And the Winner is...

The winner of the Speech FlipBook giveaway has been chosen! Click here to see if it was you! Have a wonderful Easter weekend everyone <3

Friday Funny

Nooooo! Spring Break is almost over for me :( But it has really been a great, relaxing yet productive week! I planned some blog posts, got my hairz did, and even worked some cleaning in. I am up in Minnesota now for the Easter holiday, busy playing "Pony Farm" with my 4yo niece and snuggling my baby nephew. Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

P.S. My assigned pony name switches between Pinky Pie and Twilight Sparkle :D

Appy Hour: Speech FlipBook Review and Giveaway

a review of Speech FlipBook by Tactus Therapy {and Giveaway!}

***GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED***

It's my first giveaway! I was thrilled when Tactus Therapy provided me the opportunity to review their new app: Speech FlipBook. I was even more thrilled with how great it was :)

Speech FlipBook is a very versatile app from Tactus Therapy that can be used to address a variety of speech/language goals. The app contains 125 single phonemes & clusters, which can combine to create over 2300 single-syllable words and 60,000 nonsense words. Wow!

GETTING STARTED:

I highly suggest watching the online videos before using Speech FlipBook to familiarize yourself. Their website is also very helpful. I put the Speech FlipBook Basics PDF on my iPad for easy reference during the first couple times using the app.

The app has a very clean and simple layout, and you can customize the sounds and types of words you'd like to target: initial sounds, initial clusters, vowels, final sounds, and final clusters.

You can tap a label to select or deselect all sounds in that category. In the picture above, you can see I've selected only labio-dental sounds. One thing that really struck me as 'awesome' on this app was the ability to control which vowels are used. I don't have enough tools to target vowels!

In the settings menu you can customize even more by choosing how the words are presented and how the pages flip, and even choose which words appear on the word list.

Back to the home tab, select if you'd like your targets to be presented in words or sounds, and you are good to go!

While flipping targets, you can hear the word, and can also record/play your students' productions.

WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

Articulation Therapy:
The obvious use for Speech FlipBook is for articulation therapy. It's great because it takes away the possibility of students falling back into habitual pronunciations of certain words in error as they often do when naming pictures. They really have to think about the sounds in the targets. It's great that you can customize the targets so well and eliminate any potential troublesome targets due to coarticulation (such as 'cat' if a student is fronting). I love that you can select more than one phoneme to work on minimal pairs and it's also great for RtI work in the hallway or for groups of students.

It's not just for Articulation Therapy!:
*APRAXIA THERAPY: easily progress through therapy from V, to CV, to CVC, etc. *PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS: sound blending/phoneme manipulation/rhyming *VOCABULARY: for different sound combinations, you can find homophones listed along the bottom. Have students define the homophones.

*IT'S NOT JUST FOR SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGISTS! Speech FlipBook will be great for special ed/reading teachers to teach sound blending, word fluency skills, word families, and so on.
*LITERACY: Many of my students are not yet readers, but enjoyed flipping the pages and didn't realize they were working on their early reading skills at the same time as their speech skills!
*OTHER: Website also suggests uses for aphasia, IPA transcriptions, accent reduction, auditory training, and dysarthria.

THE BOTTOM LINE: 

Things I Like:
~ Color-coded tabs make it easy to select desired sounds.
~ Lack of pictures stops students from relying on habitual pronunciations for familiar words.
~ Can be used with much more than just articulation therapy.
~ So many options for customization!
~ No more lugging around numerous articulation cards for each speech sound. Almost any combination you could want are now all in one place!

Suggestions:
~ I didn't feel the app was very self-explanatory at first. But the online video tutorials are EXCELLENT for learning your way around.
~ Would like to see ability to take data and save settings to various 'users' in order to reduce set-up time for each student.
~ More difficult to use with non-readers, which is the majority of my current caseload.

Speech FlipBook is available for iPad/mini, iPhone, and iPod Touch. It is currently $4.99 in the App Store. What a bargain for such a versatile app! Want to win your own copy of Speech FlipBook?! Just enter in the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

Winner will be chosen on Friday! Have a great week!

