Ideas as Fresh as Springtime {The Frenzied SLPs}

Spring has sprung! Thank the Lord!!! Even if it's still below freezing or you have snow on the ground, it's time to brighten things up inside. The Frenzied SLPs have your back and we're sharing fresh ideas for spring therapy. Here are my top five 🌼

1) Bring animals into the therapy room (if you're that ambitious!)

#chicksman

A few years ago I shared a classroom with the special ed teacher. Our school was in a small rural community, but not many kids actually lived on farms or had exposure to animals other than dog/cat/fish/gerbil pets. The SpEd teacher decided to bring a few baby chicks into our room for a few weeks in the spring and the kids were able to interact with them and watch them grow. They were so, so excited and it provided so many language and vocabulary opportunities! We were able to talk about what makes a good pet, make observations about how they grew (chicks change very rapidly!), compared and contrasted animals that give birth to live babies vs. eggs, and what makes a good pet. There's even research backing up the benefit of pets boosting social skills in kids with autism. I've also heard of therapists bringing in therapy dogs (swoon!). Are any of you doing this?

2) Sensory bins or water play

There are so many fun ideas for sensory bins out there! I started using them with my students a couple months ago and they have always been a hit. The participation and expressive language explode out of my students when these are on the table. Here are some ideas for spring bins that are inspiring me:

Garden bin from Mama Miss

Bird sensory bin from Anchored by Love

Easter egg water play from Momma's Fun World

Duck pond water play from Mama Papa Bubba

I highly suggest you try out a sensory bin this spring!

3) DIY matching foam eggs

A few years ago I found these foam eggs in the Target Dollar Aisle (♥) and made a pocket out of packing tape so I could switch out the pictures on the egg halves for different students. It was fun and I'll be busting this out again this year.

4) Spring-themed picture books

There are too many good picture books out to possibly get to them all, but if you're looking for some new ideas, I really suggest When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes and Hatch by Katie Cox. When Spring Comes was just released in 2016, so I don't think many people have heard of it, but it's an informative book about waiting for spring to come and it has beautiful illustrations. Hatch is all about animals that hatch from eggs. It gives clues to the animals on one side, and then kids can guess and open the egg to see if they're correct.


5) New activity packets

Finally, if you're looking to update your material supply, might I suggest some of the spring activities in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop:

Umbrella Categories

Capture the Whole Picture {spring inferences}

Two Scoops of Speech and Language

Set of 3 Free Spring Game Boards

Happy Spring everyone! Be sure to check out the rest of the fresh ideas from The Frenzied SLPs below. If you'd like to share your own ideas, feel free to add a link below or comment on this post!

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.

What's In My Cart {TPT Sale}

get ready for a one-day site-wide sale!

Get ready for some online retail therapy because Teachers Pay Teachers is celebrating how SUPER educators are by having a site-wide sale! This time it is a one-day-only sale on Wednesday, February 25, so I'm going to save you some browsing time and recommend some SUPER items that I can't wait to snatch up.

First (shameless plug warning!), let me recommend a couple new items from the Schoolhouse Talk shop:

Ready, Set, Communicate (task cards for Grammar)

Ready, Set, Communicate (task cards for Phonological Awareness)

I have been using these (along with the WH-Questions and Vocabulary sets) like crazy the past couple weeks for progress monitoring and updating data! Parent-teacher conferences are coming up in my district, and these have saved me so much time.

These seasonal packets will also be included in the sale:

Two Scoops of Speech and Language

March Mayhem Articulation Word Brackets

Umbrella Categories

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See if you can figure out what the majority of my caseload is working on by taking a peek at what's in my shopping cart? :P

1) Context Clues Packet (using Tier Vocabulary) - by Nicole Allison

Nicole's products are always extremely well thought out and nicely put together. I love how this one has multiple levels of difficulty, incorporates Tier 2 vocabulary words, and teaches students exactly how to use context clues.


2) Comprehending and Paraphrasing Expository Text - by Speechy Musings

I've been using a ton of nonfiction passages with my students, and this will be a great addition to my collection! The topics included in this packet are interesting and fun to read and multiple tools and graphic organizers are included to help with paraphrasing and comprehension.


3) Inferring and Predicting with Figurative Language - by The Speech Bubble SLP

Talk about a 1, 2, 3, punch! This packet helps students with inferring skills, making predictions, and understanding figurative language all at the same time! This will be so, so useful for all of my 4-8 grade students.


4) Flip Flap Definitions - by Speech2U

I love that this will make our work on improving describing skills much more hands on and interesting! My students love getting crafty in the speech room, and I can't wait to see what they can learn and do with this packet.

