Itty-Bitty Books for Articulation Practice - T, D, N set

use this set of mini books as practice or homework for T, D, and N

 
A bunch of you were able to grab the P, B, M set of Itty-Bitty Books last week when they were flash freebies over on Twitter. I hope you are enjoying them! I created another set to add to your grab-and-go resources: T, D, N Itty-Bitty Books!

There is a book for each of three sounds: T, D, and N in the initial position of words. The books are black and white, so your students can have fun practicing their target sounds while coloring the pictures. An instruction page is also included for assembling your Itty-Bitty books.

Example of assembled Itty-Bitty Book

Have fun using these with your students! You can find them here on TpT. I'll give a set away to two lucky readers who enter via the rafflecopter below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

One Year of Schoolhouse Talk

reflections of Schoolhouse Talk's first year

What a super fun week this has been! One year ago on July 27th I published the first post on Schoolhouse Talk. I've learned a lot as the year progressed, and I feel like I'm starting to figure out my place here among SLP Bloggers. This week has been a ton of fun celebrating with guest posts, flash freebies, and giveaways! To reflect upon the last year, I've come up with some superlative awards honoring notable posts :) (click on the links to read more about each one)

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 MOST-READ POST: WH-Question Monsters

 BEST TIP: Protect Your iPad Screen From Messy Hands

 FAVORITE CRAFTIVITY: Pot of Gold Speech Rainbows

 MOST TALKED ABOUT (non-giveaway): July SLP Link-Up

 FAVORITE APP REVIEW: Make Dice

 MOST EMBARRASSING PHOTO: Lessons Learned

 FUNNIEST FRIDAY FUNNY: Grammar Check

FAVORITE REINFORCER: Easy Bucket

MOST PINNED POST: Protect Your iPad Screen from Messy Hands

MOST DOWNLOADED: Yes/No Monsters

FAVORITE FREEBIE: Editable Progress Report Templates

So that's my year in review! All this reminiscing has renewed my inspiration to keep going, keep creating, and keep challenging myself. I am so very thankful for each and every person who takes the time to read Schoolhouse Talk. I'm honored to have your time. Each comment and pin and 'like' is thrilling and keeps my drive going. Thank you so much for reading! Here's hoping year two is even better than year one has been!

Giveaway from Carrie's Speech Corner!

Great news everybody! Another prize has been added to the Blogiversary MEGA giveaway! Carrie's Speech Corner donated her Receptive Detectives to the giveaway, so now there are FIVE prizes to win!

Carrie from Carrie's Speech Corner already shared an amazing guest post and freebie earlier this week, and now she's also generously giving away one of her best products! Receptive Detectives is great for targeting receptive language skills by having students solve the clues to figure out the target vocabulary. There are multiple ways to use this packet, and it also includes a game board AND blank cards so you can keep expanding the game.

You can read more about Receptive Detectives here. Enter the rafflecopter below to win this resource for yourself!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blogiversary Week Mega Giveaway!

we're wrapping up a week of fun with FIVE awesome giveaways

You guys. You GUYS! This has been the most exciting week ever on this blog! It's been a fun few days full of celebration - amazing guest posts, flash freebies over on facebook and twitter, a big TpT sale, and we're not done yet!

In addition to the wonderful guest posts we've enjoyed this week, four of my favorite SLP Bloggers have generously donated prizes to giveaway to you my awesome readers!

First up, we have a great giveaway from Laura over at All Y'All Need. She has generously offered one lucky reader their choice of one bulletin board set! These sets have everything you'll need for your speech rooms this year: behavior charts, labels, bulletin board decor, and much more! They've created so many great themed sets lately, such as Pirates:

and I personally love the Chalkboard and Brights set:

You can see her other sets here. Enter the rafflecopter below to win a bulletin board set of your choice!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Mia from Putting Words in Your Mouth has also donated an amazing resource. Monsters Phonics University is just what SLPs need to teach important phonemic awareness skills such as beginning/middle/ending sounds, rhyming, and blending sounds. All with a fun Monsters theme!