Disclaimer: Tactus Therapy provided me a copy of Speech FlipBook to review and giveaway, but all opinions are my own.

SLP Linky Party!

join in on the fun with this SLP linky party!

It's an SLP linky party hosted by Oh, How Pintearesting! Click on over to her great blog to read the instructions and participate in the fun!

* State of Mind:
I am ready to relax on Spring Break this week! I will be working on some crafts, some blog posts, and traveling up to MN to be with family for a few days for the Easter holiday. Woohoo, Spring Break Minnesota!*

     *I cannot pack my shorts and sandals though - the forecasted high will only be 50* while I'm there!

* Loving:
The Following on Fox is so excellent. Every episode has twists and turns, it's mind-bending, and I cannot stop watching!! It airs Monday nights. Do you watch?

* Prepping:
~ A blog button: I have designed about five different styles and am trying to choose which one to use. Stay tuned :)

~ Easter Board Games: I posted a new Easter board game this morning and am printing and laminating it tonight!

~ Following Directions Farm (from Let's Talk Speech Therapy): Rachel has such great materials on her blog! These cards include 1-step, 2-step, and 3-step directions as well as conditional directions. My students will love using these once we return from Spring Break.

~ Minimal Pairs Sentences series from (Ms. Lane's SLP Materials): Love these flash cards that address minimal pairs in complete sentences. And I'm glad there are pictures because most of my kiddos can't read yet.

Be sure to check out all the {wonderful} SLP blogs participating in the linky party. Thanks for hosting Laura!

Easter Board Game

an open-ended Easter-themed board game just for you!

Click here to grab your {FREE} Easter board game to use with your students this week!

And in case you missed them, check out these other board game FREEBIES:

Flower Patch Board Game

Rainy Day Board Game

Beach Time Fun Board Game

Please comment if you download. Have a wonderful week!

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What's your favorite thing about spring?

When the grass turns green!

You may also enjoy:
March Madness Word Brackets
Green Eggs Vocabulary Match-Up

Friday Funny

Happy Weekend! As of 4:00 today I'm on Spring Break ya'll! But no worries, I'll still be posting some goodies!!

(P.S. You do not want to miss Monday's post...my first giveaway!!)

March Mayhem Word Brackets

a head-to-head word competition!

Do you have your NCAA basketball tournament brackets filled out?? I just submitted mine, but don't really take them too seriously to begin with. I don't follow college basketball at all (other than what my husband fills me in on), but I enjoy doing my best to fill out the brackets and see how well I can predict the winner!

Since brackets were on the brain, I thought they would make a fun speech activity! The alliterative name you typically hear for the NCAA tournament is copyrighted, so I give to you: March Mayhem Word Brackets! (See what I did there?)

This packet contains brackets for 21 speech sounds. Twenty-one! Sounds included are: B, P, D, T, F, V, G, H, K, L, M, N, R, S, Z, W, Y, CH, SH, J, voiceless TH.

Two ways to play:

1) Ask students a leading question (i.e. “Would you rather ride a jeep or a giraffe?”) The word your student chooses advances to the next round. It's also great practice for students to ask each other the questions.

2) Students attempt to say both words and the word with the more accurate sound production advances to the next round.

You can also pair two different sound brackets together (such as K and G) to determine the ULTIMATE CHAMPION!!

It's easy for your students to practice their target sounds in words, sentences, or conversation. BONUS: Completed brackets are perfect to send home for practice outside of the therapy room!

You can download your {FREE} preview packet here. The preview includes brackets for P, B, H, M. The full 21-bracket packet (!) is available right here. Enjoy!

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Leave a Comment: Which team are you cheering for?

University of Minnesota - Go Gophers!
(although that's not who I picked to win it all!)

You may also enjoy:
Pocket Categories Sorting Game
Speech Room Graffiti

Spring Board Games

welcome spring and (warmer temps!) with these open-ended board games

Friday. was. beautiful. It was 60 degrees outside! Here in Iowa we haven't seen temps like that for months. I drove home from work with the air conditioner on. Needless to say, I caught spring fever big time. Spring Fever with a capital SF!

