Week in Review 10/31/14

I started this linky so that SLP Bloggers could go to 1 place to get ideas for therapy. Write a post about either what you did this week, or what you have planned for next week. All I ask is that you share a link back to my blog in your post.

Happy Halloween! The only think I don't like about October is that I have waaaay too many activities to do to manage to use everything!  Here's how I wrapped up Halloween this week:

5-Minute Day:
For my independent center, I used the bat page from Speech Room News' companion packet for There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat (Lucille Colandro). 

Lower Language:
I read Bat Jamboree  (Kathi Apelt), then used Batty Associations (Teach Speech 365) to go along with it. It was a perfect pairing!
I brought in some leaves for another student so we could act out the book Fresh Fall Leaves  (Betsy Franco) to work on verbs. Then, I read Jungle Halloween (Maryann Cocca-Leffler). If you're not familiar with this book, there's a lot of rhyming and vocabulary. At the beginning of the book, the animals are "hiding", so there was an opportunity to work on the carrier phrase, "I see a ____" as well as answering "where" questions.
She answered yes/no questions from Miss Speechie's Witch's Hat Yes/No Questions with Visuals  (Free!). Then, I took it a step further and made the following sentence using Custom Boards from Smarty Ears (best app ever!). After she answered all of the questions, I pulled out the "yes" questions. The "yes" pictures are stapled in a stack on the sheet so she can flip through the pictures while she's practicing at home.
We finished off the week with Where is the Pumpkin??? ( Sara Munsterman) to work on concepts. I modified the book to target on and under.
She found what the witch wants using Structured Sentence Building (Queen's Speech) and using the carrier phrase The witch wants a _____.

Middle Language:
I have a couple of students who are in 1st - 2nd grades who have difficulty with social language. Miss Speechie's Good Witch vs. Bad Witch (Free!) was perfect for them.
Upper Language:
Since my students are really having difficulty with idioms, we continued using some of the Halloween Idioms (Speech Room News). I paired this with Magic Potion Madness (Mia McDaniel).

Articulation:
On Monday/Tuesday for my Kindergarten and students I see individually, I used the "bat page" (see the 5-minute day activity). We used it to see who could color all of their bats first. 
Zombie Out (Dean Trout's Little Shop of SLP) was a huge hit on Wednesday/Thursday!
My Kindergarten Students stuck foam stickers on a Halloween Foam Board after saying their target.
I just about panicked Wed. night when I realized that I forgot to bring the foam shapes & stickers to my mountain school for my Kinders & walk-in, but then I remembered Crazy Speech World's post on a pumpkin craftivity
My preschooler read Spookley (Joe Troiana and Susan Banta), and then we made Spookley pumpkins and put targeted words in them.
Homework:
This was a little bit of a repeat from last week, using Sublime's Speech Spooky Speech Halloween Articulation Lists and Activities (another free item!) and LyndaSLP123's Fall Themed Open Ended Articulation and Language Worksheets. I actually used some sheets from this packet last week...I just gave someone else credit! (Sorry, LyndaSLP123!)

For my language kids working on idioms, I used some of the idioms from the cards used during the activity, and made a worksheet with some of the ones that were giving them trouble.

Use the linky below to add your post. 



Bat Jamboree

I'm joining up with other SLPs at Speech is Sweet for her weekly linky.  It's super easy to link up: just write a blog post about the book that you're using this week, along with how you're using it in therapy. Then, link up!
With one of my language students, I used Bat Jamboree (Kathi Appelt). It is chock full of rhyming words and vocabulary, especially verbs. "Wh" questions could be targeted as well. Sequencing is the obvious activity, since the book counts from 1-10, then backwards from 10-1. 
It was a good book to link with Batty Associations (Teach Speech 365)!
Join in the Linky Party with a book that you're using this week!

Week in Review 10/25/2014

I came up with this linky so that SLP Bloggers could go to 1 place to get ideas for therapy. Write a post about either what you did this week, or what you have planned for next week. All I ask is that you share a link back to my blog in your post.

This was the first full week since Fall Break, and I am BEAT! (How many days until Christmas Break???) I had a bit of a break-through with my walk-in who is working on verbs: When I pointed to an animal on my bulletin board and asked her what he was doing, she said, "jumping"! It's little things like that that make my heart sing...even after 30 years.

