Frenzied SLPs: Sharing Kindness {blog hop}

Welcome to our Frenzied SLPs Sharing Kindness Blog Hop! If you hop through all the blog posts, you'll find plenty of FREE kindness-themed downloads to use in therapy over the next couple weeks. Let's all work together to help instill a desire to treat others with respect and kindness in the little minds that we work with. The world can certainly use as much kindness as possible it seems. This stop in the blog hop includes a prepositions practice interactive booklet, which can be downloaded for free here. Enjoy!

Click here to go to the next stop at Gold Country SLP. When you make it all the way back here you will have 14 new freebies to use! Have fun :)

And remember: "Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." -- Dalai Lama

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

Sticky Note Command Center {free download}

use this free download to help keep your to-do lists organized

Hello friends! By now I'm sure you are all getting into the swing of the new school year, but if you're anything like me you have a million things on your list of things to get done, and random sticky notes posted everywhere! I had so many notes and reminders jotted down that I was actually forgetting things, so I decided to do something about it.

I created a sticky note command center for my desk! Now all my notes are in one spot for each building I work in and hopefully I won't be forgetting any more important things.

You can download your own sticky note command center here. The pages are editable so you can label the boxes to suit your own needs. There are two colorful versions, a grayscale version, and a blank version so you can add your own background to match your room decor. Enjoy!

(Please leave feedback if you download - it helps me know what to keep or change about the materials I create. Thanks!)

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}.

For the Love of Speech Blog Hop

click your way through the loop and download nearly 30 free Valentine activities

Welcome to Schoolhouse Talk! I'm so twitter-pated to be a part of this "LOVELY" blog hop hosted by Speech to the Core and The Speech Owl! If you're new to my blog - welcome! I am a school based speech language pathologist working with 3rd through 8th graders on a military base in North Dakota. I love reading, watching movies, checking Instagram, baking, crafting, and creating materials for my speech room. Be sure to follow along with me for therapy ideas, new materials, freebies, and all things SLP:

instagram

facebook

pinterest

twitter

shop

So how does this blog hop work? It's simple - you will click your way through 28 different blog posts or Facebook pages collecting Valentine's Day materials at each stop. By the time you've looped through all the posts, you'll have an entire Valentine's Day unit ready to go! SWEET! The blog hop path is a loop; so it doesn't matter where you start, you'll eventually find your way to all the blogs. Be sure to leave a little SLP love at each stop and say "thanks for the freebie". You should also consider becoming a follower of each blogger - these ladies work hard and are full of completely inspirational ideas!

Let's get to the fun! My freebie for you is "Capture the Whole Picture", which targets inferencing skills for 3rd-5th grade students. This packet includes inferencing task cards - students will read the paragraph and will have to infer in order to answer the question at the bottom. Then they can scan the QR code to see if they are right! There is also an anchor chart to use as a reminder of how we make inferences, plus other goodies too! Just click on the picture below to download. This packet will only be free February 1-4, 2015.

Now click on the picture below to be taken to the next LOVELY stop:

Enjoy!

Nonfiction Text Sources for Grades 3-8

resources for SLPs to find high-interest nonfiction reading passages to use with 3rd-8th grade

Have you noticed a push for using nonfiction and informative texts with our students? Standardized assessments and the Common Core both emphasize familiarity and use of informational texts. As a result, I have been attempting to focus more on using news articles and other informative texts with my students this school year.

Nonfiction passages are also great because they provide ample opportunity for progress monitoring. You can have students use context clues to figure out what vocabulary words mean, predict what will happen next, infer feelings and actions, answer comprehension questions, retell what they learned, paraphrase the article in their own words, identify the main idea by coming up with an alternate headline, and practice articulation targets. Whew, talk about a one-stop shop! Here are my go-to FREE resources for finding high-interest nonfiction reading selections for 3rd-8th grade students.

DOGOnews

This website is great. It has tons of articles about a variety of subjects. When you click on an article, there are many options to help students:

Underneath the headline you can click the "CCSS" button to see how this passage can be used to address critical thinking skills, vocabulary, and writing for various grade levels. The "NAS" button matches the article up with National Academy of Science Standards. The blue grade levels button tells you which students the article is appropriate for. Click the green "word search" button to complete a word search of vocabulary words from the article.

