Memories

Today, I was reminded of my junior year of college. The year of uncertainty and sheer willpower. It was really at that point in my college career that I decided to go for Speech.

My research into the field was not your typical internet search.

1. Arrange to have an internship at the hospital where my dad got outpatient voice therapy. This internship lasted an entire month. I did a second internship in a school system for a month my senior year.

2. Look up history of field just because....well, I'm me. History is pretty much a part of every cell in my body. This website gives a history of the field: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/history.html   It was really my one true resource until I managed to find some old textbooks from the 70s. (Again, thank you Goodwill and Worldcat.)

3. Read some random books based on recommendations and research....(but I can only remember two right now)

Temple Grandin's biography (Awesome)
Wings- an old radio play about a woman's experience with aphaisa

 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly -- failed in attempts to find it. Still need to watch the movie
The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight--haven't read it yet but I do have a copy

4. Did an email interview with an SLP for college.

5. Joined livejournal


Going into this field is the craziest and scariest thing that I have done in my entire life. If you had told me that I would go down this path in high school, I probably would have told you that it would never happen. Me? An introvert who just wanted to find a quiet place to work? A job that was anything but teaching?  Life is funny that way. I wouldn't change my decision for anything. I love working with my students. Even on my worst days at work, I know that I am able to make some small difference as an SLP.

Now, I just have to figure out if I want to pursue a PhD or not. It's been the subject of much musing for the past year. I wish I could say that I was closer to a decision as I hate the feeling of being stuck in limbo.

buckaroo? why not?

It's not my week for interesting ideas. So here is a game that I have recently started using in therapy. I got it for $2.99.

The items which players must place on the mule's back without him kicking are 

• a bedroll
• a canteen 
• a crate 
• a frying pan
• a cowboy hat
• a guitar
• a holster 
• a lantern 
• a rope
• a saddle
• a shovel
• a stick of dynamite

Buckaroo is wonderful for cowboy themes if you use them. You can also use it for following simple directions or as a reinforcer for drill work. I mostly use it as a reinforcer so the students feel a small sense of accomplishment directly after working. However, you have to keep an eye on the students as the pieces shoot off pretty far. I warn them to watch out with this game (along with Pop up Pirate) as I don't want them to get bopped in the eye. 

Also, I am slowly developing into a crazy hat lady. The Salvation Army store in my town has a plethora of strange hats. I've managed to pick up the following: blue furry hat (for Hairy Hat Man); hot dog hat; pirate hat; fireman hat (Fireman Fred); chef hat; and detective hat. The Letterland kids went nuts for the fireman hat today. I love how Halloween is giving me great tools for year-round therapy projects. 

Love this picture. I'm guessing this is probably pretty similar to how the kids view me in my hats.
I don't want to know what they will think of 35....25 is apparently the new ancient.  

In a little blog is a dark, dark post.....

I probably have way too many Halloween books, but it's one of my favorite holidays. My kindergarten students get the Spooky Old Tree and my 1st graders get to enjoy this story....

Photo 

A Dark, Dark Tale is a fairly simple picture book. It takes the reader through various "dark" scenes that get creepy and focused on sequentially smaller spaces. You start out in a moor with an owl flying overhead and move through the woods to the "haunted house." The black cat takes you through various spaces up to the ending point with a surprise that the kids won't expect. (It won't scare them unlike the plastic spiders they might find in your cauldron.) This story is great for making predictions and talking about what makes a place "spooky."

Here are a few other Halloween favorites from my speech room to yours:
1) Room on the Broom
2) The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything
3) Skeleton Hiccups
4) Shake Dem Halloween Bones
5) Goodnight Goon
6) The Hallo-wiener

It was a graveyard smash!

My older students are not going to be left out of the Halloween madness. I took the game pieces out of my Ned's Head and combined them with a few items from my phonics box set to create this....

Take one black cauldron from the dollar store (or a thrift store find) and fill it with shredded paper.

Hide freaky things like a "pea brain" and tongue.
Just don't take tips on hiding things from my kiddos. A little too obvious there guys....

Let the kids dig around for objects.
My rule is that they have to describe what they touch before pulling it out of the cauldron.

I purchased two packets of rubber bouncy balls (12 total) with spiders in the center. I give the kids an extra turn when they come across one of them. Otherwise, I already had everything I needed to create this simple game.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween.....

In the spirit of the season, I wanted to share what's been going on in my speech room this week.

Kindergarten approved. Two of my favorites.

As a big fan of animated literacy, I like to use books that have movements. I use my puppets to do the movements as I read and have the kids copy with their own hands. It gets them more involved in the story and helps with the wiggles.