You can read more about the Monsters Phonics University here. Enter the rafflecopter below to win this resource for yourself!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Kristin from Simply Speech has also donated one of her amazing products! Articulation Game Show is such a fun way to target /sh/, /ch/, /th/, /s/, and /r/ sounds. The game features a variety of challenging tasks and point values to make articulation practice more fun!

You can read more about Articulation Game Show here. Enter the rafflecopter below to win this resource for yourself!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Carrie from Carrie's Speech Corner already shared an amazing guest post and freebie earlier this week, and now she's also generously giving away one of her best products! Receptive Detectives is great for targeting receptive language skills by having students solve the clues to figure out the target picture. The packet is also wonderful for targeting vocabulary. There are multiple ways to use this packet, and the download also includes a game board AND blank cards so you can keep expanding the game.

You can read more about Receptive Detectives here. Enter the rafflecopter below to win this resource for yourself!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Finally, I am giving one lucky reader my entire TpT store! Yep, every product! This includes Pocket Categories, Itty-Bitty Articulation Books, and more!

You can browse all products here. Enter the rafflecopter below for a chance to win everything in my store!

Good luck everyone! I'll announce the winners on Sunday. Oh, and the fun's not over yet. I have a couple more posts planned to end the week. There will be some fun surprises for Twitter followers all day today too. And don't forget - all items in my TpT store are 20% off through Saturday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blogiversary Guest Post: Carrie's Speech Corner

Welcome to Day 3 of the Blogiversary Celebration! Today's post is from Carrie's Speech Corner. I have enjoyed connecting with Carrie via the blogosphere, twitter, and instagram. She has really fun and wonderful ideas on her blog, and her products are amazing! Make sure you follow her. Carrie has generously shared a book companion with us today, and it includes a {FREE} download! Thanks so much Carrie!

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Disclaimer:  This post contains affiliate links to Amazon.com for your convenience.

Hi Everyone!

First of all, I would like to wish Abby a happy 1st Blogiversary! I love reading Abby's blog and checking out her ideas, so when she asked me to share a guest post with you today, I was happy (and honored) to do so!  If you're familiar with my blog, you may know that I do a "Book of the Week" (more or less) feature.  I wanted to share one of my favorite books for the little ones, plus some activities to accompany the book.

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell is a lift-the flap board book, making it perfect for little hands!  The story begins with a child who writes a letter to the zoo to ask for a pet.  The zoo obliges and sends the boy 8 different animals, 7 of which he sends back with good reason!  The language of the book is repetitive and predictable ("They sent me a (animal)...He was too ____! I sent him back."), making it perfect for little language learners!  The flaps make it highly entertaining and fun for the little ones as well!

Just to give you an indication of the simplicity of the book, here are a couple of pictures...

Preschool Therapy Ideas:

I spend most of my times working with preschoolers.  Everything about Dear Zoo is perfect for this age group!  One of my favorite things to do with the kids after reading a story like this is play a fun game to reinforce the vocabulary.  Although the vocabulary is not complex, I have many kids who don't know all of these animals! So we might play a game like Memory:

Each child says the name of the animal on the card as they turn them over.  They get to hear the words as other children in the group say them, as well as practice saying the words themselves.

Another thing I like to do with my preschool students is to ask them recall questions regarding the story.  Because they are young, I like to keep things simple and give them visuals.  So, the kids get to see a page like this:

They can respond to my questions verbally or by pointing to the pictures as need be.  Examples of questions include:

• Which animal was too tall?
• Which animal was too jumpy?
• Which animal was perfect?
• Which animal was too big?
• Which animal was too fierce?

You can also use a simple board game (like the one below) to work on any language/articulation skill and reinforce the learned vocabulary at the same time! (Examples:  "I just passed the monkey."  "I'm getting closer to the lion!"  "I landed on the snake!").

Upper Elementary Therapy Ideas:

I may have mentioned that Dear Zoo is great for preschoolers and I think you can easily see why.  However, you can also adapt this book for therapy sessions for upper elementary students as well!  I've mentioned that the book starts out with a child who writes a letter to the zoo to ask for a pet.  What I didn't mention is that we don't get to see the letter.  You can have older students infer the contents of the letter.  I also developed this writing prompt/sheet for students to request their favorite animal from the zoo, great for persuasive writing practice!