Surprise! This morning we woke up to 2" of snow outside...I am so over this endless winter. Luckily, next week is spring break for me. Wheeeee! Not that I'm going anywhere warm and exotic, but I am looking forward to a few days off to relax, re-energize, and create some new materials.

Here are three new board games to help you dream of flowers, sandals, the beach, ice cold drinks on the patio, and all things spring/summer.

You can get them for free here in my TpT store. Thanks for reading! And make sure to think "warm" thoughts :)

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Leave a Comment: What is your favorite season?

Summer all the way for me!

Friday Funny

 source

Happiest of weekends to you! Don't be too Irish ;)

Pot of Gold Speech Rainbows

make a rainbow and pot of gold with speech words

 Today's St. Patrick's Day activity was all about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The idea for these comes from Scholastic. Have you signed up for their monthly Teacher Updates? Do it! They send out an email once a month with a ton of activity ideas, articles, and teaching ideas for that season. Sign up here! (scroll to the bottom of the page)

I had the paper plates, clouds, coins, and black pots cut out and ready to go. While students were coloring their rainbows, we practiced target words, or listened to words through auditory bombardment.

Then we wrote target words or glued pictures to the coins and assembled the whole thing together. For my language students we practiced making sentences with our words or wrote words in different categories. White crayon worked well to write names on the black pot. My students were so excited to take them home!

Leave a Comment: What's your favorite color of the rainbow?

Orange and Purple for me!

You may also enjoy these related posts:
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
Pocket Categories Sorting Game
Online Interactive Story Starters

Flexible St. Patrick's Day Activities

these St. Patrick's Day activities can easily target various speech goals

St. Patrick's Day is on Sunday, and we began celebrating in my speech room this week. Today we did a few activities that are easily adaptable for different goal areas.

This bingo dauber page was the perfect reinforcement to have on hand. My artic students were able to make a dot after each correct phoneme production. We had races to see who could fill their shamrock up first. Other students raced me! If they produced their sound in error, I got to make a dot instead of them :) Gotta keep thing interesting!

Another great articulation activity that targets /l/ is this Lucky Leprechauns game from If Only I Had Super Powers. It is so cute and my students thought it was hilarious. I also used it with some of my language kiddos, forming sentences to describe the pictures or explaining why it is a funny picture. Go download this game - it's a freebie!

And of course, an open-ended board game is something that can be used with all students. You can download my free game here!

For most students, a discussion of some sort occurred about what St. Patrick's Day is...why clovers and horseshoes are lucky...where leprechauns live...Early elementary students are so entertaining to work with! Be sure to check back for more St. Patrick's Day activities throughout this week.

Leave a Comment: What is your favorite holiday?

For me, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year!

You may also enjoy these posts:
Pot of Gold Speech Rainbows
Follow the Speech Path
 Good Find: Hopping Frogs

One Last Dr. Seuss Speech Activity

one last Dr. Seuss activity to end our week of celebration

 
I hope you have enjoyed our Dr. Seuss celebration this week. Dr. Seuss was so creative with his stories and characters that there's no way not to have fun with his books.

Today's activity hint was "look around" - did you figure out what that meant?? I hid a Cat in the Hat picture in my room. If my students spotted the hidden Cat in the Hat, they won a truffula tree!

I "borrowed" this idea from a Kindergarten teacher in the building. Love them!

The Kindergarten and First Grade classes in my building are having Dr. Seuss activities in their classes all afternoon. Love the creativity and fun that Dr. Seuss inspires! Time to start planning for next year!

(P.S. There are so many great resources and ideas at www.seussville.com if you need some inspiration.)

Leave a Comment: Who is your favorite Dr. Seuss character?

You may also enjoy these related posts:

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Dr. Seuss Activities, Part 2

Friday Funny

Wheeeee - it's FRIDAY!

Thanks to Simply Speech for sharing this one. Happy Weekend!

Dr. Seuss Speech Activities, Part 2!

more Dr. Seuss themed activities from my speech room

If you read Tuesday's Dr. Seuss post, you read the hint for today: think green, red, and blue.