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If you need additional assistance in figuring out what to stock up on, be sure to check out the Best of SLPs on TPT Spring Catalog.

You can also see what others are buying by clicking through the linky party over at Speech Room News.

Happy shopping, and STAY SUPER!

SLP Facebook Frenzy!

20 SLP bloggers are giving you freebies May 4-5. Don't miss it!

Can you smell that? That's the smell of pure excitement! There's a Facebook Frenzy coming from your favorite SLP Bloggers, and it's going to be so much fun! If you aren't familiar with a Facebook Frenzy, here's the gist: you travel through a group of Facebook pages and download a FREE activity packet on each page! For real! There are activities for spring, articulation and language goals, Better Hearing and Speech Month, and more. You will not want to miss this!

Here's a map of everyone who is participating. The map is interactive, so once you download it (by clicking on the image above), you can click on any of the pictures to get started. Or, just make it easy and start right here on Schoolhouse Talk's Facebook page. Each page links to the next in a circle, so you will eventually hop around to all 20 pages.

As you hop from page to page, you will look for a tab that looks like this:

Just click on that tab, and you will be able to download the free item for that page. After you download, click the flower or sign to move on to the next participant. Some things to keep in mind as you travel through the Frenzy:

The Facebook Frenzy will only last from 8am EST May 4th - 10pm EST May 5th, so get going! Have fun, enjoy your freebies, and take some time to write a quick 'thanks' on each Facebook page.

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Abby nearly screamed out loud when she was asked to join in this Facebook Frenzy.

Easter Egg Matchups

I found these cute foam Easter eggs at the Target Dollar Spot a few weeks ago (8-pack for $1), and I have been (impatiently) waiting for April to roll around so I could debut my activity idea!

The foam eggs were pre-cut into halves, which naturally led to some matching activities. I used some clear packing tape to make pockets on each half of the eggs. Cut one piece about an inch longer than the second piece, then match them up sticky sides together. The longer piece will overlap the shorter piece and will be used to attach the "pockets" to the eggs.

Here's how we used these in therapy:

This student was working on final consonant deletion. So we matched up words that have the same phoneme at the end, then practiced making sentences with those words.

matching up opposite pairs

For my articulation students, we played a matching game with our phoneme pictures.

Some students matched up community helpers with their related objects or tools.

And others matched up rhyming words. We practiced making lots of sentences with our targets throughout the day.

This was a fun activity, and we'll be using up until Easter. Let me know if you try it!

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Abby's Mom made her a bunny birthday cake when she was younger because her birthday is around the same time. :)

Leprechaun Mask Adapted Craftivity

 instructions for creating and adapting Leprechaun masks in the speech room

Last week it was Cat in the Hat Masks, and this week we've moved on to Leprechaun Masks! We've had a blast with these :) Read on to learn how to make your own in six easy steps.

You will need:

*paper plates (precut the centers out of your plates)

*yellow construction paper (precut into 2" x 2" squares)

*black construction paper (precut into 1 1/2" x 9" strips)

*orange markers, crayons, or paint

*green construction paper (9" x 12")

*glue stick

*scissors

*tape

Step 1: Have your students color the entire plate ring orange. I had them color on the back of the plate.

Step 2: Fold your green construction paper in half. Cut the paper into an L shape over the fold. Note: it's very important to pay attention to how you are cutting your L. Make sure you're cutting off the edges, NOT the fold (see below)!

Step 3: Glue the black strip onto the hat. Instead of cutting the black strip to fit each hat, I just had my students fold over the extra and glue it down onto the back.


Step 4: Cut out the middle of the gold square. An easy way to do this is to fold the paper into fourths, then cut out the corner halfway down each folded side:

Then glue the buckle over the black strip:

Step 5: Attach the hat to the paper plate beard. I think the easiest way to do this was with good ol' scotch tape.

Step 6: Cut strips every half inch or so along the edge of the paper plate to make it look like a beard. Voila! You are finished!

I made some visuals to go along with this craftivity. Some of my students benefit from using picture symbols to make requests and expand their utterance length. This download has picture symbols, sentence strip, and sequencing activities. You can download it for free here.

This was a great activity for all my students. My little ones worked on increasing their length of utterance by making requests and adding in descriptive words (colors). Others were perfecting sequencing and following direction skills. My articulation students wrote words with their target sounds on the hats. I just adore how they turned out!

Don't forget to download your visuals for these marvelous masks here. Please leave a comment or follow my Teachers Pay Teachers store if you download the freebie. Thanks! May the luck o' the Irish be with you!

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Abby would pay off all her student loans if she found the leprechaun's pot o' gold.