$1 Books for Language Activities

I just got an email from a teacher about http://teacherexpress.scholastic.com/  They have $1 books!  I got a couple (or 20) from the Pre-K and Kindergarten section.  They are downloadable, so you get them instantly.  I just saved all of mine to my computer and got a chance to glance through some and they seem to be great resources, especially since they are $1. 

The catch...the sale ends tomorrow, so get on it!

Facebook

With too much espresso in my body, I got real productive and made a facebook page.  Like it, follow it and/or all of the above!

This Week

I like to come up with a general lesson plan for each type of speech and language group I see.  That way I have all my materials in order and I'm not rummaging through my things during therapy and wasting those precious minutes.  This is how I organize the week. 

This week in speech therapy... 

Primary Articulation

Turtle Snap

I got the idea for this game from my lovely co-worker Orlanda De Los Santos (I’ve obviously forgiven you and your Arkansas team for beating my Wildcats).  I changed the activity a little by using these super cool handmade turtles (yes, they are totally necessary and fun!).  Each child gets one turtle.  Articulation cards are placed in the “mouth” or the open part of the plates.  Then, “turtle snap” cards are added.  The child draws a card and says the word.  If they draw a “turtle snap” card then they have to put all their cards back in the turtle.  The child with the most cards out of the turtle’s mouth at the end, gets an extra sticker (or however you do rewards).

How to make the turtle: I stapled two paper plates together, painted the top and then used paper towel rolls to make the head and feet. Please excuse the missing tail.  All my turtle tails looked funny so I decided this particular turtle was tail-less.

Snowmen All Year

I used a lesson plan from Super Duper Inc.’s Once Upon A Sound.  I supplemented the lesson plan with a snowman sound game.  The students make words out of the 3 circles of a snowman.  Here is the link, just add letters to each circle and have the kids make up words with their sound in it. 

Intermediate Articulation

New Year’s Resolutions

I got both of these ideas off Pinterest.  Click on the links to see where I got the idea.

Link here

Link here

      

Articulation Lab

I like my older kids to take responsibility for their practice.  I set up different centers in the classroom i.e. listening, game, recording etc. so they can be independent.  The kids are at each center for 5 minutes.  All of them at one point come and see me and we go over what they did in the other centers and/or listen to a recording of them practicing. 

Primary Language

Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?

This book creates a great opportunity for talking about different senses and sequencing.  I supplement with this activity I found on Pinterest.  It focuses on feelings and descriptive words. 

Additional activity: Have the kids draw a polar bear and everyone has to guess how the polar bear is feeling. 



Snowmen All Year

 
This book is a great conversation starter and opportunity to have kids answer wh- questions.  They can talk about where they would go with their snowman, what they would do, why they chose those activities.  Have the kids draw a picture of one thing they would do and then use the wh- dice from this post, and ask them questions.  You could also supplement with the snowman direction activity from my holiday post.

Intermediate Language

New Year’s Resolutions

(See Intermediate Articulation for links.)

New Year’s Opposites

I found this lesson plan off of Pinterest.  I just printed and laminated the antonym activity. 

Primary Fluency

Turtle Snap

Use the Turtle Snap game to talk about “turtle speech”.  Put cards in that the child can label and they have to use “turtle talk” when they say and/or talk about the word.  When they pull out a “turtle snap” card they have to walk really slowly around the table.  I also add some “Too fast rabbit” pictures and when they draw it they have to run around the speech table.  Great for visual and kinesthetic learners for the “turtle talk” lesson. 

Intermediate Fluency

New Year’s Resolutions

See Intermediate Articulation for links

Primary Pragmatics

Don’t Break The Ice

I like to introduce the session talking about “ice breakers” in conversation.  Each time it is a child’s turn in the game, they have to come up with a good conversation starter they could use if they wanted to talk with a new or old friend.  It’s also a great way to teach teamwork, turn-taking etc.   

Intermediate Pragmatics

New Year’s Resolutions (See Intermediate Articulation for links.) and/or Don’t Break The Ice activity above. 

That's what we did this week, what did you do with your kids? Feel free to email me (liz.gretz@gmail.com) pictures and explanations of ideas and I will add them to an upcoming post. 

Low-Tech Speech Therapy

Here are some of my go-to (super cheap) activities (when I’m not feeling all creative, Speech Lady Liz- like).

Bags

I get white, paper lunch sacks and the kids decorate their own.  I put cards in the bag that target each child’s articulation goal.  The student rolls the dice and they have to say the word that many times.  Such an easy game that often gets requested by the kids. 

I also use this for my language kids.  I put in verb cards and they have to put the word in a sentence, tell me the past, present, future tense or whatever their particular goal is. 

Wh-dice

This is a good activity to use after a holiday or weekend.  The student draws a picture of what they want to talk about and then depending on level they:

1. Tell me all about the picture and then we roll the dice and their classmates have to answer the who, what, where, when questions or…
2. I roll the dice and the student answers the who, what, where, when questions.  I write the answers on the board and then we figure out how to put all the information in 1-2 sentences so it’s cohesive and listeners can understand what they are talking about. 

Dobbers

Each child gets a dobber and a month themed page.  We practice sounds and depending on how many they get, they get to either color in or use the dobber to mark off how many they produced correctly. 

Beans

That’s right, beans.  For this activity you need two cups and a bag of dried beans.  One cup is for “good” sounds and the other is for “not quite there” sounds.  It’s a good activity for those visual learners. 

I hope this post goes to show that one does not need all the fancy, expensive products to facilitate appropriate and successful speech therapy strategies.  That being said, anyone want to donate an IPad to this speech lady? J



January Take-Home Program

I apologize for the delay with this month's take-home program.  I enjoyed by winter break a little too much and didn't even open up my computer the entire time. 

