{FREEBIE} Progress Report Templates

three templates to use for your spring progress reports

 
It's parent-teacher conferences week here at my school district. That makes two long days of working until 8:00pm, but I enjoy the face-to-face time with parents. What I don't enjoy is the work it takes to prepare all the progress reports for parents! I have 53 students currently on my caseload and need to update their graphs and write a progress note for each of their goals.

There's a progress report template on our Web IEP, but it's a little cumbersome for parents to read, especially if the student also has non-speech IEP goals.

I decided to create my own progress report document to make it a little more interesting for parents to read, and to be more fun for me to fill out.

Feel free to download your own progress report forms here! Make sure you become a follower to receive updates about new downloads and freebies. I have some new and exciting projects in the works!

Leave a Comment: How many students and what ages do you work with?

I have 53 students on IEPs, and 8 others with whom I'm running short-term interventions. 

 I'm fortunate to work with my favorite ages - preschool (3+), Kindergarten, and 1st grade!

You may also like this post: Data Keeping (with free download)

Pocket Categories Sorting Game

a sorting activity to increase vocabulary and language skills

 
Other than a couple free iPad apps, I don't have much in the way of activities to target categories/sorting. So I made my own!

This packet includes 17 pages and targets five simple preschool categories: shapes, insects, vegetables, jungle animals, and fruits. The pocket graphics are from Ashley Hughes.

There is a sorting mat with a pocket for each category. Laminate and cut apart the picture cards, then students can put the cards in the appropriate pocket.

There are also individual sorting mats for each category. If working with a group, assign students each a category mat and then they can either ask for the picture cards that would go with their category, or draw a picture card and give it to the student with the correct sorting mat.

Also included are two sentence/question strips. Place a picture and a pocket in the appropriate {slots} and then practice reading the sentences. When I made this activity, I had in mind a student of mine who has a goal to increase sentence length to 4+ words. These will be perfect for her.

Finally, there are also two types of flash cards included...12 target naming items in categories, and 24 target naming categories for specific items. These flash cards do not have picture prompts and target some categories that are not targeted by the picture cards.

I hope you and your students enjoy this packet. You can download it here.

You might also enjoy this post: Easy "Anytime, Anywhere" Activity

Friday Funny

  this is the funniest website any SLP will ever read

If you haven't discovered whatshouldwecallSLPschool yet, then you are missing out! Just try to read through the posts without snort-laughing your face off :) A sampling:

"How I look when I use tactile cues to try to stimulate a sound"

"When I manage to sneakily work on a kid's goals during free play"
p.s. I love Ron Swanson :)

"When a kid farts on me while I have him on my lap"

Visit whatshouldwecallSLPschool for more laughs!

St. Patrick's Day Open-Ended Board Game {FREEBIE}

use this board game freebie during the St. Patty's Day season

Leapin' Leprechauns! Take a look at the first board game I created! Featuring fantastic graphics by NinjaWoman and I Teach, What's Your Super Power.

It was fun to make, and I hope you can find a use for it in March. The game board is open-ended, so it can be used as reinforcement for any activity in any subject area. There are two versions in this download. The first one is sized to fit on a regular 8.5" x 11" piece of paper or cardstock.

The second version is enlarged to be printed on two sheets of paper. You will need to overlap the pages slightly when assembling. I recommend attaching it to a file folder and laminating for easy storage and durability. See picture below. We grabbed some Hopping Frogs to use as tokens.

Click here to download your {FREE} game boards! Enjoy!

Leave a Comment: Are you Irish?

Isn't everybody a little bit Irish on March 17th? :)

You may also enjoy this post: Valentine's Scratch-Off Cards

Practice Speech Goals Outside of the Speech Room

stickers for carryover practice and to let parents know what their child did in speech that day

A couple weeks ago I started writing what my students have been working on in speech on stickers and placing the stickers on their shirts, hoping that it would serve as reminders for them throughout the day to think about using their correct speech sounds. Teachers, classroom associates, parents, siblings, babysitters, bus drivers - ANYONE could ask the student about their speech sounds and hopefully they would get some practice on their goals outside of my classroom.

I've just been writing their speech sounds on mailing labels, but now I printed these up to use. The school I work at has a panther as a mascot, so I added some panther paws to dress up the labels a bit. Thanks to Graphics From the Pond for the clip art!

There are three different styles:

"I can say my ____ sound!"

"Today I practiced ____"

"Have you heard my say a ___ word"

These are sized to be printed on 1" x 2 5/8" mailing labels. Download your own here :)

These little sweeties wanted to pose for a picture "like buddies" :)

Leave a Comment: Do you have success sending home speech homework?

