing; organization; time management; and meta-cognition. The areas of doing are: response inhibition; emotional control; sustained attention; task initiation; goal-directed persistence; and flexibility.

So how does this chart come into play for Speech-Language Pathologists?
Well, just look at your goals:

• Working Memory= following directions; predicting; recall; relating past experiences to current situations (or stories). 
• Planning/Prioritizing= sequencing steps to complete a task
• Organization= I would relate this to following schedules/routines
• Time Management= sequencing steps to complete a task; following schedules
• Meta-cognition= self-monitoring skills; initiating topics & maintaining them; identifying key information
• Response Inhibition= resisting the urge to interrupt conversations 
• Emotional Control= learning coping strategies to control behavior (friendship skills)
• Sustained Attention= following directions to complete a task
• Task Initiation= following multiple step directions
• Goal Directed Persistence= completing tasks
• Flexibility= identifying problems and potential solutions; emotional control in difficult situations (friendship skills)

Dawson & Guare also provide professionals with principles for improving Executive Function. I won't go into all of them because it will make this post way too long. The main thing is to include the student in his/her plans so they are motivated and keep supports in place until they achieve mastery level. As with anything, you want to take developmental levels into account and teach deficit skills. The presenters focused on  using the "Success Map Technique" to help students choose a strategy (name it) and use the strategy (social stories, role play, modeling, practice, etc) until the supports can be faded.

The information I gained in this session makes me really want to learn more about the topic. 

Thank you, Pandora, for introducing me to this band.

The elves are coming to town

Goodwill recently brought me another treasure...an older model elf on the shelf for only .79 cents. I'm not going to post of picture of him on here since he's a tad bit faded and the images didn't take too well. It is exciting though to find him after looking for two years.

I realize that many SLP bloggers have posts about using Elf on the Shelf in their rooms. I will refrain from talking about positional concepts, elf games, creating an Elf back story, and Elf on the Shelf spots the Unthinkables. I am going to focus on how my unnamed elf will be helping out with syntax lessons.

1. The Elves are Coming to Town. I made up this file to coordinate with Colorful Semantics. Students have to figure out what color the missing word should be and make the elf that color. They can also go through and color all of the parts of speech in the completed sentence. I threw in a few naming cards as well. The wreath is open ended: articulation students can write a sound target in the bow and words around it; language students can write a vocabulary word in the bow and descriptive words around it.....it's really up to your imagination.

You can grab your copy of The Elves are Coming here.

2. I have several students who need to ask as well as answer questions. We are working hard towards understanding subject-verb agreement in these groups. The elf will provide us with ample material to talk about. The students can ask where the elf is, what he is doing, why he is doing certain things, or who is with him (requires additional stuffed animals or figurines). They can also answer these types of questions.

3. Using this template, we will come up with adjectives to describe our elves. I plan on doing this either before or after making Tacky Holiday Sweater ornaments for describing.

I'm making my own set in 3 different sizes for describing as well as following directions.

I cannot wait for December! It's almost time to play my favorite holiday song around the clock.

Pronouns going mobile

There are many moments throughout the week when I think that pronouns are one of the least fun things to teach. I've pulled out quite a few crazy ideas in search of the elusive "a-ha" moment when things will just magically click. Teddy Talker, stuffed animals, books, magnetic dolls, pictures, chants, etc.....It has worked for some of them, but there are a few that still need more explicit instruction. 

When I run across a topic that is troubling, my solution always seems to be looking for some kind of creative outlet. My pronoun supplies are somewhat limited as much as I love using the Webber fun deck and my combination of stuffed animals with picture cards. I decided to make two things to address my need for the basics.   

Crafting supplies at the ready. My first idea to address my lack of pronoun materials was to make a mobile. I really don't know why I went in that direction. It's something that I haven't done in my therapy room before as they do take up some room. They also have the bad tendency of getting tangled. However, it was a new challenge so I bought the ribbon and the pipe cleaners for .49 cents at Salvation Army. The hanger is one that I already had at home. 

The images are all from MyCuteGraphics. It's one of my favorite sites for free black & white clip art. I colored the children to my liking and created word cards to go with each image. I had the pictures and words laminated at work. I simply punched holes into each card and strung them all together with the pipe cleaners. I twisted the pipe cleaners around the hanger and secured them with the red pipe cleaners for extra durability.

 The pronoun mobile is a bit too bulky to take to inclusion groups so my second project consists of a pronoun book. The images are the same ones from the mobile with removable words. This way, the students can have a binary choice for each target. All it required was a little adhesive Velcro and a jump ring to hold the pages together.

The students that have tried this activity out are fascinated by the Velcro. Even just having it on the table to point to as a gentle reminder has turned out pretty well.

They can trace their fingers over the letters in each word or "write" the pronoun in sand as they say this little chant: "he is for boys" or "she is for girls".

You can grab a copy of the images here if you'd like to make your own book or mobile.