Articulation Homework

Language Homework

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break!

Santa please bring me...

If I was Santa I would send all my fellow speech therapists a few of my must-haves.  Since there are 10 days until Christmas (I'm reminded every 10 minutes by my students) I thought a top ten list was necessary.  Here are some items this speech lady could not live without (lucky you, some are free (or cheap)!)

1.     Boardmaker

I seriously do not know what I would do without it.  It makes my life so much easier and helps me create all kinds of fun activities.

2.    Pinterest

I use Pinterest for inspiration and to find other speech therapy blogs.  I often ask myself what I did before Pinterest was created. Pediastaff has some amazing boards check them out here. Feel free to follow my speech therapy board as well.

3.    Blue Pens

Anything official in the schools has to be signed with a blue pen.  I buy blue pens in bulk, yet I can never find one when I need it.

4.    Starbucks

No explanation necessary.

5.    Ikea Magazine holders
These cardboard magazine holders are $.99 for a pack of them.  I use them to organize my books and anything else I can organize.

6.    Laminator

I would laminate this computer if I thought it would work.  I love laminating!

7.    Cute labels http://www.thehandmadehome.net/freebies/

To support my OCD, this lovely website has given me the cutest labels ever so that I don’t feel bad about labeling anything and everything.

8.    Mirror

I have some kids that all it takes is a look in the mirror when they’re making their sounds and BAM! they graduate from speech therapy.  I take all the credit though :)
Check out my classroom post and see how I've made the mirror an integral (and fun) part of the speech room. 

9.    Hand Sanitizer

Along with being OCD, I am also a germaphobe.  My manicures last 5 minutes because I’m constantly washing my hands and using hand sanitizer.

10.  Velcro

Velcro is one of those supplies that I am forced to use sparingly because it’s so expensive, but if I could I would Velcro everything!

What are some things that you couldn't live without? Write a comment and let me know.

Come back after the holidays for my go-to speech therapy games (super easy to make and/or cheap to buy).

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Jolly Kwanza too,,,

I was hoping to get this winter themed post up weeks ago.  Alas, this speech lady has been bogged down with evaluations, progress reports, IEP paperwork, Medicaid and all that “fun” stuff that we get paid overtime for (cough, cough not).  Sorry to be a Scrooge, but had to get my “Ba Humbugs” out before I was able to talk about the festive activities that have been going on in speech therapy. 

Christmas

Articulation

"Oh Christmas Tree"

We made Christmas trees out of articulation words that are winter themed.  Colored the pictures green, added a star on top and these labels so parents knew what this activity was all about. 

Ornaments

This activity may look familiar.  I did something similiar in my Halloween post. I used a circle template and then had the kids fold the circles in half. Then, they glued one half of the circle and connected all of them except the last two.  I use four circles for each ornament.  Before you glue the last circles together use string and white glue to create something for the ornament to hang.  Add articulation words to each side of the circle and you've got yourself a speech therapy ornament. 

Language

Hot Chocolate

This was a great activity for beginning sequencers.  They had to sequence how to make hot chocolate. First, I did a demonstration. Then, they completed their sequencing.  After that, they had to follow their own directions to make their hot chocolate.  Thank goodness it got cold in Texas or the hot chocolate wouldn't have been so warm and cozy!

Snowman Activity

This was also an activity from my Halloween post that worked out so well I decided to make it for the next season.  Have the students follow or give the directions to another to make a snowman. Great for working on those quantity, quality and spatial concepts.  Here is the template I used.   

Social Story

Christmas time can be stressful, but it's also a great opportunity to work on those social skills that our kids with Autism need to work on.  I have made a social story about receiving gifts.  There is nothing I dislike more than when a child receives a gift and huffs and puffs because "That's not what I wanted!".  So, to prevent this from happening here are two pages of a social story to read to your kids and send home with parents. 

Social Story Page 1

Social Story Page 2

The Grinch

The Grinch is a great character to talk about expected and unexpected behaviors as well as describing words, antonyms, synonyms etc.  Videos are a great interactive way to work on inferencing as well.  I work closely with a teacher who uses it all the time and it inspired me to do a holiday version. Here and here are two links to Grinch videos. 

Chanukah:

Here is a great post by Jenna Rayburn that has activities for Chanukah.

http://speechroomnews.blogspot.com/2011/11/its-that-time-of-year-hope-youre.html

She also has some great Christmas activities too!

Kwanza:

Heidi Kay over at Pediastaff challenged some bloggers to create therapy activies related to Chanukah and Kwanza.  While the activity I came up with is pretty simple in nature, it was a really great motivator.  These chain links can be used in a couple different ways.   

Articulation:

I introduced Kwanza to the kids first.  I explained what the colors mean and the basic traditions of the holiday. Then, depending on what level they are at, they get to add a link for every sound or sound in a sentence that they produced correctly.  I tried to keep the conversation centered around the holiday.  Whoever has the longest chain at the end of the session gets an extra sticker.

Language:

Because many children at my school do not celebrate Kwanza or Chanukah, they don't know much about the holidays.  I wrote on the white board "Holidays" and the kids had to either tell a personal story (they get a red link), ask a question (they get a green link) or comment on someone else's response (they get a black link).  They want their links to be a mix of colors and not all one color.  Whoever has the longest chain at the end of the session gets an extra sticker.  It was a good way to work on pragmatics and other expressive language goals and get kids to talk about their holiday traditions and ask questions about others.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and enjoys spending quality time with family.  I'm seriously looking forward to it and my goal is to be paperwork free by December 22nd! Happy Holidays!