Life's little surprises...ROCK!

So I have some really terrific news!!!! (At least, for my coworkers and myself.) I get to go to the ASHA convention in November!!!!! My district is even covering our gas and food, which was completely unexpected with the price of registration and a hotel room. I've literally been floating on cloud 9 since we found out yesterday.

In case you don't know what I'm rambling about, the American Speech & Hearing Association holds a national conference each year in a different state/city. It's attended by more than 12,000 SLPs, audiologists, and scientists in our field according to the website. The convention is a place to get CEUs (mine won't count until January which stinks), meet potential employers from across the nation, and get free stuff. My view of it at this point is a magical land where you get sprinkled with the SLP-fairy dust of knowledge. 

It's been a while since the convention has been held close to my state so none of my coworkers have ever attended one. They've all attended the state's convention though. I'm the only one who hasn't been to that so I'm completely clueless as to how these things work. November cannot get here soon enough. 


In other news, I have yet to start on the 4th and 5th grade language goal bank. Hearing screenings have just completely zapped my energy. Does anyone else have that problem? I never feel this wiped out after evaluations and those are much more mentally taxing. My audiometer is apparently tired of it too. It started blinking like crazy on me even after I gave it new batteries. No one could figure out what's wrong with it so the audiologist is going to send it off somewhere. I think it's just possessed. Thankfully, today was the last day of our mass screening and I told the teachers at my school that I will re-screen in 2-4 weeks. 

To celebrate the end of hearing screenings, here is a crafty tip to make Parts of Speech Cubes:

These are the store bought kind. Mine are blue.

Materials

1. Package of foam counting cubes from the Dollar Tree (I think Target also sold these)

1. Sharpie

Take two (or more if you want) blocks and the sharpie. Write a different part of speech on each side of the blocks. Make sure you give each side time to absorb the ink to avoid smearing. 

You can use these blocks to brainstorm different words for each category or to develop a sentence. 

The foam blocks are also great for making phonics cubes, visual phonics cubes (if you do that), question cubes...etc. I love easy crafts! 

That's not my.....

Last year, I did not fully comprehend the value of board books as embarrassed as I am to say it. I guess I was naive and thought that they were just meant for babies. Usborne helped me overcome that belief with this series.

That's not my....dinosaur/mermaid/tractor/etc...happen to be great for introducing younger students to adjectives in a fun manner. The books have fun pictures and are the perfect length for the short attention spans of kindergartners. The students are able to actually feel a variety of textures (guess I'm stating the obvious) that give them a concrete idea of what "rough" or "bumpy" actually is rather than me telling them. For example:

The following dinosaurs are described in the book above (which I scored for $2 at Goodwill vs. the $4 on Amazon)
- a tail that is too fuzzy
- teeth that are too bumpy
- flippers that are too slippery
- horns that are too rough 
- spines that are so soft

For parents of young children (babies included), these books are a great way to introduce language in a multi-sensory manner. They have appeal for both boys and girls with stories about kittens, dogs, fairies, and monsters. The essential vocabulary presented in this series is something that your child will encounter early on in life as they try to tell you about objects/people that they see. Repetition with new words is a key component of learning so I would read and re-read these books to your child. It's a very magical moment when children pick up a beloved book and pretend to read it back to you from memory. 


In other news, one middle school down and one to go! The hearing screening went fairly well. We had 2-3 students trying to pull our legs about whether or not they had been screened. (Ah, the amusements of middle schoolers.) My only complaint is that teachers sometimes forget that everyone needs to be quiet...including them. 

Mass Hearing Screenings

The first week of school does not always equate to students instantly beginning speech therapy. This is something that I learned last year as I did my school practicum in graduate school during the spring. In the world of SLP, I assume that this probably varies by school district (at the risk of sounding like a broken record).

In my district, the first week of school is used for hearing screenings and figuring out our schedules. The SLPs gather together at a different school each day and screen classrooms. It usually takes us about 5 minutes per class, which is pretty good if you ask me. We create two master lists and form an assembly line (a card finder, a stamper, and a signer) to put the information on health cards. I am so glad that our EC director lets us do screenings as a group because it is a surprisingly exhausting process.

