Linky Party: Fluency

Jenna at Speech Room News is hosting her monthly Linky Party, and the topic is Fluency.  This is one of the hardest skills I work with since I only have 1-2 students on my caseload each year with fluency issues, but below are my top three items I use with those students:

1)  Color Me Fluent

2)  Fluency Flips

3)  Stuttering Toolbox:  Fluency Strategies

 

What's in Your Fluency "Toolbox"?

Dr. Seuss Is On The Loose

Ok, so some things are just automatic themes when you work in an elementary school-  right?  Take Dr. Seuss.  Now I love me some Cat In The Hat, but I was never really attentive to the Doctor's birthday until I got in to speech.  Now, I am crazy for Seuss, and here is a peek at what we are doing for his birthday next week in speech.

So, to start, if you have a theme for the week, you have to decorate, right?  I found this cute set at my local Party City for around three bucks!  I just got them laminated and they are ready to be placed on my whiteboard at the end of the week.

Last year, I snagged the iPad copy of One Fish, Two Fish to read my students.  This is great, obviously, for the /sh/ sound, descriptive words, and irregular plurals.  All of my kids enjoy the rhyming text and the story can be read by you, the students, or read aloud.  It also has some interactive features as well.

I pair it with this game I found on Pinterest last year from the Mama Miss website:  http://www.mamamiss.com/2013/02/19/learning-monkeys-dr-seuss-inspired-one-fish-two-fish-counting-game/
She includes fish you can print and cut out, but I had some plastic ones from Oriental Trading that I let the kids use.  Take a die from your chipper chat set (they only go up to the number three) and let them roll after practicing their skill and add that number to their bowl-  most fish at the end wins.  To spice it up, you can create your own dice or spinner and add in some other things like lose a turn, give a fish to a friend, etc.  I have a vinyl cube that I can add pictures to for any game..

We are being laid back in my older groups and doing a Cat In The Hat card toss.  Each student gets a card deck based on their skill to work on, and after practicing, they toss the card to get in the hat (also from Party City).  A point for every card that makes it.  Easy peasey and I don't have to print, cut, or laminate any materials!!  LOL!

Speaking of no prep, I got this game at Target this summer and can't wait to have the students perform these fun challenges after completing skill practice.  There is a similar Cat in the Hat game played like Neds Head where students pull out an object without looking from the hat.  I might grab that for next year.

What Seusstastical ideas are you doing in your speech room?

TPT Sale Linky Party

Jenna at Speech Room News is hosting a linky party about the upcoming TPT sale.  Most TpT Sellers will put their site on sale, plus you will have an extra code to use in order to take an addition % off of all materials on the site! These big sales happen about 3 times per year. You’ll never get a better price on materials you need! The sale will happen this week on Thursday and Friday.

Here is what is in my cart:
1. Articulation Notebooks Value Bundle

If you haven't seen this amazing packet, holy moly don't wait.  The price is more than I usually spend, but worth every penny!  Check it out!

 

2.  Ultimate Data Binder for Speech and Language

Seriously, EVERYTHING from Nicole Allison is worth every penny!  Always great stuff!

 

3.  Spring Speech and Language Super Bundle

 

What's in your cart????

 

Lily's Purple Plastic Purse

If you have not used a Kevin Henkes book in your therapy room, may I suggest you start with my favorite one:

Lily's Purple Plastic Purse

This book is one of those wonderful stories that can address multiple goals outside of the obvious use for articulation goals (/p/ and /l/ and vocalic /r/s), as it is really a great way to work on social skills and language, too.  It is a great book for working on Tier 2 vocabulary words (privacy, artistic, rodents, deluxe, permitted, creations, jaunty, considerate, fiercely, lurched, etc.).  I love to have the students infer the meaning of these words using context clues from the story.

Lilly LOVES school and her teacher, Mr. Slinger…that is, until she gets a purple plastic purse, a pair of movie star sunglasses, and three shiny new quarters that she wants to share with the class and Mr. Slinger won’t let her. Lilly is angry and upset and leaves a nasty note for Mr. Slinger that she later regrets. In the end, it is up to her to make things right and in the process, she learns important lessons about patience, self-control, and forgiveness. 

