Superflex and Sidekicks

On the 8th day of posting this Speech Lady gave to me, some friends for Superflex. 

I've posted ideas from my friend Angela before (because she's pretty genius), and I couldn't help but want to post this as soon as I saw it.  I mean Superflex has all these enemies, but he needs some sidekicks too, right?!?

Meet Perspective Pete-

& Positive Polly

Check out Angela's website with tons of other ideas too!

p.s. Ang I get to see you in 7 weeks...let the countdown begin!

Teaching Social Skills With Cars

On the 4th day of posting this Speech Lady gave to me, some ideas to teach preschoolers. 

About 90% of my caseload are boys.  That means I've gotten really good at crashing cars, making horrible wrecking noises and knocking things down.  I like to directly teach my kids how to play with toys and then help them generalize that in real-time play with peers.  Last week we focused on cars.  I made this poster with some target vocabulary for the kids to use. 

Some additional activities were a car wash.  I like this because along with teaching pragmatics, it is so important to teach play skills.  A lot of my kids use 1-2 step play sequences and it's important to expand that as you get so much more language with just one extra step of play. 

With a car wash you have a novel 3 step sequence.  We just used two bins and a towel, but how cute would it be to make these with your kids?!?

We also went on a scavenger hunt for tools around the school so that we could fix a wounded car.  I couldn't have dreamed in my wildest dreams how many peer to peer interactions I got with this activity.  It was very exciting. 

Cars are also a great opportunity to work on basic concepts like size, quantities and color.  I usually like to categorize them by colors, type (car/truck), size etc. 

Love this book to go along with our play!

Play is such a critical part to teaching language and pragmatic skills with little guys.  I know I always forgot about just playing when I worked in the schools.  The school I'm at now is a school founded on the importance of play.

All I know is I've gotten really good at playing and I make some pretty legit environmental sounds these days :)

Bucket Fillers & Bucket Dippers

I don't know if all of you are familiar with the following books:

      

And if you've never heard of these books then you are in for quite a treat.  To say I love these books is an understatement. 

The concept behind these books is that everyone (adults and children) have a bucket inside of them.  When someone is nice to you and makes you feel good then they are filling your bucket.  When someone criticizes, bullies or is mean then they dip your bucket.  The books talk about when you have a full bucket you are happy and good things happen so you are able to fill other people's buckets.  When your bucket is empty then everything seems bad and you become a bucket dipper yourself!  It may seem like an abstract concept to some children we work with, but trust me if you can make it more concrete (which this post will help with) then kids of all ages understand and really gravitate to this concept. 

First here are some adorable bulletin board ideas:

*Click on the picture to get to these blog links. 

This blogger put the kid's faces on a bucket. This one is definitely happening in my social skills class.

If you can't find buckets then use different colored cups.

Or use library book pockets as "buckets".

When introducing any topic it's a good idea not just to read the book, but have plenty of follow-up activities for generalization and general understanding of the concept.  Using a t-chart or another visual to brainstorm what would fill or dip someone's bucket is a great place to start.  I love the idea of the jars and you could use ping pong balls instead.  Write down fillers and dippers on the balls and the students have to decide which jar it goes into.

   

Here are even more activities that you could incorporate into centers or use as an activity in your lesson plan.

  

And if that wasn't enough, here is an awesomely cheesy song about filling your bucket.

Now if only I had unlimited supply of these books, I would pass them out to all the cranky people on the train and bus in the morning!

Behavior Management

Stop Light

This may look familiar.  I talked about using this in my transportation post for final consonant deletion.  I love multi-purpose therapy tools! I use this for a visual reminder for my students (mostly my preschool and kindergarten kids).  I print out their names, add velcro and the goal is to stay on green the whole time.  If they move to yellow then they can still earn their way back up to green, but if they get on red that means no sticker and I report back to their teacher/parents.  Usually just getting on yellow puts them in check and they are ready to work after just that warning.  You can also use terms like green choices (good choices) or red choices (bad choices). 

Thought Pails

My friend Angela uses this with her groups and it does wonders.  Blue or Purple sticks means she's having "good" thoughts about the student.  Red or yellow sticks mean she's having "weird" thoughts about the student and they need to fix the issue.  These visual reminders really seem to help. 

Token Boards

I found this great resource along with many other visuals off elearning.autism.net.  Some kids need a constant visual reminder of what they are working towards.  These token boards are great with that.  I will often use them with my younger kids working on articulation that just don't have the attention to task that is required to complete the drill practice.  

Here is another great visual from Live Speak Love

I'm a big believer in positive reinforcement.  When I see a student sitting quietly and doing what they are asked to do I try and make sure I tell them, " I like that Johnny is sitting with his hands in his lap."   This usually encourages the other students to do what's being asked as well. 