Hint #1: think red and blue: Have you read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish? It is such the perfect book for PreK/early elementary students. Color words, describing words, opposites - my kiddos loved it! After we read the book, we did a "speechy" activity by making red and blue fish using their own hands.

this kiddo wanted to use googly eyes :)

While the students were cutting out their traced hands, we practiced their speech words. After the fish were glued to the background paper, we wrote their target words on the 'fins'. Cute!

If you couldn't tell, that's a T-Rex on the blue fish :)

Love the detail added to these fish!
We wrote his speech words on the back :)

Hint #2: think green: So, what is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Dr. Seuss and the color green? Why, Green Eggs and Ham of course!

I made my own version of green eggs - a green eggs vocabulary match-up! This document targets synonyms and antonyms. You can download it in my TpT store.

Simply cut apart the egg whites and the yolks, then match the yolks to the corresponding whites. I laminated mine and added Velcro to stick them together.

We are adding one last Dr. Seuss activity to my speech room tomorrow, so check back again! Hint: "look around"

Leave a Comment: Who is your favorite author?

You may also enjoy these related posts:
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
One Last Dr. Seuss Speech Activity
Pocket Categories Sorting Game

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

a roundup of Dr. Seuss activities from my speech room this week

Saturday was Theodor Seuss Geisel's birthday! Who?? The amazing man the world came to know as...Dr. Seuss! He is one of my favorite authors and one of the most creative brains of literary history (in my opinion). Unfortunately, between three snow days last week and a 1:00 dismissal another day for parent-teacher conferences, there just wasn't much time for activities in my speech room. So, we are celebrating this week! Here's a look at what we had fun with today:

What's a Dr. Seuss celebration without something Cat in the Hat themed? An empty oatmeal container makes an excellent striped hat! This idea is courtesy of Motherhood and Other Adventures.

oatmeal container + construction paper + paper plate

Oh my word, the kiddos loved this! We'll definitely be bringing this out more than just once a year :)

Tossing our Webber Artic cards into the Dr. Seuss hat.

**************************************************************************

Continuing with the pocket-themed activities from a couple weeks ago, we did an activity based on There's a Wocket in my Pocket. I found this idea from A Place Called Kindergarten and I loved it!

I picked up some adhesive-backed library pockets from the local teacher supply store, and printed off a quick sheet to stick it to. My students cut apart pictures from Mommy Speech Therapy and we practiced putting their target words in the sentence. Fun! Made for great homework practice too :)

More to come tomorrow! Hint, think green, red, and blue.

Leave a Comment: What is your favorite Dr. Seuss book?

I love Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? and I'm pretty
sure I learned to read from Dr. Seuss' ABCs

You may also enjoy these related activities:
Dr. Seuss Speech Activities, Part 2
One Last Dr. Seuss Speech Activity
Protect Your iPad Screen from Messy Hands

New Downloads in a New Store

Schoolhouse Talk now has a Teachers Pay Teachers store

I've recently added a few new documents to my Teachers Pay Teachers store. What? You didn't know Schoolhouse Talk had a TpT store?! Well it's relatively new, but all my documents from the blog are on there now :) You can check it out here. There's a handy button over there below my profile ----> :)

This weekend I updated and added the following downloads to the store:

This scheduling document allows teachers to let you know what times would work or wouldn't work for you to pull students from their room for speech sessions. It's an updated version of the one I wrote about back in September. It's FREE and you can download it here.

And this one allows you to notify teachers when the students in their class are scheduled for therapy. It's also FREE! Click here to grab it!

This one's a new one - Speech Passes! I'm going to use these for the articulation kiddos I pull into the hallway for 5-minute sessions. I'll let teachers know that I'll quietly walk into the classroom, place a pass on a student's desk, and the student will then leave to meet me in the hallway. That way, the class doesn't get interrupted when I need to borrow a student. There are four different styles and they all fit on one page. Get your own here.

Check out my store for all these products and more!

Friday Funny

Hope this brightens your day and starts the weekend off with a laugh!

P.S. Cats are hilarious :)