DIY Window Cling Craftivity

you can make your own window clings with two simple supplies

This week we have been having fun with a Valentine craft during our speech therapy sessions - DIY window clings! All you need for this easy craft are puffy paint and ziplock bags or plastic sheet protectors.

Step 1: This is not necessary, but to keep things under control I printed off heart patterns on a sheet of paper and inserted them into sheet protectors to act as a template for my students.

Step 2: Use the puffy paint to trace around the heart template.

Step 3: You can use multiple colors to make designs and patterns. Make sure the paint isn't too thin, or it will be difficult to peel off the plastic. Also, if the paint is too thick then it takes forever to dry.

Step 4: Let the paint dry overnight. Then you can peel the hearts off the plastic and decorate your windows!

This craft was easy peasy, and many of my students told me they really were excited to use the paint. Try it today!

**Thanks to my friend and colleague Kayla for the idea for this craftivity!

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Abby's husband will be out of town on Sunday. She will spend Valentine's Day with her kittens instead :)

Snowflake Snowman Craft

snowflake snowmen make a perfect craftivity for winter months

The snowman with the green background is "on a football field" :)

Last week we made snowflake snowmen in my therapy room, and I LOVE how they turned out!

I was inspired by this post I saw on Pinterest. You probably already have everything you need to make these: construction paper, scissors, a pencil, glue sticks, a white crayon, and some markers.

It usually took 20-30 minutes to complete these, depending on the size of the group. I had the paper folded and ready to cut ahead of time, and helped most of my students cut through the thick folded paper. We were also able to target many skills including sequencing, making requests, making descriptions, following directions, fine motor skills, and predicting how their cuts would appear once the paper was unfolded. Articulation students were able to practice their target sounds in between steps.

I was surprised how many of my students were vocally excited about making these. There were a few I thought I'd have to convince to participate, but they were some of the most enthusiastic and most creative! Many of them had never made paper snowflakes, and they thought it was so magical unfolding the paper to reveal their snowflake. Try them today with your students!

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Abby enjoyed 40*F weather this weekend. It felt like spring! What's the weather like where you live?

Frenzied SLPs: Gobble Up Holiday Goodies!

get ready for the holidays with recipes, crafts, and therapy activities

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Here in North Dakota we have a little dusting of snow on the ground, and it's really starting to feel festive around here. The Frenzied SLPs are back to get you in the holiday spirit with a link-up of Holiday Goodies for you :D

I can NOT wait for Thanksgiving next week - extra time with family, a couple days off of work to relax, and don't forget the yum-o food! I'd like to share a recipe with you that my family traditionally only makes for the holidays.

Krumkake is a Scandinavian dessert that my family makes every single Christmas. You do need a special iron to cook these on, similar to a waffle iron. This is the type of iron I use (not an affiliate link). After baking the batter in the iron, you roll the delicate disc into a cone shape and let it cool. Then it becomes a delicious, sweet, crispy treat. In my family, we eat these plain, although I've seen pictures of them dusted with powdered sugar or filled with whipped cream.

What else does the holiday season mean to me? Lots of homemade crafts and gifts! A couple years ago I made all my nieces and nephews (that's 13 total!) homemade bookmarks for Christmas gifts.

 

                                       (source)

I made monster ones for the boys, and scalloped edges for the girls using this pattern. Since then I've made more for myself and have also used them for Secret Santa at work. Quick, easy to personalize, and they go along with my love of reading. They would also be an excellent therapy activity/gift for your students. Win-win-win-win :)

Need a Thanksgiving-themed craft for your students or family celebration? This Thankfulness Wreath was so heartwarming to make last year at school. I simply cut out a basic leaf shape in a variety of fall colors, students wrote the things they are thankful for in metallic markers, then we pinned them to a styrofoam wreath form and hung it outside my therapy room. I can't wait to make another one with my students this week!

Finally, don't forget about holiday-themed fun in your therapy room. The following activities can be found in my shop:

  

  

  

  

And the 2015 edition of the Gifts of Gab Holiday ebook is hot off the presses! It's packed full of FREEBIES and fabulous therapy resources from over 70 #SLPBloggers! Download your copy here and you'll be fully prepared for the upcoming busy holiday season.

Thanks so much to Sparklle SLP, Speech Universe, and SLP Runner for hosting this Holiday Goodies linky! If you'd like to add your own ideas, feel free to join using the link below. Blessings to each and every one of you for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

Frenzied SLPs: Fall Articulation Ideas

quick and easy activities for articulation practice this autumn season

Hi! Twice each month, The Frenzied SLPs collaborate to bring you oodles of ideas and suggestions related to a specific speech pathology topic. This time, I'm so thrilled to be joining The Frenzied SLPs with ideas for Fall-themed articulation practice!

I share my time between two different buildings, so I prefer to use activities that involve minimal prep. And with articulation students, I want to make the most of our time together and pack in tons of practice. Let me show you some things we've done this season...

- Die Cuts: I love using the school's die cut machine for seasonal activities. This year I cut out leaf shapes in various colors and had students write fall-themed articulation words on the leaves. They could take these home for extra practice.

- Tech Search: Look through a book or do a "fall"/"autumn" Google image search. How many Autumn-related words can you find that contain your target phonemes?

- Leaf Rubbings: Bring the outdoors in with leaf rubbings! You can write artic words on the leaf veins and students can have art and artic practice all in one.

- Hide and Seek: I cut out pumpkin shapes (using that handy die-cut machine again!) and wrote fall-themed articulation words on each side, then hid them around the room. For groups, each student could only collect the pumpkins that had his/her target sound.