My screening audiometer looks similar to this

This year, our mass hearing screening is slightly different from what has been done in years past. My state has changed the best practice policy for hearing screenings to kindergarten, first, sixth, and ninth grades. In the past, we have only screened first, third, and fifth grades. I like the addition of the older grades as they can develop a noise induced hearing loss from listening to their i-pods/radios. They may not be as cooperative as the younger ones, but it is important to raise hearing safety awareness with this age group. The screening is a perfect way to make them wonder about the impact of their habits may have on the future. What I do not understand about the new policy is why they decided to exclude third grade considering that is when the majority of our students fail. The district's contract audiologist also did not like the idea of skipping the third grade, which makes me wonder how other states and districts handle mass screenings. (We did decide to go ahead and screen third grade with our EC directors approval.)

Just one of those days

Hello friends,
        I wish my brain was set to creative mode at the moment. The first day of school; however, wiped out all of my creative energies for blogging. I guess that's what I get for spending the majority of the day before jumping from decorating my door with a "Where in the World are the Speech Detectives" (with a giant Carmen San Diego) theme and laminating everything in sight. I made it through round one of hearing screening and just want to sleep.
       On a side note--I would like to thank the wonderful individuals who gave me crime scene tape two years ago for my grad. school detective theme. I finally used it  to decorate the closet doorway and my desk. Kids beware...my desk is a crime scene (and will clearly look like one after IEPs/evals start up).
       I also figured out that my wonderful idea of fixing my in-service/SOAP note forms at the end of last year backfired. I lost the majority of those files somehow and have 9 still left to fix. Not my best day. I'm mostly upset because it will take me longer to get through the Common Core standards now. I did make a file for articulation, voice, & fluency after a suggestion from Shannen W.  a few days ago. You can find it here or on my goal bank page for Speaking & Listening.

End of complaints.....

      I found a cool game to try with my older kids soon....

The reviews on Amazon are so-so about the game. I'll take them with a grain of salt as my students loved Uno Spin last year. The reason why I have Uno in my room? I like to use the colors as a way to drill the kids. It doesn't work for all goals, but I have used it for sentence formulation. 

I also tried out a different way of schedule planning this year. I took a basic piece of poster board and wrote out time slots with the days of the week. I laminated the poster and wrote all of my students' names on post-its. I've placed the post-its around the board to schedule my groups. I'm very visual when it comes to my schedule and this seems to click better than using a spreadsheet. It made my life so much easier! All I have left to do is convert it to a computer document to give to teachers/administration

Mission Impossible? Solved. At least, for now.

My mission this summer has been to find one of several things:

1) Eric Carle books-- Got those at my library's book sale
2) Dr. Seuss books/games/etc-- Have bought several from yard sales, thrift stores, and Target
3) Echo mics


Number 3 has been driving me crazy ALL summer. I have looked in every place (ie..Walmart, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, thrift stores, yard sales.....) known to man. Why are these little mics so important to me?

The main reason I want these mics is for articulation drills. The majority of children I have encountered are natural "hams" and LOVE to perform for their own amusement (and, ours, coincidentally). Mirrors? Yeah....the kids usually start making faces at themselves immediately after I pull them out. We get to learn tons about our mouths that way. Microphones? Well, those just add an incentive to actually do the drills. They can imagine that they are rock stars, pop singers, or a singer in a Mariachi band. It doesn't really matter to me as long as it makes learning their sound(s) fun.

Secondly, these mics are not just for articulation. You can also use them to have your students pretend to be on a news show. They have to "report" about important events--namely, what's happening in the book we're reading that week--to their audience. It encourages them to pay attention to the story and it's great retell practice. You may have them ask each other questions as part of the "interview" to practice asking and answering questions. It is also a great way to work on formulating coherent sentences. Maybe, I'll even inspire one of them to go into the news someday.

8/18/12 was apparently a day of destiny. My father asked me to go with him to Target to find a new television. I went down the party isle on a whim to see if they had any cute favors for my prize box and I ended up hitting the jackpot. Yes, I found three echo mics! The best part was the lovely price of $1 each. (The television being out of stock equated to finding another mic at the Target on the other end of town...lol.) So I'm lucky enough to have my own "Teacher's mic" to use when I model the activities. 