What do you all do to promote making good choices? Leave a comment below so everyone can see!

Appy Hour-Super Duper Social Edition

Practicing Pragmatics Fun Deck

This app, like all Super Duper apps, allows you to pick and choose the cards that you want presented to your students.  There are 7 sub-categories in this pragmatics app.  They include Politeness, Solving Problems, Feelings, Giving Info, Requesting, Telephone Skills and Staying On Topic.  I used this directly with the Simply Social at School-7 that I reviewed yesterday.  Each of these sub-categories coincides perfectly with one of the 50 lessons in the book.  The app is great to use for generalization, group activities and/or as a reward.  I used the app to get a baseline.  I chose the category I was going to teach that week, the kids went through the cards and answered accordingly, I used the buttons on the app to keep track of whether or not they gave the right answer, and there you go baseline data.  I then spent the week teaching them the lessons and then at the end of the week we went through the same cards and again used the buttons on the app to decide which ones they got right and wrong and hello progress monitoring! What's great is that you can enter each of your students by name and then at the end email yourself or parents the data you obtained from the app.  This app is also great if you need to get conversation going to get a language sample, carry-over articulation skills into conversation or work on fluency. 

 

What Would You Do At School If... Fun Deck

I used this in a similar way as I did the Practicing Pragmatics Fun Deck.  I hand picked the cards that went along with the lesson that week took a baseline and then monitored progress at the end of the week.  What I like about this app is that all the What ifs....really do happen to these kids on a daily basis.  A lot of my students can decide what someone else should do in the situation, but when they themselves go through it they are unable to use those social thinking skills.  I like to do the ol' "Well Johnny I agree that's what the girl should do.  Has this situation ever happened to you?".  Most of the time I get a big "NO", but then when I remind them that in fact yesterday they did get in trouble in class for talking while the teacher was talking, they "sort of" remember then.   This is another excellent app for getting conversation going and even better getting group conversation going.  We talk about how everyone handles situations differently, but we have to remember our social thinking skills and make sure that we make the right decision.  This app would really work well with your older elementary students that may be transitioning to middle school.  You could even create your own "What ifs..." that apply personally to each student and they could draw the picture and take it home so parents can be aware of issues that may be happening at school.  

So, that is how I used these apps and integrated them into lessons using Social Skills at School-7.  

I hate to tell you all this, but for this "Appy Hour" I'm sitting on the beach in North Carolina.  Go ahead and be jealous!

Happy "Appy Hour"!

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are Speech Lady Liz's.  The companies are nice enough to provide materials to try out, but provide no other compensation. 

Simpy Social at School-7 Review

Super Duper sent me the Simply Social at School 7 book with CD-ROM to review. 

I have a lot of students who need direct teaching of social skills and not all of them are children with Autism.  A lot of my younger elementary students with severe language impairments also need to brush up on their pragmatics (the website says for grades 2-12, but I used it with a Kindergarten group and it worked great).  I was excited to try the lessons in this book out and see how they responded. 

Now I could write a review of all the parts of the book, or I could get to the nitty gritty and tell you exactly how I used it.  I know which one I would want, so this is how it was used in my classroom.

There are 50 social skills topics in this book.  Each topic has a set of 7 steps.  These steps are kind of like little mantras for your students i.e. "I will be aware of the people around me." etc.  I like to start off the week using a pocket chart and sentence strips.  We write down each of the 7 steps and talk about them as we go.  The book has a description of each step so you don't even have to use your brain to think of an explanation (love that)!  This pocket chart stays up in the classroom all week and the steps are reviewed each session.  After you go through all the steps you can move on to the next section of the lesson, the "Look and Learn". 
The "Look and Learn"  is where the CD-ROM comes in handy.  Print off enough sheets for each student and have them follow the directions to the picture scene.  In the detailed picture scenes the children are either following the 7 steps for that lesson or they are not.  It's up to the students to decide who is and who isn't.  This is a good group activity to get your students to participate.
The next section is the "Think and Review".  In this section there are scenarios that focus on the topic at hand.  These are nice for creating discussion groups. You can talk about what the student did and what they could do to make the situation better.  Lots of perspective taking is needed for the given scenarios.  At the end there are also discussion questions where the students can relate their own experiences to whatever the lesson is focusing on. 
The last part of each lesson is a "Take-Home Practice".  This is great to send home each week so parents know what the child is learning that week.  Each lesson also comes with a "Simply Social Superstar!" cut-out that they can either keep in a book or you could create an award wall in your classroom.  I waited until I saw the student using that particular skill we had been working on that week and then they got to color and take-home the award. 

What I really like about this book is that it can go hand-in-hand with other social skills programs that you might already have in place.  I use Michelle Garcia Winner's Social Thinking Curriculum, and this book coincides perfectly with the lessons and the Unthinkables of her program. 

