"Pin"-spired speech therapy

I love taking ideas meant for teachers and throwing in my SLP twist. The original idea for this project came from a parenting blog, And Next Comes L, which has tons of neat ideas for learning activities. She created a shower curtain to use for practice with sight words. I really liked the idea as it's something I can take outside to work on therapy targets without the fear of it getting messed up. It's also fun for inside play too. 

So here is my category curtain....

My articulation groups will not be missing out on the fun either. I'm in the process of making a set for the most common articulation sounds that are on my caseload. The plan is to use the shower curtains for bean bag toss games rather than a writing activity as it was presented in the sight word post. If you have students that aren't afraid of the dark, you could also turn the lights out and use a flashlight to select the words. It took me about 30 minutes to write all of the categories on my $1 shower curtain (which is a much better deal than paying $27 dollars for a pre-made version). If you are worried about a shower curtain withstanding the test of time, you could also try a lined tablecloth. They work really well in therapy too and have more size options available.

Remember this activity from Halloween 2012? It was done with a tablecloth purchased from Goodwill.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going....

If the first week of therapy sessions with my students is any indication of what the rest of my year looks like, I will have a very social skill filled life. It is very unfortunate that I forgot to request any materials related to social skills. Next year's request form will have some Michelle Garcia Winner products on it if I have to sticky note every wall near my computer at home & work to remember. 

This year, I will just have to make the best of it by making things on my own and cruising Google for freebies. My first project is a Feelings Diary that I can use with my younger group. It's black and white due to the fact that I don't have access to a color printer. It's really annoying when you want to print out cute stuff and don't have the ability to print in color. Students can color the kids in whatever way floats their boats as long as the writing can still be seen. I plan on letting the ones that are able write their own statements. It will help them practice grammar, capitalization & punctuation, and work on some fine motor skills. The other ones will get to dictate to me and then trace over the yellow highlighter marks. 

Grab your copy of My Feelings Diary here.

Admittedly confused

During my undergraduate program, I learned that it is better to admit confusion than to choose to silently suffer. So this post will be my confessional for the week....I am slightly frustrated and confused by ASHA due renewal. I got an email that made it seem like renewing is a just a breeze ONLINE. The problem is the fact that my district pays our due renewals (lucky, I know), which makes the wonderful online renewal process useless. ASHA's website has 2 lines and a mailing address for people who need to mail their form in.  Nothing in the question & answer section to elaborate. Zip. Zero. This is not good for someone who's never had to renew their membership. I realize I can call or email the action center. However, I emailed our lead SLP to find out how the process works first as I didn't want to call ASHA sounding like a complete idiot. I imagine someone at ASHA will probably still get a call from me just to double check and make sure that they still send out forms with all this online registration mumbo jumbo everywhere else. So to anyone else out there going through their first due renewal---you are definitely not alone if its got you stressing. 

All venting aside, I'm happy to finally be seeing my students again. Our mass hearing screenings took two weeks to complete so this has been my first real opportunity to interact with the ones on my caseload. I've gotten tons of hugs from my 1st graders, a few shy smiles from the 3rd graders, and plenty of gasps whenever I bring them into my room for the first time. Power Rangers are apparently popular again. I guess I won't have any trouble directing their attention towards my word wall as long as I keep my figurines on it. I would love to say that everyone transitioned back to the routine well, but a few of my friends need some social story reviews. My biggest accomplishment so far has been the fact that they remembered one of my favorite rules: don't say the word game until we've finished our work. I could hear them whisper, "don't say the g- word," to each other as they came into my room. Hehehe...I'm amazed at how long losing 1-2 games last year has stuck with them. 

This week we have enjoyed playing I-Spy. This is the first year that I've tried using any I-Spy games and that's something I now regret. I love I-Spy in common. It's a great way to target categorization through play. The cards are held in boards similar to a puzzle so it's fairly well contained and they can manage them easily. It has categories that are straightforward (colors, animals, vehicles) and then more complex categories (squirming, being made of metal, etc). Students really have NO idea that they are actually working. 

 It's definitely not bad for a .50 cent thrift store find. I look forward to trying out some of my other I-spy games in the near future.

I'm a data-driven girl

I think September is quickly becoming my month for creating forms. Perhaps it's something in the air or maybe just nerves about forgetting something important.....At any rate, I like to have a hard copy of important information by my desk rather than on my computer. (I don't have the best luck with school computers.)

In my district, we are expected to have students participate in their IEP meetings in some capacity if able. This usually means that I have them introduce me to their parents and vice versa. We have to turn this data in at the end of the year. I figured having a cute form to keep this data would be more of an incentive than just entering it into a plain old spreadsheet document. 

The second log is just another way of cementing important due dates in my mind. I wanted a reference sheet that I can just check off as I tackle important tasks. Typically, I rely on a) planner; b) sticky note on desk; c) sticky note beside therapy table; c) wall calendar; and d) email calendar. It gets really confusing to figure out which note has been checked off and which ones haven't. This saves me some time and energy. 

