Secret Valentine Articulation Sort

Wow!  It's been a long time since I've posted a product.  However, Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday, so I had to do it!

 

Actual mailboxes not included, but can be found cheap in the Target dollar bins!

This is a game that targets both articulation and phonemic awareness.  Students draw articulation card, or in this case a valentine, and have to determine if it should be delivered to Izzy Initial, Mikey Medial, or Frannie Final by figuring out if their target sound is in the initial, medial, or final position of the word.  You can practice at any level by saying the target word or having the student create a sentence about it.  This game is made extra motivating by having "secret valentine" cards mixed in with the articulation cards.  If they come across a secret valentine, the get to keep it for themselves.  Whoever has the most secret valentines at the end of the game, wins!

It targets some common phonemes in error, including: /k/, /g/, /f/, /j/, /l/, /r/, /s/, /v/, /z/, /ch/, /sh/, and /th/.  

 

Check it out at my TeacherspayTeachers store here!

Happy Speeching!

-Courtney

Symbaloo: Organize your Online Resources

Today, while meeting up with a couple veteran SLPs at my agency to discuss some complex language kiddos, I glanced over at my coworker's computer and saw something that made my heart skip a beat: Symbaloo.  Up until today, I had not heard of Symbaloo and the minute I had some free time I signed up and set up my homepage.

What is Symbaloo?  Well, I am no expert, given that I've only used it today, but I will say that it has already helped me become more organized and has given me a quicker way to access my online resources.  Using my own words to describe it, I would say it is a visual representation of websites you may "book mark" or "favorite," which you can set as your homepage to give easy and quick access to your frequently visited sites.  If you know me, I love to organize, so I immediately fell in love with this tool. 

Here is my Symbaloo "home page."

You can color code your sites.  I just started organizing my sites into four categories so far, including:

Green: Search Engines (yahoo, google, etc)

White: Work  Sites (email, google drive, IEP site, district site, etc)

Yellow: Products (LinguiSystem, TpT, SuperDuperInc)

Purple: Speech Sites (ASHA)

I plan on adding good speech blogs on there in a different category =)

I think this is such a great tool for SLPs, or really any profession, to help organize their resources.  I use the internet and webpages all the time for resources, so this just made my life a whole lot easier!  Not to mention the set up of Symbaloo reminds me a little of how an AAC device would be set up =)

Do you think you will use Symbaloo to help organize your online life?  Learn more about how to set up and use Symbaloo here.

Happy Speeching!

-Courtney

The Snowy Day and Playing with Snow!

 

 The Snowy Day,  Insta-Snow 

I mentioned both The Snowy Day and the Insta-Snow in my last post, What's in my Speech Bin: January, and wanted to share a little more about it.

I made the insta-snow in a container (that I wish was a little bigger and deeper because it can get a little messy with younger kiddos)  that I could carry from school to school.  I think the whole jar of the insta-snow was approximately $13.00 and I barely scrapped the top of it when I made this container of snow, so I'm sure it will last a long time!

I made the snow prior to my speech groups, but you could work on predicting and guessing by having students guess what will happen when you add the water to the powder.

While we read, we worked on verbs and cause and effect by making tracks with our fingers and pencils with our toes pointing out, our toes pointing in, and while dragging our toes (or our finger tips in this case) and talked about what happened when we did each of those.  If you wanted to be really authentic you could go walk out in the snow or put real snow in a container and I'm sure it would work just fine!  The only thing that is bad with this snow and is that you can't form it into balls or pack it, so we didn't get to make snowballs or angels like in the story!

I also hid winter vocabulary cards in the snow for my younger students and had them dig through the snow to find them.  As long as the cards are laminated, they should not be ruined, but objects probably would work better.  Some of the vocabulary we targeted included: frost, snow, snowman, snowflake, storm, ice, freezing, snow angel, snow clothing (hats, mittens, snowpants, etc).  

The kids are so motivated to play in the "snow" so I would be curious if others have found other ways to incorporate this into speech!

Happy Speeching!

-Courtney

What's in My Speech BIn: January 2014

With the new year, I wanted to create a new series called What's in my Speech Bin.  I did a post awhile ago describing how I organize my seasonal/monthly materials here.  Each month I will post a little sneak peek of some of the materials I keep in my monthly bins.  I just put these bins together last spring, so I am anxious to add more materials as the time goes on!  So, let's start out with January!

I won't go into too much detail on how I use these in therapy, but here is a brief overview:

1.  Snowman Stacker:  I have used this to teach size concepts, as well as following directions.  It is also a great reinforcer for articulation (say ten words, stack one part of the snowman).

2.  The Snowy Day:  I cannot give enough praises to this book.  It is great and simple and classic.  It's great for introducing some winter vocabulary, cause and effect, and for beginning narratives.

3.  Penguin Popper:  This is such a motivating tool for articulation kids.  In the past, I have made a target on my whiteboard (each part of the target is assigned points) and the children try to aim for the center.  If the hit the center, they earn 10 points and have to say their target word ten times, if they hit the first ring they earn eight points and say the word eight times, etc.

4.  Snowmen at Night: Following reading this story, I have had kids work on describing by drawing their own snowman and coming up with adjectives to describe.  We have also worked on story telling and narratives by telling a story about what their snowman does at night when no one is watching!

5.  The Mitten:  Anyone who reads this book knows it is great for sequencing!

6.  Fake Snow:  The kind I bought was actually sold out, so I put a link to some more on amazon (or learn to make your own here).  I have made fake snow in a bucket and have hidden objects in there for describing or articulation.  I have also used fake snow while reading The Snowy Day and have the kids make different kinds of tracks in the snow to keep them engaged in the story, as well as learn winter vocabulary (make snowman out of the snow, snow angels, tracks, hills, etc).

What are some of  your favorite seasonal activities and materials for January?

Happy Speeching!

-Courtney