By now, it is no secret that I love to make a game to go along with any book I use, and this is how I spice up our work in my speech room.

First, grab a purple plastic purse from the dollar store.  Here is mine I got five summers ago:

I also splurged many years ago and bought a stuffed Lily from the bookstore because I have always loved this story!  Add in some purple glasses from the craft store embellished with self adhesive rhinestones, and you are on your way to making great story props. 

BTW-  the kids love it when you get goofy and put on the glasses.  You may have also noticed the paper coins in the first picture.  I found these at my local teacher store.  I laminated the set I got and write on the back of them with a Vis-à-vis marker so they can be used over and over.  I would suggest writing a number and that is how many times they have to practice their sound or practice their skill.  The set I got has pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, and each type of coin is in several different sizes so the students never know just by pulling one out of the purple purse what they are getting.  You could have older students add up the amounts they pull up and the student with the most money by the end of the game is the winner.  I decided to change the way I do the coins a little different this year since I found these plastic coins at the dollar store:

The neat thing about these is that they are both the same size, so when put in the plastic purse, the student doesn't know if they are getting a penny or a nickel.  Have them practice their skill, and then pick a coin without looking.  At the end, they can easily add up how much money they got!

Another great addition to the lesson is this free game with who and what question cards from First Grade A La Cart BlogSpot.

Have you used Kevin Henkes books before in your therapy room?  Which is your favorite one?

"Snow" better thing than free therapy materials!

I have to admit I was jealous of other bloggers sharing pictures of snow days!  Now, we are finally getting snow here in South Carolina, but unfortunately, the ice is starting to fall as well!

 

My youngest walked to the neighbor's house in the snow.

It is so chilly, that my little cat actually walked to the fireplace and looked back to us as if to say "Let's get this thing cranked up!"  So, of course, we turned it on just for him!

So being the dedicated SLP I am (translation already getting bored at home since I really don't know how to sit still and relax!), I thought I would share a post about how I make a daily stop at Teachers Pay Teachers. 

By now, I think everyone has been to this wonderful place for teacher created materials, and for a long time, I always went through the specialty area to see what SLPs were posting. 

Now, I go every morning and hit the free downloads section highlighted below by the green arrow (it is always under the Featured column on the left top section of the home page):

 

Once you click on Free Downloads, you can choose to see Most Recently Posted by clicking the sort button:

 

 

Finally, you can see what new things have been listed for all areas- and there are so many gems each and every day. My travel drive is getting full as I am able to find tons of free ELA, grammar, and flash freebies posted each day that fit in to my therapy even though they are not listed as speech therapy (not to mention free clipart that I also save in a file for this summer when I finally bite the bullet and start making more of my own book companion sets and cards). Here is an example of another freebie I found that had just been posted within the past hour (seriously, over a hundred things are posted everyday to this section and I always manage to find at least one or two items each day). Hope you find some great items!

 

 



 

 

Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink

V-Day is fast approaching...and I am still finishing up with penguins and snow!  But I am ready to switch gears, and a favorite book in my room is Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink by Diane deGroat.

 

So, basically, a very cute porcupine named Gilbert gets a little silly and creates some Valentine cards for his classmates that are humorous, but not very nice:

 

 

This book is always a favorite with the students, and really lends itself to great discussions about thinking about what we say before we say (or write) it.  It makes a perfect social skills lesson.  I also like to use it for my students who are working on why questions, prediction, summarizing, and cause and effect!  Not to mention there are plenty of words in it for practicing artic, too!

So what is a good way to follow up a fun book like this?  With candy and our own poems, of course! 

 

I grabbed two big bags of individually wrapped sweetheart candy messages for my groups to use as inspiration while we wrote our own "Roses are Red" poems.  They always do less complaining when a treat is incorporated in to writing!  :-)  Plus, great artic practice as they want to read aloud what each  candy heart says!

For my younger students, we wrote a poem for their teacher they could take back to class with them.  I wrote the beginning on the White Board, and then we brainstormed what we liked about our teacher and I helped them put that in a rhyme that we then put on a big heart that they gave to the teacher (gives them great practice using their good speech in class when the teacher asks them to read it to them!).  For my older students, I let them each write their own for their teacher or parent after I modeled it for them first.  Here are some of our creations!

Happy Valentine's Day!