I sent home homework in December and January and only had two students return it. Any tips?

Friday Funny

Hallelujah, it's Friday!

I don't know how you spent your Valentine's Day, but this is one holiday my husband and I aren't big on celebrating. We snuggled and lit the fireplace, and ate heart-shaped carrots. And then returned to our regular evening activities of watching Netflix and geeking out on our computers:

Happy Weekend!

Quick Tip: Protect Your iPad Screen from Messy Hands!

it's easy to protect your iPad from students with slimy hands

Working with preschoolers and early elementary aged-students, there are always those certain few blessings who constantly have a mess on their hands. Whether it's from digging for gold in their nose, or being sick with a cough...When those gooey fingers head toward that iPad screen, this is me (on the inside):

Time is precious and we can't pause to wash hands after every nose swipe. So here's an easy tip for keeping your screen safe from slime:

Slip it in a 3-ring binder that has a protective sleeve on the cover!

The iPad is still sensitive to touch, and it's easy to clean the binder with cleaner when finished.

Plus, the iPad is now tilted at an angle, making for easy viewing and use.

Leave a Comment: What advice do you have for staying healthy during cold/flu season?

I try to take Vitamin C every morning and wash my hands religiously.

Quick and Easy "Anytime" Activity

a quick activity to elicit phonemes at any level

Need a super simple and super easy activity you can pull together on the fly and that works with any student?

Take a sheet of paper or construction paper, draw a line down the middle, and write a couple comparison words across the top. For this student, we were targeting /s/, so my words were "summer" or "not summer". Pick any words that have your target phoneme. Cut apart target pictures and place them in the appropriate column.

This is so simple and quick to make, and can be used in a variety of ways. If working at the word level, just say which column you are putting them in. With my student, we were working at the sentence level, so we said "____ is for summer." or "___ is not for summer." It would also be perfect for students working on categories, sentence formation, and answering questions.

I also made a pocket on the back to store the words in. Sometimes we just glue the pictures on instead. Easy peasy!

Leave a Comment: What is your favorite thing about summer?

I live for temps above 70 degrees!

Valentine's Scratch-Off Cards

fun DIY scratch-off cards that are a nice change for therapy

These scratch-off Valentine cards were so much fun for my students! I found the idea here, and adapted it into an activity to use with my students. They lurved it! And I did too. These take a bit of extra prep work, but are so worth it. NOTE: This packet was updated on February 05, 2015 (details below).

And I already have a ton of the work done for you! This download includes practice sheets for initial and final F, V, K, G, L, S, S-Blends, SH, CH, L, L-Blends, R, R-Blends, Vocalic R, as well as a blank page for you to make your own. There are also color or black and white printing options!

Here's the fun part: they are scratch-off tickets!! Students use a coin to reveal the pictures underneath.

As you can see, the pink paint I used is still pretty see-through, even after 4 coats of paint. I would suggest sticking to metallic acrylic paint colors.

They had a blast! The best part is, they were able to bring their practice sheets home for home practice. For my students with language goals, we used the pictures to formulate sentences, make descriptions, or answer questions.

Try these today...they are too much fun :) P.S. Once the painting was done, I was able to assemble and do all the prep while watching the latest drama unfold on "...the most dramatic season ever" of The Bachelor, so the extra prep work isn't too daunting. ;)

You can find the target words here.

Leave a Comment: Have you ever won big on scratch-off tickets?
I have only had three scratch-off tickets in my life, and they were a graduation gift.
I won zero dollars.
  

You may also enjoy this post: St. Patrick's Day Open-Ended Game Board {FREEBIE}

Graffiti in the Speech Room!

be a rebel: draw on the table in your speech room!

I found this idea on Pinterest (where else?!) and loved it! You can draw/color/write on your table using Sharpie paint pens!

The original post used this idea in place of name plates for her student desks. I used it to:

*tally artic productions

*play tic-tac-toe

*draw pictures of our target artic words, then shake dice and see how many times to produce the word

*make sentences out of the words we drew (we took pics with the iPad to 'save' our work for the future)

*fill-in-the-blank sentence completion

*write answers to multiple choice wh-questions

*draw picture prompts for story comprehension

*doodle as a quick end-of-session reward

To erase the paint, color over it with an Expo dry erase marker and wipe clean with a tissue, or clean with rubbing alcohol (the rubbing alcohol is quicker!)

Leave a comment: Have you ever done real graffiti anywhere?