If there is that one impossible item to find on your must have list, please don't give up on finding it. Persistence can pay off in the end. 

Flowers in My Mind

Books possess a magical power to me as both an SLP and an avid reader. I've always loved getting lost in the plot and that's something that I want to share with people of all ages. 

Sorry for the song, but it just makes me think of reading a really good book. You can just go to that place in your mind and it becomes real for that brief moment in time.

Today, I want to share a few ways that I use books (namely picture books) in therapy. I find that these methods are always in the back of my mind when I am looking for books to purchase even if they are only .10 cents at a yard sale.

1. Wh- questions--- My kids, if they ever had the chance, would probably tell you that I am always asking questions. We talk about what they think the book is going to be about based on the cover, who the characters are, who they like and don't like (and why), where the characters are, what they are doing, what is the problem, what do the characters do about the problem, why they do that....etc. I may ask questions after a sentence, a paragraph, or a few pages depending on the goals of that group.
        If I can't ask really good questions that have clear answers within the story that my students can get, then the book is not serving it's purpose in therapy. I focus most of my energy on picture books for that reason as the pictures provide some built in help. (That's not to say that I'm against using paragraphs or chapter books with my older students as long as it is appropriate.)
2. Sequence of events-- Some books are better at this than others (hint...Laura Numeroff). I usually stop every three pages with the younger ones to review what's happening. I may even have them act it out if I have manipulatives on hand. Like this one....

And here's another great example of animated literacy using a plush. I don't have this, but I have used items like this during graduate school with preschoolers. I love the way puppets and stuffed animals can bring stories to life for these students. They can hand you the items/put it in the appropriate place as the book is being read or use it to relive the story for a second time. I have thought about using a bucket/trash can from the Dollar Tree to make an Old Lady like the idea on this blog.

3. Vocabulary-- We talk about what words the kids know and what words are new. Is there anything that can help us figure out what the new word means (ie re-read the sentence and look at the illustrations. Does it have a prefix or a suffix?). We can then draw a picture on a note card to represent what this new word means for our word wall. 

4. Predicting- What will happen next? (You may need to help them by asking "What would YOU do next?")

5. Role playing-- I particularly like to do this for stories that have a social skill involved. I've done a Thanksgiving play and several scenes from Super Duper's Social Scenes. (I love this book for older students and hope to get my hands on the rest of the set.) It takes the "What would YOU do?" a huge step forward as well as getting the kids to start using critical thinking skills to put themselves in the character's shoes. 

6. Articulation- There are some books that are wonderful for artic therapy, particularly when you are at the carryover level on several sounds. I have used early phonics readers for sentence level and longer picture books for students that are at reading/conversational level. 

Check out Scholastic, Harper Collins, and even the author's websites for printables that accompany your books. There are tons of great ideas and materials to be found just by searching google (and I do that on a regular basis). 

My kingdom for some....puppets?

Today, I thought I would post about something I love to use for early sessions of articulation therapy with my kindergartners.

These come from the Dollar Tree

My favorite puppet is called, "Sammy Snake," and he makes a hissing noise via a little voice box in his head. He is one of my many Goodwill finds. Sammy also ended up being my lifesaver last year when I got a particularly stubborn student who didn't want to cooperate. All I had to do was offer the opportunity to make Sammy talk and have him cheer for successful sound productions.

If you want puppets to use for therapy, you may want to think about recycling and revamping some old socks. I am in love with sock puppets. They are inexpensive and don't take up as much room as your more traditional puppets might. Saving money and space...I'm all in. You can even give them a back story to add even more interest and tie into language goals. So here's a quick little guide to making your own "Sammy" or perhaps "Stripes."

I'm in love with the sock puppets on this blog!

Materials:1 Sock
2 Googly eyes (whichever size you prefer) or paint
Small square of red felt
Scissors
Glue (fabric glue is best)
Decorations such as ribbon for stripes or maybe fuzzy balls for spots

Steps:
1. Cut the red felt into a forked tongue shape with a long base for gluing to the sock.
2. Glue the eyes near the toe end of the sock.
3. Glue the tongue underneath the toe end of the sock.
4. Decorate to your heart's content 

You can also check out this wiki space for more ideas.