Conversational Skills Superheroes

If it hasn't become obvious by now, I am really loving Michelle Garcia Winner's Social Thinking materials this year. My students love it too! 

I've recently started adding in some conversational skills activities into several of my groups. I wanted to tie Superflex into this so the students have a constant reminder to use their social toolbox. Even though we have really taken our time with the basics, I think it is always helpful to have a reminder when you are branching out. As you can see, the activity we ended up doing took a little bit of time and creativity on my part.

I made four posters featuring Aiden, We have an expected and unexpected poster for both conversational roles. The unexpected listener is frowning because he's really not sure what is going on. The unexpected speaker is so busy talking about HIS interests that he forgets all about his listener. The expected speaker and listener are both happy to be participating in the conversation.

I wrote down different expected and unexpected behaviors for my students to put on the posters. The hardest part was getting them to pay attention to the key words (listener/speaker).

The sort took us about 15 minutes to go through.

Next time, I need to make more cards for the listener. I really felt like I had more made until we finished the sort.

My follow up activities are pretty simple. We'll review the post-it posters and design our own mini posters on construction paper. I chose the red and green to contrast the expected vs. unexpected roles of each person. I drew Aiden on the bottom of my posters and my students will draw their own version on the bottom of their posters.

Once they have made their posters, I will have my students come up with their own expected vs. unexpected behavior sort using the green and "red" (pink) post-its. We'll sort these out on the big posters again.

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.

DIY Emotion Cards

Hey everyone. It's been a busy holiday weekend for me. I hope all of you had a wonderful 4th of July as well. Today's post is a repost of a guest post that I did several months ago for the wonderful Putting Words in Your Mouth blog. If you haven't checked out this blog, I highly recommend going to it as fast as you can! Mia has some of the most inspiring ideas.

When I started out using my emotions journal activity, I quickly realized that I needed to add more components for my younger students. I decided to move them away from the clip art images to environmental images, such as actual pictures and movie clips. This inspired me to create a simple DIY project. You can use these to simply identify the emotion as well as to follow directions. 

Step One: Grab some magazines, newspapers, or catalogs with lots of people pictures. Cut out the ones that speak to you. I love using Super Duper catalogs for many of my crafting projects as their models show a variety of expressions.

Step Two: Make sure the pictures are cut to size. I like to leave just a slight edge around mine.
Step Three: Tape the pictures to strips of construction paper. I always cut out one long rectangle strip to use as my sizing guide to keep them fairly consistent. It's handy to keep a large stack of these blank strips ready for spur of the moment projects.
Step Four: Laminate.

It took me roughly 40 minutes to do this project. It may take a little bit less or more time depending on how picky you are with crafting. The total cost was $0.

P.S. You can make a similar project with stickers for following directions. 

Teaching Together with Teddy Talker

As if I weren't all ready impressed with the amazing versatility of Teddy Talker, I wanted to tell you about how the new Teach Together Toolkit has really knocked my socks off. 

Why?

Well, for starters, the "Toolpages" for each of the 38 sounds bring to mind all the principles for literacy instruction that I learned about in Orton-Gillingham training. Lessons should be systematic, sequential, explicit, and multi-sensory. The Toolkit holds all of these tenants. Students are explicitly taught about the letter-sound correspondent using child (and parent)-friendly terminology. They learn to manipulate the cue pieces of their own copy of Teddy Talker right from the start with a lesson on basic oral anatomy. I store the mouth pieces and tongue puppet in a "Teddy Folder" for each of my students. Once they complete the introductory lesson, I take one of two paths: a) focus on the target articulation sound that the student needs or b) follow the sequence for teaching the sounds that I learned in my Orton-Gillingham training for my inclusion students. (You can use sequences from other reading programs too.)

Each lesson involves explicitly teaching the student how to prepare the oral structures for production with visuals and auditory cues. The student may be asked to trace the letters with his/her fingers while producing the sound (you could have them trace the letter on the page in crayon with plastic canvas underneath as a means of creating even more sensory input as they trace with their fingers) or joint read his rhyming story. They learn new vocabulary words and rhyming words with each of the 38 sounds. Students are even asked to do some inferencing to tell the adult "why" Teddy calls a sound by X name. In the lessons that I have done so far with my articulation groups, I've also added in the extra element of Visual Phonics as a sort of secret "Teddy Code." I start sending home the Teddy folders once I have gone through the lessons at school with my students. This way, they have already experienced success with the activities and are less likely to get frustrated at home.

