{Looking Ahead} Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day. What a fun day!  My school system is finishing up the One Book Blitz this week, but I decided to move on. I just couldn't pass on Groundhog Day!

5 Minute Day

For the independent activity, the students will produce their target (using a pvc pipe as a "talkback"), then complete Color-A-Groundhog from Panda Speech. (It's a freebie!) 
For my students who are in a group with artic students, they will complete the Wh Questions: Interactive Book with Visuals (Speech Me Maybe). When it's time for him/her to have his/her time with me, we'll go over the book.
Traditional Therapy
For Wednesday & Thursday sessions, the students are going to love playing Groundhog Day Quick Drill (Putting Words in Your Mouth).
My older language kids will start on Groundhog Day for Language, Reading, & Responding (and more!) , again from Putting Words in Your Mouth. Instead of printing out the cards, I downloaded the product on my iPad (iBooks) to save cardstock, laminating film, and ink. I did, however, print off the game.
Homework
I made a quick Seek, Circle, and Say Homework sheet for next week. To get your copy, click here.

Groundhogs made their way to my part of the country a few years ago. Before that, my students didn't have a reference to exactly what a groundhog is. On Wed., I'll show my kids the clip from last Groundhog Day, and on Thursday, we'll watch the clip from that morning.
Are you planning anything special for Groundhog Day? Do you have groundhogs in your area of the country/world?

DIY Planning Sickers: Inidividual Stickers per Sheet

Missed the 1st installment of this series? Click here.
There are times when I want smaller stickers, but I couldn't find smaller labels. I use my Avery Multi-Use Labels as described in this post, but make a small adjustment. The clip below will show you how to make 2 stickers on 1 label:
The finished product:
 This is how the sticker looks on my planner:
As I mentioned before, planner stickers from ETSY are great, but when I'm looking for something specific and can't find it, these DIY ones are perfect!

I am in no way associated with Avery Stickers and have received no compensation for this blog post.


{Looking Ahead} The Blitz Continues!

Picture courtesy of Pexel
I had a hard time finding activities to coordinate with the One Book Blitz Book, Charlotte’s Web (EB White), so I made my own.
It’s time to get 5-Minute Days cranked back up, so 1st through 4th graders will be “writing the room” with words taken from the book. They’ll take it home for homework, so it’s a double whammy!
On Monday & Tuesday, my Preschool Walk-ins and Kinders will be making a spider. They’ll put a picture that has their sound in it on each leg and take it home for homework. I may have to leave them in my room until Wednesday/Thursday so they will be all dry when they take it home. I’ve written up a very simple homework signature page for the helper to sign to confirm that they went over the words with their little one.

My kids had a great time with the Christmas Bop! I found a cute pig popper on Amazon, so I made another game so we could use it. I have the students say their target a few times, and then they get a turn. I keep score, and whoever has the most points is the winner.
Those are my main activities for next week. My students working on making complete sentences will continue with the Emergent Reader and Repetitive activity from last week.
This will be the last week of the Blitz for me. The school system is going to continue until Feb. 6th, but Groundhog Day is coming up, so I'm going to switch gears.

{Frenzied SLPs} Commitments 2017

Image may contain: 1 person, text
We're as frenzied as frenzied can be with this current post! I've really evaluated where I am in my life and what needs to change. So, for this year, I'm committing myself to the following:

🎉Not getting all wrapped up in TpT...buying and selling. It's so easy to get all wrapped up with numbers and rankings. I'm not a business woman...I'm an SLP. 

🎉Spending more time with family (see above). My husband & I are still fairly new at this "Empty Nest" thing; we're still getting used to it. We're both busy with various things, so spending time with each other takes some practice!

🎉Not getting stressed. About my boys  men, work...about anything. Worrying and getting stressed aren't going to change anything.

I'm just trying to take things day by day. I'm trying to enjoy these last few years of my career and my students. As family responsibilities increase, I'm learning to decrease the stress. 

Feel free to jump in with your blog post, or, if you're not a blogger, jump in with a facebook post by linking up.


{Looking Ahead} It's a Blitz! (And a Freebie!)

Picture courtesy of Pexels
My school system is having a 1 book blitz for the month of January. Pre-K through 12th Grades are reading the same book: Charlotte's Web by EB White. To be perfectly honest, things seem a little discombobulated with the planning. My initial thought was to follow along with my schools and to plan speech/language activities that correlated with what the students are reading. The reality is that not only are both of my schools reading the same chapters, but each grade is reading something different. I just don't have the time to figure out what each grade is doing, so I'm going with some generic activities.

This is a short week, so that helps a bit with the planning. Tuesday, Mia at Putting Words in Your Mouth has an Open Ended Dot Art Freebie that includes a pig. PERFECT! All of my students on Tuesday are artic (except for 2: 1 receives inclusion services, the other is working on retelling stories), which makes planning pretty easy. My 4th graders may or may not want to do the sheet, so they'll do the Great R Challenge by Small Talk SLP.