5 Minute Day:
The kids made a skeleton while working independently on their sound, or their exercises.
Articulation:
On Monday/Tuesday, the students who I see individually used the skeleton activity as a game to see who could finish their skeleton first.
On Wednesday/Thursday, I read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! (Lucille Colandro). My older students tallied the words that are in the book that have their sound, and I drew attention to the younger students' target sounds while reading. After that, we played the open-end game included in Jenna Rayburn's book companion. (Wow. I guess I didn't take a picture of it!)

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat

I'm joining up with other SLPs at Speech is Sweet for her weekly linky.  It's super easy to link up: just write a blog post about the book that you're using this week, along with how you're using it in therapy. Then, link up!
This week, I'm using There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! (Lucille Colandro).
With my language students, we're working on story retell, sequencing, and answering questions. My artic kids are tallying every time they hear their sound, then we see how close to the real number they are.
Check out what other SLPs are reading this week!

Week in Review: 10/17/14

Don't you just love short weeks? We had a Professional Development Day on Monday, and "Parent Conferences" today. The catch is that if you have logged at least 6 hours of parent contact, you get the day off! Here's what I did this week:

5 Minute Day:
I only had a 5 Minute Day on Tuesday, since I only saw my MWF kids on Wednesday. I used the Autumn Write and Say the Word from All Y'all Need; the same one I used the week before Fall Break.

Articulation:
For my kids that didn't do a "5-Minute Day", I used a couple of games from "Troll in a Bowl". I've said this before: I really wish that this company was still in existence, because these games are awesome. They are non-competitive, so the whole group wins or loses. 
 The goal of this game is to find all of the treat bags before the "Meanies" block all of the exits.
In this game, the kids are trying to get "Little Freddie Frightening Hood" to Grandpa's house before Grandpa turns into a werewolf. 
On Wednesday & Thursday, I used Trick or Treat from  The Buckeye Speech Path:
Younger Language:
I chose Fresh Fall Leaves by Betsy Franco because of the verbs. The book is short, sweet, and to the point. We continued with  Falling Leaves Prepositions (freebie from Dabbling Speechie) using 'in', 'on', and 'under' because my student is still having a pretty difficult time following directions using those concepts, as well as expressing them.
 I used more yes/no questions from Fall Early Language File F older Activities (Miss Speechie).
 Then, that activity was expanded by making complete sentences:
 To reinforce "on" and "under", I found this freebie from Lupita Valdez. It's a very short reader (only 4 pages). I had to modify some of the words to fit those concepts: The book used the words "on top of" and "on the bottom of".  Answering "where" questions was also targeted.

Older Language:
We were all about Halloween Idioms this week! I started off the week using a freebie from Jenna Rayburn:
I have to be honest: there were several that I had never heard of, and even after consulting the internet, I still didn't know what they were. I'm not sure if those are regional sayings. 
Later in the week, I used another freebie from LindsaySLP
These worked much better. I saved it on my iPad and it worked perfectly. 

What did you do this week, or what do you have planned for next week? Link up below. All I ask is that you mention that you're linking up in your post!



Wild About Books Wednesday! Fresh Fall Leaves

 
Time to join Speech is Sweet for another installment of "Wild about Books Wednesday!" I love this linky...it's a wonderful way to get some new ideas!
It's a short week in my school system this week (as in a 3-day week!), so I decided to take it really easy on myself!
I'm using Fresh Fall Leaves (Betsy Franco) with my walk-in language student this week. It's a short book, but it's filled with verbs...which is what this student needs!
I plan on making another book through Custom Boards (Smarty Ears), kind of like this one:
Since I'll use this book with this student again next week, I hope to gather up some leaves and take them in so my student can experience the actions in the book (once the leaves dry from all of the rain we've been getting!).
If you use this book, any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