Some examples of how I integrated the two are as follows:
Being Aware of Your Surroundings lesson- Body Snatcher/The Unwonderer
Ignoring Distractions lesson-Brain Eater
Staying On Topic lesson-One Sided Sid/Topic Twister Meister
Turn-Taking lesson-Destroyer of Fun

Because I already had this Social Thinking Curriculum in place, I wasn't sure how the book would work with everything.  It ended up really adding a lot.  I love the 7 steps for each lesson and those are really great to be able to give to parents each week so they can practice and understand what you are working on.  This book also does most of the lesson planning for you.  It has 50, that's right folks 50 lessons to use.  You could definitely turn each lesson into a week long activity.  There are 52 weeks in a year so there you go no social group planning for an entire year.  Those other 2 weeks (here, here).  Done. 

Check back tomorrow for "Appy Hour" to see how I integrated some Super Duper apps into the lessons from Simply Social 7. 

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are Speech Lady Liz's.  The companies are nice enough to provide materials to try out, but provide no other compensation.

End Of The Week SLP Blues

My kids go crazy over Angry Birds! I have a pre-schooler that has limited verbal output, but she as clear as day can say "Angry Birds".  I think this Friday will be an Angry Birds kind of day, and I've taken ideas from these awesome blogs to help me get through my end of the week SLP blues!



Angry Verbs
This is a really cute bulletin board idea.  If you wanted to do this in therapy you could come up with happy verbs and angry verbs (thinking this could work with social group too) and the kids have to categorize them and/or put the verbs in a complete sentence. 

Angry Birds Take Over The Speech Room
Jenna has some great activities to use to incorporate Angry Birds. Here is another one of her links to an Angry Birds conversation starter activity.

Angry Birds Attack Articulation
Love these games...I've printed them, laminated them and can't wait to use them!

Angry Birds for Language
Thinking this Angry Birds game may need to be purchased by this Speech Lady!

Angry Birds for Pragmatics
Love this activity to use as a get to know you game and help students realize things they may have in common. 

GeekSLP tackles Angry Birds
Great ideas to use with your older/higher level kids. 



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End Of The Week SLP Blues

So picture this...it's Friday, you've done your weekly activities about 30x too many.  If you have to look at one more articulation card you're going to go crazy.  Creativity is low...it is the last day of the work week.

Don't fret my fellow speech ladies and gentleman I have a solution!

Thursdays I plan to have a blog list below with some great ideas that I will be using to cure my end of the week blues. So make sure to check back here on Thursdays.

Speech Room News- In the Tall, Tall, Grass
As soon as I saw this I went straight to the library and got the book "In the Tall, Tall Grass." I also found "In the Small, Small Pond." Such a cute craft activity to use with my pre-school kids. 

Let's Talk Speech-Language Pathology-Materials Monday
Super cute pirate activities.  I already know a group of boys that will be very happy with Ms. Gretz if they get to play this on Friday!

The Dynamic Duo-Transitioning to Middle School Videos
Seeing as the school year is coming to a close you may have some kids transitioning to middle school.  This blog has a great series of videos (there will eventually be 20 videos!) to use with your kids to prepare them for this big transition.  Heck you could use these for every Friday that's left in the school year. 

Articulation "Word Slider"
The kids could make these to take home and practice their sounds at the beginning or ending of words. 

Animal Safari Hunt
How amazing are these? The kids could make these and then go on a "hunt" for items that have their sound in it.  You could use this activity after reading "We're Going On A Bear Hunt".  I will have to add it to my lesson plan.  Also, could incorporate this into an activity for my older kids using the "In the Tall, Tall Grass" from above!

What would I do without these amazing bloggers?! I'd be scrambling for ideas that's what!

Make sure to follow their pages and/or like them on Facebook. 

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

....well boats too.   

Boats

Boat Vocab

Row, Row, Row Your Boat
A fun activity is to come up with new verses for this song that have to do with other modes of transportation. (i.e. drive, drive, drive your car or fly, fly, fly your plane) This is a good opportunity to work on rhyming also.

(My friends think it's weird that I collect trash and used containers. 
You all get it, right?!?)

Set out a bunch of materials styrofoam plates, cups, papertowel rolls, paper, plastic silverware, microwave containers etc. and have the children create a sailboat. When they are done have them explain how they made their boat. You can either try and recreate based on what they tell you, or take pictures as you go and other children can sequence it at a later therapy session.

Make your own articulation sailboat.  Take strong tape (packing or book tape) and tape 5-10 popsicle sticks together.  Before you tape write target words on each stick.  Leave a little space between the two in the middle so you can stick a pipe cleaner in there to have a sail.  Glue or tape this sail to the pipe cleaner.  (Warning: One of my students wanted to know if it would float, it does for about 30 seconds and then it sinks....fast.)