Conversely, when the child in the story sends the animals back, he should probably include a note, right?  Students can use pages like these to explain to the zoo why they cannot keep the animal that was sent.

What do you think?  If you like these activities, you can download them HERE. A big Thank You to Abby for letting me share with you today! Happy Blogiversary!!!

Carrie Manchester is an ASHA certified speech and language pathologist and is a Certified Early Intervention Specialist in the state of Massachusetts. She currently provides speech and language services in a public school setting, working primarily at the early childhood level (preschool and kindergarten). Prior to transitioning to the schools, she has spent many years working in early intervention settings and providing trainings to childcare professionals. Carrie is the author of the speech and language blog: Carrie’s Speech Corner. She can also be found on Facebook, Pinterest, and Teachers Pay Teachers.

Guest Post on Home Sweet Speech Room

Carissa from Home Sweet Speech Room is celebrating 1000 'likes' on Facebook, and asked me to write a guest post to help celebrate! You can read my quick overview of evidence-based methods for training social skills and behaviors over on her blog. Enjoy!

Congratulations on your achievement Home Sweet Speech Room!

Blogiversary Guest Post: Communication Station: Speech Therapy, PLLC

To help me celebrate my first blogiversary, I asked a few people who have really supported Schoolhouse Talk to write guest posts this week. Today, Maria from Communication Station: Speech Therapy, PLLC shares her tips for teaching before/after directions. Thank you so much for sharing this great information with us!

I have been using this strategy to teach "before/after" directions to my school age kiddos for almost a decade now.  It's been tried and true for me.  I hope it will be for you too!

Before and after directions can be very confusing for children who have language delays.  Firstly, directions are given very quickly compared to many of our language delayed students' abilities to process the information.  Also the sequencing of these directions are very difficult for some students to really understand. So I came up with these three simple steps I use to teach this skill:

1.  Write out all directions!  This may seem so basic but I have had to explain this to parents and teachers before, so maybe it is not as obvious as SLPs think it is.  Even if my students are NOT great readers, I still provide a visual of each direction.  We cannot dissect a direction if we can't visually manipulate it.

2.  Find the "before/after" clause:   I spend some teach teaching my kiddos how to find the clause that starts with our special words "before/after".  I have my students use highlighters or box/underline these clauses.  I ALWAYS make sure I use a distinct way to ID "before" clauses vs. "after" clauses.  So I may use one highlighter color for "before" and another one for "after", or I underline "before" and I box the "after" clauses.  So for every direction, my student can visually see that before and after directions mean different things.  I teach my students to find the target word and highlight/underline/box the words from the target all the way to the punctuation (comma or period). We practice this over and over until I am certain my kiddos can ID this "before/after" clauses.

3.  Number the clause and act out the direction:  Then I take my kiddos back to these directions and I explain that above every "after" clause we will write the number 1, and above every "before" clause we will write the number 2.  So using our "answer key" we go back and number the clauses.  After that, it's a hop, skip and a jump away from following the directions.  I read the direction, we talk about what we need to do first and second and the child does it.

As my clients get better at following these directions, I will provide less and less cuing until I am able to just verbally give directions.

And that's it!  Those are my 3 simple steps to teaching "before/after" directions.  I hope they work for you too!

Happy Talking!!!

 

 

Maria Del Duca, M.S. CCC-SLP, is a pediatric speech-language pathologist in southern, Arizona.  She owns a private practice, Communication Station: Speech Therapy, PLLC, and has a speech and language blog under the same name.  She also writes a monthly column for the ASHAsphere titled Kid Confidential.  Maria received her master’s degree from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.  She has been practicing as an ASHA certified member since 2003 and is an affiliate of Special Interest Group 16, School-Based Issues.  She has experience in various settings such as private practice, hospital and school environments and has practiced speech pathology in NJ, MD, KS and now AZ.  Maria has a passion for early childhood, autism spectrum disorders, rare syndromes, and childhood Apraxia of speech.  For more information, visit her blog or find her on Facebook.