How TpT Improved My Language Therapy

I have to admit this with a very red face: I've gone many years with using the same activity with all of my students, regardless of their objectives or age. It was just easier to do therapy using a game, and centering therapy around that activity. Now that TpT is in the picture, my language therapy has been taken to another level.
The Book Companion Packets help me bring books into my therapy session. All of the different activities that go along with the book bring excitement and allow me to tailor the activities to each individual's goals. The only downside with the packets is that I usually end up buying at least 2 packets per book to hit the goals I want to target with my students. And, since almost all of the packets have some activities that are the same, part of the packets don't get printed. Some of my favorite sellers of Book Companion Packets: (Click on the picture to be taken to their TpT Store)
Jenn AlcornSimply Speech Mindy Stenger Jennifer Hanson
Jenn Alcorn                    Simply Speech               Mindy Stenger         Jennifer Hanson

Normally, I don't even look at TpT products that are over $5, unless it's something specific that I'm looking for. Even then, that product will go on my wish list until there's a sale and/or I have enough credits to bring down the price. If a product is large, I normally won't print off the entire product: I decide what I need right away and only print what I need.
There are a lot of quality free products available. You would be amazed at what you can find for free through TpT, and not just Speech-specific products. I would estimate that 75% of my materials were free. Well, not exactly "free" when you figure in the ink, cardstock, and laminating sheets, but you get the idea.
Sorry; I got off on a tangent, there! Back to the topic!
I am able to individualize therapy for my students by searching for their targets on TpT. It takes more planning, but it's definitely worth it. My students are making more progress, and I feel like I'm really making a difference with increasing their language skills.

Decked out for Fall

This week is Fall Break, so...no Speech for me! I took a little bit of time last week and decorated my new/old school for Fall.
My doorway leading into my room (or, as you're looking at it, you would be walking out of it!):
The bulletin board on the other side of the leaf garland:
 I use the bulletin board to talk about what the different characters are doing, as well as Fall Vocabulary.
My October Calendar, compliments of 3 Dinosaurs:
 My testing cabinet with fall magnets from The Dollar Tree:
 A pumpkin hanging that adds just a little something to the cabinet:
 More Dollar Tree finds stuck on cabinets:
How much decorating for Fall have you done?

Week in Review for 10/03/14

Things were a little "off" this week. Next week is Fall Break (9 weeks gone already!), and there were programs going on and field trips taken.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/-F45wgJmQChE/VC3YKS5rVxI/AAAAAAAAaZ4/Z0uEtpcAxhI/Divider%2525201_thumb%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800

5-Minute Day:
I absolutely love All Y'all Need's Write and Say the Room cards. It gets the kids up and moving around for at least 5 minutes. This week, I used the Autumn Write and Say the Word. I stuck the cards up all over my room, and the kids walked around and found the words that had their sound. For the language students, they wrote down any of the words they wanted, then we talked about what that word had to do with Fall. An added plus: their homework for after we get back from break is all ready to go!

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Articulation:
Instead of having my Kindergarten students write words on their sheet, they pulled pictures out of their letter box and glued them on an outline of a leaf. As they pulled them out, they said that word. (Their homework is all ready to go, too!)
With my artic kids that are individual (only because of their schedule or if their other group member was absent), I used this from Autumn Worksheet and HW Pack (Lauren LeCour) as a game:

For the last half of the week, we played Touchdown by Megan Exner.

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Younger Language:
Since my younger language students were having a difficult time with putting the noun + verb together, I continued with When the Leaf Blew In (Steve Metzger) from last week. I used the same activities, and was able to expand the yes/no activity from Fall Early Language File Folder Activities (Miss Speechie). 
I was even able to slip in another activity on Wed.


Categorizing, identifying colors, vocabulary, and using complete sentences were all worked on with this little activity.
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Older Language:
My older kids worked on using context clues to determine when each event happened.
One of my kids also worked on inferencing through sequencing using S'Mores 3-Step Sequencing by Denise Polley.

S'mores 3-step Sequencing

And, because I got to my T/Th school without an activity for my walk-in preschooler, I pulled something off of DTLK & she did a dauber sunflower.

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Going on around school:

Just in case you don't follow me on Instagram (@tnslp), here's a sweet little joey I met at my mountain school on Tuesday:
He was seriously the sweetest little joey I've ever met! 

One of my students showed me this word and asked if I could say it:
Yep, it's all one word! 
What's happening in your part of the world?
And, because I'm a sucker for Linky Parties, I'm also joining in Doodle Bugs Teaching Five for Friday.
fiveforfriday2_thumb[3] 


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