The Toolkit also includes a sound assessment, listening games, lesson ideas, mini-Alphabet chart, and award pages. It's such a comprehensive tool whether you prefer the notebook (like me) or the PDF version.

Now, of course, that little Teddy face is not just sticking to our homework folders. I have come up with two ideas already to help manage some behavioral issues with my Teddy groups.

1) Role play hat. I haven't come across too many students that turn down the opportunity to play pretend, particularly when you tell them to act like an animal of any sort. My idea is to use the role play hat with groups of two or three students. Each student gets a chance to play "teacher" as well as "Teddy." The "teacher" has to teach "Teddy" how to say the sound.

The hat is really easy to make. I simply printed out an extra Teddy Face and colored him. I backed the face with some brown poster paper before taping to a sentence strip. You can probably skip the poster paper if you have card stock handy, but the sentence strips are a must. Once the Teddy's face was laminated, I added a little Velcro for the mouth pieces. (As a side note, I ran out of Velcro before I got to his bow for the voicing cues...)

2) Token box reinforcer. This project is very similar to the Old Lady tissue box craft that I made a while ago for sequencing. However, I use it to reward good target productions by feeding Teddy. It is a bit more complicated than the Teddy hat simply due to the mechanics of getting the mouth right. I ended up tracing Teddy's happy mouth as it was the best one for my tissue box. Again, I backed Teddy's face using brown construction paper to ensure a longer lifespan. (I didn't do that with my Old Lady and she did eventually rip.) I strongly suggest getting the face laminated before you attach him to the tissue box for extra stability. You can draw honey drops or use erasers for food. 

So there you have it! We just can't get enough of Teddy Talker.

Winter can go away any time now.....

We had a very bad ice storm in the wee hours of Thursday morning. It knocked out power and cable for about a 30 mile radius. My neighbors nearly had a tree collapse on their house (missed by about 6 inches) and I saw a tree nearly hit a car in front of us at dinner. It's so nice to finally be back online and able to see how my friends have fared. I guess it's just Mother Nature's way of reminding the good citizens of North Carolina that we are not in charge. 

Since it is March, I am trying to put my best foot forward with a wacky leprechaun. Our guest turned my books upside down. 

My third grade students were not impressed with the footprints. They now think that the custodian is trying to prank us. The little ones didn't even notice.

My one stroke of brilliance for  last week: "Weight Lifting" our speech sounds. It's a huge hit with my younger students already.

The weights are made out of paper towel holders that are just covered in butcher paper. I plan on making a smaller 5 lb weight with a toilet paper roll for "weak" productions. The 50 lb weight is for perfect productions.

Categories are in the bag!

CAUTION: You are entering the world of magazine clippings & crafting. It's one time consuming process. Proceed at your own risk. (P.S. This is a picture heavy post.)

First, you will needs lots of small magazine clippings (or die-cuts). Pick out the ones that fall into categories.

Back the clippings on construction paper to eliminate the see-through text from the back. I used gray (the red is for another project.)

Cut all of the pictures out once you have the construction paper filled.

Trim the excess paper to size or leave a border. Then sort into the groups.

Place 3-5 images per sandwich bag.

(Die cuts don't require the construction paper)

Organize into a container. I based mine of basic vocabulary, seasonal, and more complex concepts.

Super Speech

I hope everyone is enjoying the extra long weekend. As I am gearing up for my presentation on Wednesday, I don't have time to write a huge post. I thought I would share a simple craft idea instead. This is my Articulation Super Cape. My students will get the opportunity to make their own capes next week. 

Can't wait to get this little guy laminated for future years of being used as a cape template.

I used the /k/ sound for my example cape. However, you can make a cape for just about anything. My older students will be making them for parts of speech. My social skills groups will be making capes for either a) emotions or b) whole body listening/speaking.

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. 

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.

Because I've been on a DIY kick lately....

Craft sticks are really a gift from heaven (or whatever wonderful place you believe in). They hold endless possibilities as a tool for speech therapy. You can make Popsicle puppet people to work on following directions, turn them into a pick-up-sticks game, write vocabulary/parts of speech/articulation words on them, etc.....I love them even though some of my articulation students confuse them for the flavored tongue depressors we use to produce sounds in isolation correctly. (Many of my articulation students swear they taste exactly like suckers.)  

The jumbo colored ones are probably my favorite craft sticks of all. It's hard to find them so I recommend buying several packs. (Something I learned the hard way.) The bright colors are quite eye-catching and a great way to distinguish different targets. I decided to create an activity for my higher level articulation groups (loaded phrases/sentences). Students get to select a card to complete the sentences.