Wednesday & Thursday, my artic groups will play Pop the Pig
Pop the Pig Game - New and Improved - Belly-Busting Fun as You Feed Him Burgers and Watch His Belly Grow
For my kids who are working on "Wh" questions and saying complete sentences I found Who's Hiding in the Barn from Panda Speech:
Who's Hiding in the Barn? FREEBIE Min-Prep Activity
As an added bonus, I found an emergent reader from Lindsey Karol that they can work on for the next couple of weeks and take home:
My Farm Book: Emergent Reader Freebie
For homework, I made a quick worksheet for the students to circle the pictures that have their sound in it, then take home for homework. (Just click on the picture to be taken directly to the product to download.)

That should do it for the week of the 16th! Does your school system do a 1 book blitz? If so, what book are you reading this year?

DIY Planner Stickers: Whole Sheet

I've jumped on the planner sticker bandwagon, but I've run into a bit of a snag. There are some stickers that I want to use for specific things, but I couldn't find what I wanted on Etsy. I don't have a cutting machine, and can't justify buying one for just a few stickers. I knew there had to be a way, and I found it.
I picked these up at Office Depot for about $7 or $8. They also have round ones, but I stuck with the rectangular ones. If you're interested, make sure you get the ones that you can put through your printer.
From there, you go to the Avery website, find the product, and you can complete the template. The tutorial below will walk you through making the sticker to suit your needs.


A finished product using 1 picture for the whole sheet:
I've found some ideal stickers through Etsy. My favorite SLP seller for IEP stickers is Kiwi Speech. I've also found some stickers for household reminders from PlannerMint and The Crafty Student
*For the next installment in this series, click here.
I am in no way associated with Avery Stickers and have received no compensation for this blog post.

{Looking Ahead} Still Sliding! (and a Freebie!)

Talk about being unprepared! We had a snow day on Friday so I didn't have time to prepare properly. Then, we had snow on Saturday and with temps not getting above freezing until Monday, I think there's a chance we may have Monday off as well. So, I'm going with 'Plan A' and 'Plan B' for Monday/Tuesday:
Plan A: No school on Monday
If this happens, I'm going to let my kids play Don't Break the Ice again. Several of them asked if we could play it again next time, so this will be their chance! Plus, I left the game at my Tues./Thurs. school, so it's all set up and ready to go.
Plan B: School on Monday
I've got this cute game called Don't Rock the Boat.
I'll use this game since it's stored at my M/W school. It's a "Don't Spill the Beans" kind of game: put a penguin on the boat, but if it tips over, that person has to take all of the penguins that fall off.
For Wed./Thurs., Jenn Alcorn has the perfect activity:
In this packet, there are several different language activities, but 1 that will be used is the Winter Scenes Cut & Glue for following directions. The smaller pictures will be cut out prior to the session so time won't be wasted waiting for the students to cut them out.
She's got me covered for artic as well. 
The picture above is an example of the blank sheet; there are sheets for six sounds. The student rolls the dice and says a word corresponding to the number. Then, he will "X" the word said. Instead of printing out 1 sheet for each student, I'll slip one in a dry erase pocket so it can be reused.
For homework, I made a quick sheet to use. The student finds the pictures that have the target sound and circles those pictures. This is a freebie, so just click on the picture below to download!
What do you do when you don't have appropriate time to plan?


{Looking Ahead} Sliding into the Routine

Technically, this isn't a "Looking Ahead" post since I'm a day into our half-week following Christmas Break. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you: I didn't plan for what I was going to do in therapy when we came back. It wasn't until we were on our way home from our New Year's camping trip that I thought about using Don't Break the Ice. It's definitely a favorite with my kids! Annie from Doyle Speech Works has the ideal go-along with the game: 

Don't Break the Ice Mats for Speech and Language


The mats are perfect for eliciting responses and are great to use for mixed groups since several phonemes and language targets are included. 
For artic: I had the students "X" the target corresponding to the ice cube chosen to tap. For the students waiting for their turn, they put a slash (half of the "x") on the same target as the person taking his turn. When it was her turn, she said the targets with the half "x" as well as the one corresponding to the ice cube chosen. So, more responses were elicited because each student was marking the same boxes and saying all the words. If more than one ice block fell through, everyone slashed the corresponding boxes and said the words when it was their turn. 
I have some students who are working on isolation. I had those students produce their target 3 times, then I said the word & they identified where in the word their sound is (beginning, middle, or end). 
Using the mats is a great way to add a little variety to playing the game. The kids enjoyed it, and I also enjoyed it. I didn't take data (I only take data when we're using picture cards so I'm not comparing apples to oranges) so it allowed me to slide back into the routine as well. We can all use some "sliding into" after breaks, don't you agree?

Organizing Your Data for Progress Reports: Part 3 (Averages & Medians)

My friend, Annie (Doyle Speech Works) mentioned how long it takes to figure out medians when reporting progress for progress reports. I thought there had to be a better/quicker way, and there is! Of course, it will take a little time in the beginning, but at the end of each report period, I found a way to make completing progress reports a snap.

**Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google LLC, used with permission*
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...