DOGOnews also has wonderful vocabulary tools. A floating list of vocabulary words always stays in view even as you scroll up and down the page. Each vocabulary word within the article is hyperlinked - just click the blue word to see its definition. Love that feature!

Other superb features include comprehension questions and critical thinking questions to complete after reading, and hyperlinks to geography locations mentioned in the article.

Newsela

Newsela is another go-to resource that should be bookmarked on all your computers/tablets. You can register for a free account to access this entire site. A neat thing is that you can set up classes of your students if you'd like. If you do that, you can assign articles to students and you can see their answers to the writing questions. I haven't tried this feature yet since we go over articles together in our therapy sessions.

The absolutely best feature of Newsela is that you can adjust the reading level of each article. Just click on the lexile levels in the blue bar on the right hand side of the article. When you adjust the lexile level, the grade level and word count information below the title of the article will change (see the picture above).

Some articles have writing prompts or quizzes, which can be accessed in the blue pane on the right-hand side of the screen. The quizzes are great because they address main idea, summarizing, recalling details, and defining vocabulary from context!

There are many other useful kid-centered news sites out there, but these two are my favorites and most-used. Others include:

Time for Kids

Go Go News

Here There Everywhere News for Kids

Are you using nonfiction texts with your students? Comment below with your favorite resources!

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Abby read the rock-climbing article 5 times today.

Penguins at Play {FREEBIE}

enjoy this free winter game for use with any of your students

Winter is beginning to rear its ugly head around here, and while I strongly dislike the cold temperatures, I love how peaceful and cozy the falling snow feels. It makes me so excited for Thanksgiving time with family, and then all the fun and good cheer that comes with the holiday season. I can't wait!

I just posted a new forever freebie in my shop, and it goes right along with the winter weather. This one is an open-ended card game which can be used with any group of students. As students work on their learning goals, they take turns picking a penguin card. Whoever collects the most points at the end of the game is the winner!

You can download this free game over on Teachers Pay Teachers. Please leave feedback if you download the packet. Don't forget to follow my shop while you're there so you get first notice of each new posting!

This post was also shared on SpeechieFreebies:

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You might also enjoy these other open-ended games:

Build a Snowman

Turkey Tidbits

What's On Your Plate

Speech Therapy Reward Board

an alternative way of reinforcing good behavior in the speech room

Whew! September is almost over and I'm finally getting back into blogging again! I ended up taking a much-needed break from writing blog posts this summer because I was busy packing up my apartment and moving a few states away. My husband and I are now residents of North Dakota (The Peace Garden State), and I have a new job working with 3rd through 8th grade.

It was a busy summer, and while this blog was nearly abandoned I did use social media frequently including giveaways, so be sure to follow along! You never know when some fun might pop up ;)

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Things are finally starting to feel normal at my new job, and I'm ready to get back into blogging more regularly. I'll start today with my reward system for this year: my Reward Board!

Thanks to The Speech Bubble for this idea! The school I'm in this year has a building-wide superhero theme, so I had each student personalize their own superhero which I then laminated and cut out. Each time they come to a session, they have the chance to advance their superhero, but only if they are good workers, great listeners, and super friends. There are a couple spots on the board labeled "PRIZE" and when they land on those squares, they get to pick their prize:

I wanted to get away from a prize box this year since I'm working with older students (3rd through 8th grade). So I created QR codes with their rewards. Each time a student lands on a prize space, they can pick a code out of the envelope, scan it, and find out what their reward is.

Rewards range from 15 minutes free time, to listen to music, to game day in speech. Of course, the illustrious prize box is still in there, but only one code leads to it!

This reward board system is working well so far for me this year. Hopefully it will help my students learn that toys and trinkets aren't the only thing that can be rewarding for their hard work.

You can try them out for yourself here with this freebie!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/QR-Code-Rewards-for-Speech-Therapy-1473496

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Abby was going to have a "piece of candy" prize code, but nixed that idea because she knew she would eat it all.