It's a Blogiversary Celebration!

a celebration of Schoolhouse Talk's one-year blogiversary

It's here! This week marks one year since the first post was published on Schoolhouse Talk. July 27th to be exact!

I have a whole week of fun planned to celebrate. There are guest posts lined up from a few of the people who have inspired me over the past year. Some of your favorite SLP Bloggers have generously donated products to giveaway. And I'll be doing a giveaway of my own products as a grand finale! But wait - there's more! My entire TpT store will be 20% off July 24th - 27th!! So be sure to come back every day this week to join in on the fun. I can't wait to celebrate with everyone!

(Spread the News: Flash freebies will occur over on the Facebook page, so be sure to 'like' Schoolhouse Talk on Facebook. There will also be bonus surprises exclusively for Twitter followers. Yay!)

Friday Funny

 I'm spending the weekend with some college friends from the University of North Dakota. We rented a cabin for a couple days and are sure to get lots of 'aerobics' completed :)

Have a super weekend!

Guest Post on Activity Tailor

Exciting news! Activity Tailor held a contest to help celebrate her two-year blogiversary. She put out a call to people who have been blogging for less than one year, and she ended up choosing one of my posts to appear on her blog!

I am so grateful to Kim for reaching out to us "blogging newbies"! Click here to read my post about a versatile "speech path" that can be used for all sorts of speech and language goals :)

Itty-Bitty Books for Articulation Practice - P, B, M set

use this set of mini books as practice or homework for P, B, and M

 
What are your go-to materials for homework? Do you have a set of pictures you can pull quickly when you need last-minute activities to send home with a student? This set of Itty-Bitty books is a perfect grab-and-go resource!

There is a book for each of three sounds: P, B, and M in the initial position of words. The books are black and white, so your students can have fun practicing their target sounds while coloring the pictures. An instruction page is included for assembling your Itty-Bitty books.

Have fun using these with your students! You can find this activity packet here on TpT.

Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win your own set of these Itty-Bitty Books! I'll be randomly picking a winner from comments below on Saturday, July 20th at 9:00pm central time. Good luck!

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And the winner is...

Congratulations Carly! Send me your email address and I will get your product to you right away!

Schoolhouse Talk - Now with More Social Media!

a round-up of all the places you can interact with Schoolhouse Talk

Facebook
Schoolhouse Talk is now on Facebook! I'm hoping facebook will be a venue where I can engage with my readers, share freebies and exclusive content, and join with other SLP Bloggers to continue bringing exciting new resources to the speech-pathology world. Click on over, 'like' the page, and join in on the excitement!

Click here to become a fan of Schoolhouse Talk on Facebook

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Instagram
Are you on Instagram? I joined about 6 months ago and have been l-o-v-i-n-g it! So much fun to share pictures with other people and I feel it's a little more personable than Facebook. Lots of other SLP bloggers have been joining Instagram in the past few weeks and it's really neat to catch a glimpse of their lives outside of the blog and outside of being an SLP!

Click here to join Instagram and see @schoolhousetalk through pictures

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Twitter
I. love. twitter. I'll say it again - I LOVE TWITTER! I can't get enough of it lately. It has been such a wonderful place to keep up with other SLPs. There are so, so many speech pathologists on twitter providing TONS of useful information, research articles, blog posts, live-tweeting conferences, and sharing resources. Twitter is the best for getting information and feedback instantly.

Click here to stay up to date with @SchoolhouseBlog on Twitter

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Pinterest
Is there anyone out there who isn't in love with Pinterest yet? (Other than my husband. I'm working on converting him...) Pinterest is such an addiction. Need a recipe? Check Pinterest. Want to make a cute craft for your home? You'll find ideas on Pinterest. Last minute session planning? Pinterest. I have one giant Pinterest board for all things SLP-related, and contribute to another collaborative board that is FULL of activities and information from nearly 100 speech pathologists. If anyone needs an invitation to join Pinterest, leave your email in the comments and I will hook you up!

Click here to follow my Pinterest boards

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You can connect via the links above, or using the green social media buttons over on the right-hand side of this blog. See you around the internet!