Cut sailboats out of felt (or paper) and give your students directions to put the pieces on a felt/chalk board.  Put the big, yellow triangle sail on the small purple boat etc. 

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Bus

Bus template

Bus vocabulary

Use the template and the vocabulary and make a bus for the kids to take home. I printed mine on yellow paper and then included these labels. 

I like to read this book with my kids. 
Obviously, "Wheels On The Bus" is sung many times while we discuss this topic.

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Cars

One of my favorite games to play with my kids working on /k/, /g/ and/or s-blends is "Red light, green light." Lots of good practice saying "red light stop, green light go".

I got this city rug from IKEA for super cheap and the kids love to take cars and go around the roads.  This is a great opportunity to just "play" with the kids and talk about where they are driving there cars, what they are in front of, next to, behind, on top of etc.  It's great for following directions, put the fire truck on the volcano.  This particular rug has all sorts of locations and you can talk about words that describe each place (the igloo is cold and wet).  This rug is the big reinforcer when I'm meeting my little bits (especially boys) for the first time.  I can usually get a very in-depth language sample from kids with just a couple of cars and this rug. 

I use this stop light for a lot of things.  I use it for behavior management and I also use it for CVC words.  I recently have used it with a kid that uses the phonological process of final consonant deletion.  I put velcroed letters on each part of the stoplight to make a simple CVC word, and then if they get all the sounds green means "Go!" and they get to race cars or whatever their reward is for that day. 

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Planes

Most of the students I work with have never been on a plane, so it's hard to explain it to them.  So instead we take this time to pack our suitcase.  You could get crazy and bring a real suitcase in with clothes, but I tend to go the easier route so I don't have an excuse to hoard more clothes in my closet than I already do. 

Use a plastic travel soap container from the $1 store (These have so many uses in the speech room;  card game containers, crayon containers etc.).  I use the outfits from the Jesse Bear activity that I posted here.  The kids pick where they want to go (hello negotiating) and then we look up the weather there.  We talk about what kinds of things there are to do in that city and then we pack our bags accordingly.

I snatched this book off the free pile at school and the kids love it! It goes through and explains what each type of aircraft looks like and its purpose. 

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Trains

Trains are another great thing to make out of old scraps.  Use paper towel rolls as the wheels and cotton balls as the smoke. 

Use train cars to work on blends, final consonant deletion, initial consonant deletion and for kids who use the phonological process of cluster reduction.  For this, I like to use the legos that have wheels and hook together to make a train.  I will put a magnetic letter on each of the train cars and we talk about each sound separately.  Then we link them all together and say the word with all the sounds.

This would also be a good opportunity to talk about occupations and word associations in the transportation industry. Here is a matching game. 

Sorry for the lack of theme posts lately.  This speech lady's head has been barely above water(hence the boat being the first topic)...thinking that will be a theme until I make my big move up north!

Conversation Tree

I got this idea from my friend and guest poster, Angela. 

Each student gets their own set of colored question cards and comment cards.  The teacher or students pick a topic of conversation and the students get a chance to ask questions or comment.  The goal is to have a tree that is colorful and very tall.  When an off-topic comment is made we put a branch instead of a colorful card.  Obviously, a tree without branches sticking out all over is the goal.  The topic of this conversation tree was....

Click on me to find out

I was hoping for tears and inconsolable kids yelling "noooooooo".  That's not quite how it went down. Some kids immediately started asking questions, while others I don't think got what I was trying to tell them.  A group of my kindergartners kept asking when I would be coming back from my move.  Either way, I wanted to make sure to give my kids plenty of notice that I will not be returning next year as their speech lady.  This is what the tree looked like when I was using it with some older kids that had lots of questions to ask about my impending move.

So there is the activity.  It's great for working on conversation skills, expansion of utterances, asking questions, answering questions etc. 

Now for more on the move....

I figured I would let you all in on my exciting news.  This speech lady is moving to Chicago in 2 months.  Chicago has always been in the back of my mind (my sister and her husband have lived there for several years), but the day I felt the baby inside my sister's stomach kick, I was a goner.  I knew I needed to be near this little being or I would go insane.  Well my sweet little niece is 7 months old now, and everyday away has been absolute torture.  

I mean she was cute then, but you should see her "Michelin Man" arms and precious face now.

Luckily, my new job in Chicago will force me to do even more lesson planning than I do now, which means more ideas for you all. I will be sad to leave Austin and leave the wonderful friends I've made here.  I don't even want to think about saying goodbye to my classroom neighbors and besties Angela and Jessie.  Gahhh hold back tears! 

Anyways, I'm extremely anxious and thrilled about the exciting things ahead of me and wanted to share it with my blog family (you all of course!).