- Go for a Walk: Enjoy the last of our beautiful warm weather before winter comes. Look for things around you which contain target speech sounds.

- Don't Spill the Beans: I don't know about you, but in my therapy room this is one of the most requested games of all time. At Easter we used real jelly beans to play the game; try using candy corn or autumn-colored M&Ms this month. Students have to practice their sounds before each turn.

- Craftivity: Paper plate crafts are always a favorite of mine (see here, and here, and here!). This year we made fall wreaths. Sometimes students wrote their target words on the leaves, and others we just left plain and practiced our targets while we crafted.

- Carryover: For students who are moving towards generalization of their speech sounds, try playing the I'm Going on a Picnic game, but change it to "I'm Going on a Hayride" or "I'm Going to the Pumpkin Patch".

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Don't forget to go back to the Frenzied SLPs and read everyone else's fun fall ideas! The link-up this month starts at Doyle Speech Works. Feel free to link up your own ideas!

An InLinkz Link-up

Spring Bulletin Board

a bright and eye-catching bulletin board idea for the spring season

I spent the better part of three days in late March designing and assembling the parts for this bulletin board display:

This board is in the hallway right outside my therapy room. I've had the same display on it since the beginning of the school year:

It was fading a lot and I was just ready for an upgrade to get me through the remaining two months of the school year. I was also hoping for something that would remind people that speech-language pathologists work on more than just speech sounds.

The light blue background is a tablecloth from the dollar store, the rainbow is made out of construction paper, and everything else was cut out of bulletin board paper from school.

I love how it turned out!

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Abby is still waiting for spring to arrive (and STAY) in North Dakota.

Paper Airplane Activities

paper airplanes can be used to target many communication goals

This week we have been making paper airplanes, and it has been a blast! A quick Google search led me to three different websites with step-by-step instructions.

I found this website to be the best because it includes printable pages with the fold lines numbered which I found really helped my students understand exactly where to make their folds.

So how in the world can you use paper airplanes to target communication goals? So. Many. Ways. :)

FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS:
- how to fold the airplane
- how to fly the airplane

EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE:
- giving instructions and providing details in their descriptions
- prepositions ("The plane flew OVER the table.")
- pronouns ("YOUR plane flew farther than MY plane.")
- sizes/measurement ("The BIG plane flew a LONG WAY!"; "This time make the LITTLE plane have a SHORT flight.")

SEQUENCING: All of these planes include step-by-step instructions. Cut apart the instructions and have students put the steps in order.

ARTICULATION:
- Spread target words on the floor and try to fly the airplanes onto the cards
- Write target sounds and words onto the completed planes

COMPARE/CONTRAST:
- discuss similarities/differences about different styles of airplanes
- fly two different airplanes and compare their flight patterns

FLUENCY: Students can read the instructions aloud and practice their fluency building strategies as they do so.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS: All this folding and holding is great practice for our friends working on their fine motor skills.

Students are so proud when they're finished:

And then you get to enjoy the thrill of flying them!

Try it!
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Abby thinks the Bullet plane is the best for speed and distance, but the Condor does sweet tricks.

Bouncy Balls Valentine Printables

free Valentine printables to make a bouncy ball treat for your speech students

Happy Valentine's Day from my speech room to yours! Each year I try to do something special for my speech therapy students for Valentine's Day. Last year, I was working with the preschool population and gave them bubble treats. This year, I have 3rd - 8th grade, so I was looking for something a little more on their level. By far, the most-picked item from my prize box has been bouncy balls, so that's what I went with!

The bouncy balls were purchased in the party supply section of Dollar Tree, and the 3" x 4" treat bags were purchased in the candy making aisle at Hobby Lobby. I created three different label options, printed on neon colored cardstock, and was all set! Simply fold the baggie over, and staple a label on top. Click HERE to download these labels for your own use.

I can't wait to give these to my students! Happy Valentine's Day!

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Forget the roses, Abby's favorite flowers are tulips {hint, hint dear husband}.

Bookmarks Craft

getting crafty in the speech room with personalized bookmarks

First of all, I want to thank everyone who supported Schoolhouse Talk during the big Teachers Pay Teachers sale this week. You are all such a blessing to me! I have some goodies up my sleeves to thank you in the next couple weeks. It will be to your benefit to follow my shop so you don't miss out on the surprise! It would also probably be a good idea to follow along on Instagram, or click "get notifications" on Facebook to stay in the know! Just sayin... ;)

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Here's what we've been up to in my speech room this week:

Bookmarks!

We have been busy crafting our little hearts out creating personalized bookmarks to take home! Let me tell you, my students have been loving these. I was observing students in a fifth grade room yesterday and saw a student using her bookmark in her silent reading book :) Students were even asking to make more, and one asked if he could make one for his mom <3

Crafts are a messy business!

I have an abundance of paper scraps leftover from the homemade cards I make, so I brought that in to school along with some paper punches, stickers, washi tape, and every crafter's must-have tool - glue gun!

You could easily do this with construction paper, washable markers, and reward stickers that you probably already have in your speech room anyway.

These bookmarks have been a good activity for following directions, encouraging creativity, and practicing carryover of articulation phonemes. I have one student who is working on carryover of those pesky 'r' sounds, and this activity naturally lends itself to lots of practice! All of these words came up over and over while we were working: bookmark, paper, scissor, marker, sticker, star, heart, stripes, ribbon, letter, glitter, reading ...and more! We even wrote some of her trickiest /r/ words on the back of her bookmark.

I love how each one is unique and reflects the personality of the student who created it! Give this activity a try in your speech room.

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Which skills would you target by using this activity?