The older kids played Pirate Talk rather than a book activity since it was time for school pictures. I was afraid that my schedule would be completely messed up, but most of the kids were done by the time I got them. The kindergartners, unfortunately, were the only ones subject to the disruption. It always happens to be the ones that cannot handle changes that get the interruptions. Thankfully, they worked on an ultra cute craft project that could finished up later (made Eddy Elephant using torn strips of paper. We've been doing one for each letterland character.)

This is the game that I have waited for nearly a year to introduce. I found this spider web tablecloth after Halloween last year at Salvation Army. It was only two dollars and I knew that I had to have it. The bean-bag pumpkin booties showed up at Goodwill 3 weeks ago for $1.99 and it was a perfect match. 

The strategy behind the game is to place picture cards in random spots of the web. The kids throw the bean-bags and try to hit a card. If they hit a card (or near it), then they have to tell me what it is and we apply it to their goals (articulation, language, blending/segmenting, etc). We happened to use Letterland cards in the EC room.

If they hit one of my two giant spiders, they get visited by.....

My friend Spooky Spider. He's another puppet that is worn more like a glove so he can wiggle his legs at them. I had the kindergartners begging for some spider time with this game. I like to vary his "attack" with by sometimes saying "Watch out!"; "Oh, no! It's a giant spider"; and doing the music from Jaws that warned you of the shark. 

Of course, I happened to make a fool out of myself by doing this when the Principle and Vice Principle got pulled into the room to observe a behavioral issue. Life's never dull in the EC classroom. 

***You can do something similar by finding a table cloth at Walmart or buying a plain one and making the lines yourself. The bean-bags can also be homemade using orange fabric and the spiders came from the dollar store.

Pirate Talk

I recently purchased Pirate Talk when Super Duper put it on a 50% Facebook only special. (No, I still haven't recovered from the reduction of their special sales prices yet. -...- )

Waiting patiently for me to open the box in between finishing up SOAP notes.

Game board and movable characters. The kids were confused about the start and end points. 

Arr, mateys! There be much treasure for the taken'!"

The cards are divided into subjects. The kids can repeat sentences, answer questions, follow directions, work on categorization, and come up with their own sentences about the scene. I like my options. :)

I definitely like the high-interest appeal of the pirates. It targets a pretty good variety of goals. The majority of my students struggle with following directions, answering questions, and repeating sentences so I'm not required to do much thinking with this tool. This is a blessing on particularly hard days. 

However, one of my students has already complained that there is no captain. It's  never a good thing when you have to repeatedly tell a student to pick a color. I'm thinking about making my own "captain" figure and sitting it in random places around the board. The "crew" will have to rescue him from the dangerous sharks. This should take care of the complaints.

In other news......


Here is a pragmatics goal list that I composed to align with Common Core standards. It's not an exhaustive list, but it contains short term goals that I have used.

Social skills aren't just about the students and sometimes we as professionals forget that it also extends to us too.

As a single, *young* (though not in the eyes of my students for sure) woman, I am acutely aware of the fact that I must rely on my critical thinking skills to get through IEP meetings. I don't know what it is like to have a child, particularly not a child who is suffering from some type of delay or disability. A parent decided to remind me of this recently and I couldn't agree more. I don't know what it feels like to not understand my child or to listen to them scream in frustration as they can't find the words they want. I'm a completely blank slate and the only thing I can do is try to imagine the kind of parent I would like to be someday.

My solution is to read blogs by parents. It doesn't compare to the real-life experience, but it does give me an idea of things parenting might involve. I have a list of few favorites here:

1. Speak Jane Speak
2. My life and kids
3. The Salad Days
4. The Pioneer Woman 

This is the only "child" I plan on having for a llllooooonnnnggg time.

What's in that box???

Do you like a good mystery? Well, my students sure do and the "Mystery Box" provides another entertaining way to learn. 

I'm not going to lie...at first, my kids thought that this was a new prize box.
If they aren't stuck on games, they are going to focus on the prizes...

Look at all those goodies!

I've done a couple things with this box so far:

    1) Described the item inside and had the kids guess what it is. (They could also do the describing before they pull the item out.)

    2) Let them pull one item out and name it

    3) If they get an articulation card, we work on that sound.

I made this "game" using your standard school butcher paper (not just for doors & bulletin boards) and a cardboard box found in the recycling bin. I'll gladly take the walk of shame for admitting that I took something out of the recycling bin considering how good this project turned out. It's a very high interest activity for my younger students. 

I also have to share with you that I am currently very disappointed in Super Duper. They've reduced their 50% overstock sales to only 30%. (I also haven't forgotten the time where they ended these sales completely  earlier in the year.) I realize that they are in the business to make money. However, I am not in a business where I can afford to pay $20+ for every material that I need. Those 50% off sales enabled me to purchase some great materials that I use on a weekly basis. Schools don't offer a luxury salary. Looks like I won't be buying much from Super Duper in the near future.....  :(

And, here, is the document for the aliens I use for Colorful Semantics.