Let's Celebrate New Years!

It's time for another TeachersPayTeachers freebie round-up! This time I am going to show you the freebie activities that I'm planning to use with my students to celebrate the arrival of 2015.

Craft Project
1. New Year's Resolution Mobile- This is a great way to discuss 2014 and what they want for 2015.
2. New Year Book- I see this as something I would use with older students who don't want to make a mobile.

3rd-5th
1. New Year's Around the World- Comprehension, Comparison, & Vocabulary are all targeted in this packet. (I used a similar activity for Christmas and it worked really well for my students.)


P.S. My resolution is to stop drinking soda. Even though I've gotten myself down to 1-2 cans a week (unless its a really bad week), MyFitnessPal has taught me that I eat way too much sugar.

My wish this holiday season

My wish....

I wish that every child could know their grandparents.

I wish that every child could grow up hearing old family tales and lullabies.

I wish that every child could make chair forts before watching movies.

I wish that every child could go fishing with their grandpa.

I wish that every child could turn their grandma's pots into musical instruments.

I wish that every child could know the safety of strong arms rocking them to sleep.  

I wish that every child knew the vivid color of burnt-orange dirt from a garden.

I wish that every child had a family that loved them no matter what. 

And above all, I wish that we would treasure our time together more for it is fleeting.

On my sick day...the FedEx Santa brought to me....

I'm sad to say that some nasty cold plague has hit my school pretty hard. It took out half of our EC team and quite a few students (from what I learned in my brief time at work). It's been quite some time since I've spent two days laid out on the couch until the late evening. However, sometimes you do get small glimmers of goodness out of bad things....

Such as my Christmas present to myself.

It's an Ogee clock, which was a style popular in 19th Century America. My grandmother had a similar one that belonged to her mother. From my understanding, it was the only thing that she inherited from her parents as a child from a larger family. I spent many years admiring that clock as a child and have spent the past four years looking for a clock that could compare to my grandma's. I think she's proof that patience pays off. 

My new mission is to create a whole bunch of scrambled sentence activities to use with several of my language groups. I managed to make a small activity on Friday before the sickness really set in using some song lyrics that my students can't seem to "let go" of at the moment. I don't own any of these lyrics and looked them up through an online website so they may not be perfect. 

Grab your copy of Lyrical Scrambled Sentences here.

Some not so subtle gift ideas for friends and family members of SLPs...

It's that time of year when everyone asks that one dreaded question: "What do you want for Christmas?" 

Honestly, I think it is pretty tough to come up with a Christmas wishlist as an adult. I either feel like I'm being selfish in asking or wasting money on things that I could really do without in order to avoid asking for things I can actually use at work. 

1. Mary's Poppin's magic bag for travel therapy. I'm pretty sure it's probably indestructible in addition to all that space.

Just imagine the kind of responses you could get from students with all the crazy things you could pull out.

2. Coffee gift cards (or a cute mug for us hot chocolate drinkers).

3. A personal secretary to keep up with all of the meetings we go to. However, a cute planner will do in a pinch.

In all seriousness, I would suggest giving your loved one an item that they are hesitant to splurge on. Some of my favorite items are: a personal laminator with additional laminating pouches; the Expanding Expression Tool; the Total Teddy Talker Package; J. Moncure's entire A-Z book series (yes, they are older but I haven't found anything that compares); and a TeachersPayTeachers gift card. Puppets, books, and games are always appreciated too. If you have a crafty SLP who likes making her/his own materials, you might want to donate several packs of construction paper and glue sticks to the cause.

Get ready to color!

 We've had too many grey skies around my town lately so I decided to create a simple craft that would add a bright spot of color to the any grey day: articulation coloring pages.

As you can see from the picture below, the coloring pages I created are in a sense open-ended. You can have your students copy down words from your articulation deck or worksheets in whatever position they need. This gives them extra practice using those fine motor skills before they get to enjoy the coloring aspect. Students who are at more advanced levels can make up phrases or sentences for each word that they write on an attached sheet of paper, for example.

P.S. If you have coloring perfectionists, I sometimes play a familiar song (Do you want to build a snowman?) as a way to give them an idea of how much time they have to color. I give them a warning in the last 30 and 15 seconds. It doesn't help for all kids, but it's another trick to keep in your toolbox.

Grab your copy of Sounding Boards for Articulation here.

Pinterest game gold

Right before Thanksgiving break I stumbled across a little piece of pinterest gold that I have to share with all of you. It's called Ho, Ho, Ho or a Lump of Coal. (I just call it the Santa game.) The principle of it is very simple: if you get a Ho, Ho, Ho card and take an extra turn. Coal cards mean that you have to return all your cards back to the stack.

The teacher who came up with the idea used it for sight word practice. I, on the other hand, decided to write Christmas related words that my students either have to describe or use in a sentence. You can easily make articulation versions too (or just take the lazy way out like me and tape the special cards to several of your articulation cards).

It has been a huge hit in my room this week with all of my grade levels. I highly recommend making your own set before the holiday season is over. If you can't use the holiday version, I created a simple winter themed-version that you can grab here.