Here is the link for the Student Led IEP log.

Here is the link for the Important Dates log.

Also, don't forget about my Parent Contact log freebie too.

Hope these freebies will help all of you out as well!

When you're in a pinch and want something free...

My creativity the past week has started to wane. Fall allergy season is upon me and any type of medicine seems to have the wonderful affect of knocking me out. It's really hard to make cute activities when all you want to do is sleep. However, I have enjoyed exploring Teachers Pay Teachers for freebies to make up for my lack of energy. 

Here are my top 10 freebie picks for the weekend:

10) My Mouth is a Volcano. This freebie is a great writing activity for a social skills group as you read the book, My Mouth is a Volcano. I love Julia Cook's books. 

9) Fun with Idioms. This is a booklet you can make with students to go over 26 commonly heard idioms. I think it would be great to draw the meanings on the pages, but there are a few that would be difficult to illustrate. 

 8) Popsicle Prefixes Uno. I love using Uno in therapy. This would be a great activity for upper elementary, middle, & high school students. 

7) Sight Word Watches. I love the flexibility of this freebie. You can write articulation targets, categories, question words, vocabulary words, etc on them. It downloads as an image though which is not my favorite format.

6) Crayon Word Sort. This targets vowel sounds. I've run into students who have trouble articulating vowel sounds so it can happen. I like this as a back to school review. It's black and white so you can choose whatever color crayons you want. I also like this little glue bottle activity to go along with the crayons.

5) Word Work Vocabulary Notebook. I like this graphic organizer for my older students as it has a great layout. I think they will be seeing a lot of these sheets.

4) Wizard of Oz: Parts of Speech. I love the layout of these worksheets. Each one targets a different part of speech. It's not overtly girly either. 

3) Fly Words 1 and 2. Get your fly swatter ready and go to town learning sight words with this freebie. 

2) Synonyms: Connect Four. It's a powerpoint version of one of my favorite games. It would be really cool to throw this up on a SmartBoard if you have access to one.

1) Pass the Prize. This is a cute game to do for following directions. It has the added incentive of the last person winning a small prize (I'm thinking pencils).

September Link-Up

Once again, I am linking up with All Y'all Need's monthly SLP link up. 

Schooling: We have 15 new staff members at my school. This is a nightmare for me. I am horrible at learning new names even though I'm pretty good at remembering faces.

Excited: I'm really excited for fall. We have a big fall festival in my town and there are several smaller craft shows that I am hoping to go to with my mother. There are also several spooky events coming up in October that I'm hoping to try out this year. I'm sort of a chicken when it comes to haunted houses so we'll see if those stay in the plans or not.

Prepping: I am a pretty old school kind of person so the next one is preparing for the long-term future. My hope chest. I've recently tasked myself with the challenge of finding several duplicates or near matches to things I didn't inherit from my deceased grandparents. The majority of it is depression glass. There's no real rhyme or reason as to why I set myself on this new mission. I just felt like starting this new mission since my grandma's no longer there to keep adding more of her beautiful handmade quilts. I didn't realize how many types and colors of depression glass there are out there. It's been an interesting education these past few weeks.

Trying: I am guilty of trying to be superwoman. I am trying to remind myself to take a step back and avoid getting too caught up in work. I did that my first year and made myself sick. I don't want to get to that point again. I feel like this year, the perfectionist in me is coming out more than it did last year. So this is me saying that I don't have to be superwoman everyday or even every week. I will pick one day a month to be superwoman. The rest of the time, I am just going to be me and put my health first.

Welcome to the language laboratory!

Today, I am linking up with the Dabbling Speechie's decor linky party to show off the language laboratory.

Pictures can say 1,000 words so let's just let them handle most of the conversation today.

Dr. Speech

The view as you enter. Darth Vader is keeping an eye out on my manipulative toys. 

Wolverine wanted to hide in the shadows. 

P.S. You can see the giant poster I use for scheduling on the table. It's now covered in sticky notes.

The view of the therapy table from the door. I don't have letters up yet for my word wall.

The angled-wall side of the table with my language and phonemic awareness "zone." I also store craft supplies for my students on this side of the room so they can grab what they need. You can see my latest DIY project for the EET beside of my story rope. I bought some magnetic picture frames at Goodwill for .49 cents. I just cut out construction paper to size and drew an eyeball on one white sheet. They are taped to my wall but you could also glue them to a long ribbon and hang them from the wall too. 

Speech Rules, learning robot, and feelings poster. 

I decided to put sticker charts on the back of my door this year to open up more wall space. 

The other side of the table is dedicated to testing materials, small toys, and articulation (white drawers & brown basket).

The long wall of the closet which was my major source of grief. It looks 10,000 times better now and I've even reclaimed some space this year from the EC teachers. I have two out of the three walls of shelving now asides from the Math Trail blazers. (I couldn't imagine buying all of this stuff new in a store. 95% of my materials come from thrift shops, yard sales, and dollar stores. The other 5% are purchased only when they are put on clearance from Walmart, Target, and Super Duper.)