I broke the colors into minimal pair sets with 4 initial, 2 medial, and 4 final sound sticks for each sound. I wrote on both sides to get an extra bang for my buck.

This project can also be used to target carryover practice. The student(s) can develop their own story or conversation using the phrase as a topic starter. It's a fun way to let them use their creativity and inadvertently work on some language skills too.

 You could also use paint sticks if you have large handwriting.

I plan to store my stick collection in empty soup cans. I figure I'll have plenty of those sitting around once cold weather hits.

You can also make some general phrase sticks for open-ended practice. I took some smaller craft sticks from the Dollar Tree and wrote many of the phrases I use for 1 target phrase practice, such as "Do you see the...." and "Buy a new....". Again, the basic sticks can be used for activities that go beyond just articulation practice.


Recently, I purchased the Funny Flips books that were part of Super Duper's clearance sale to add in more amp up my advanced articulation groups' sessions.

I'm still a bit on the fence about these guys. My students love all of the goofy picture combinations and new word targets (2 years of the same artic decks can be a little boring). The boy's head with a girl's dress gets them every time. However, the names picked for some of the faces in the /k/ book are horrible! We've ended up inventing new names that are a bit more age appropriate for my younger students. The /sh/ book has a few names that are tough for my older students, but for the most part I just need to model those once. The Turn and Talk book is nice in terms of its format. I can just set it up to the right position and let my students tell me the words that they see. Some of the target words are a little odd, but it's a nice way to add variety to drills. It's also much easier than the constant card shuffle.

Turkey Talk. The emotions edition.

Some days, I just feel like this.......

If you saw me on Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings, you would definitely have to agree with this statement. It's probably from the back-to-back groups. It could also be from having a group of 4 boys that like to squabble with each other over everything. The talk card system I put into place is finally starting to pay off just a little. It is amazing how well losing a sticker for the day stays with them. I had one lose two cards last week, but the thought of losing the third card was enough to end the poor choices. It's the small things in life that truly mean the most. Since my younger groups are wrapping up the tail ends of their friendship journals, it is time for me to introduce our emotions in-depth and how our choices impact others' feelings.

I saw this pumpkin emotions game on pinterest that I absolutely love. The only problem is the fact that I don't have access to any baby wipe containers. So I had to adjust the activity to use materials that are readily available to me.

I used one sheet of yellow poster board, one sheet of white poster board (for the face parts), one black sharpie, three sheets of red, yellow, and orange construction paper, and two sheets of brown construction paper. I drew the turkey and feathers free-hand onto the construction paper. You could also try using a template from a google search or Mailbox magazine. I taped the feathers and turkey body to the yellow poster board and had it laminated with the face parts.

The end result didn't come out too bad. Plus, I can use the face parts with other seasonal character posters, such as Santa or a leprechaun. We will talk about our feelings using Mr. Turkey and hopefully add in some role-play situations before Thanksgiving.

I also found another version that doesn't require all of the little pieces. You can easily use a die-cut to make these little guys.

Happy crafting!

Halloween creepiness part 2 with delightful "hands on" practice

It's been a "short" week of school. We had two days of professional development, which is both a blessing and a curse. I managed to do the following: get caught up on my Medicaid billing, made some more Super Duper product posters for my 3+ month of laminating fun, pulled out my Halloween books, attempted to draw pictures to use for sequencing with the Old Lady who Swallowed a Bat, and started up another pinterest inspired craft. This list may sound pretty funny to people who are just curious about the field or unfamiliar with the realm of school-based therapy but these things take more time than I care to think about. 

Luckily, most of my students came back with refreshed minds and happy hearts. It was good to be back in session with them. They helped me find a new Halloween favorite: The 13 Nights of Halloween. I picked this book up back in January of last year at Goodwill. The concept is very similar to the 12 Days of Christmas song. You have 13 nights of a tiny pink goblin gifting odd and creepy presents. We used the Expanding Expression Tool to talk about some of these gifts (ie. owls, vampires, witches) and then played an exciting round of cat-EAR-gories. 

I also introduced my syntax groups to my second Halloween DIY project: Gross Parts of Speech. I picked up the fingers from the Dollar Tree earlier this month. All it takes is a sharpie and 10 minutes of writing. Toss them into a mystery box and you are ready to go. 

I had a few students who were really grossed out at first, but they were begging for thumbs and pinkies by the end of the lesson.

My new favorite song of the moment......