Summer Speech Activity Calendars

use these calendars to help your students with their communication skills over summer break

Summer is almost here! I'm just so tickled to have more time to work on more activities and blog posts soon. I feel like Schoolhouse Talk has been so neglected lately! :( Just 5 more days with students plus 2 paperwork days before I'm done!

A couple of the preschools I work with are finishing up this week, so I've been putting together my activity packets to send home with students. I wanted to repost this post from last year highlighting what is included in these FREE packets:

(Note: This post originally appeared on June 14, 2013)

There are two sets: Articulation Calendars and Language Calendars. Each set comes with a color version and a black-and-white version to make printing easier. The calendars contain free, fun, and quick activities that your students can complete with their parents to work on improving their communication skills during June, July, and August.

Instead of activities for parents to have to do every single day, each month contains 20 activities that parents can complete as their schedule permits. They can choose to do something daily, or do a few activities on the same day. They can even have weekends off if they want! Activities are brief, and can be completed in 20 minutes or less.

Articulation Calendar Activity Examples:
*I Spy! Find 10 foods with your sound and say them 3 times each.
*Arts & Crafts! Cut out letters from magazines to create words that have your sounds. Say them 3 times each.
*Play Time! Say a word with your sound 4 times before you take a turn blowing bubbles.
*Book Worm! Read and book and listen for your sounds, then say the word 4 times.
*All Ears! Listen for your speech sounds while riding in the car.
*Action! Use your good speech sounds while eating a meal with your family.

Language Calendar Activity Examples:
*Answer category/describing wh-questions about pictures.
*I Spy! Find 10 things that go outside and make a sentence about each one.
*Arts & Crafts! Cut out pictures from a magazine and think of a word to describe each one.
*Book Worm! Read a book with a friend and then retell the story in your own words.
*Tell what the word BAT means and use it in a sentence.
...and MORE!

Each calendar also includes:
*Parent Letter
*Online Resources
*List of Favorite iPad/Smartphone Apps

You can download these {FREE} resources here:
Summer Speech Homework Calendars for Articulation
Summer Speech Homework Calendars for Language

Enjoy!!

I've added these activities to Bright Ideas' post today. Click on over to see other summer activity packets that are available. :)

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Abby is trying to find part-time work for the summer. Does lounging by the pool count?

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.

Basketball Bonanza! {freebies + activity roundup}

a round-up of basketball-themed activities, apps, books, and games for your speech room

It's tournament time! The NCAA men's basketball tournament is here (and the women's tournament is just around the corner)! Now, I don't follow basketball. At all. But I still filled out a bracket. I have just as good a chance as anybody, right? Who's going to win it all?! No idea. I picked Florida, but my husband says that won't happen. All I know is that the team I root for didn't even make the tournament. There's always next year! You can have some basketball fun in your speech room with my newest freebie!

Basketball Bonanza

This year I have a versatile activity with a basketball theme - Basketball Bonanza! This one has eight cards for each of the following phonemes: CH/SH (together), R, S, L, K/G (together), F (48 cards total).

There are also bonus and penalty cards included to make things more interesting. All the target words are basketball-themed, so besides great articulation practice, you can also use them to target vocabulary, expanding expressive language, or creating sentences.

Activity Ideas:
Spread the cards out on the floor, then toss beanbags onto the cards. Whichever one it lands on is the target students practice. Look out for the bonus points or missed shot cards! You can also play it on the table top, shuffle in the foil cards, and have students draw a card to practice. They can keep their card if they answer correctly, but have to put it back if their production isn't accurate. Whatever you do, have fun!

Download Basketball Bonanza for free here.

Speech Sound Word Brackets

I also have another basketball-themed activity! I made these speech phoneme word brackets last year, and they are a hit! The full packet targets 21 different speech sounds, but you can download the P, B, M, H brackets for FREE! Please leave feedback and follow my shop if you download :)

Now, onto the basketball apps, books, and games roundup!

Basketball Activity Roundup

Free Apple Apps:

Arcade Hoops Basketball (by Skyworks) - Just like the arcade games; make as many baskets as you can before the clock runs out.

 US Basketball HD (by YOMEN, Inc.) - Choose American landmarks to play at. Try to make as many baskets as you can before time runs out. Bonus points for hitting airplanes, blimps, and birds.

 Slam Dunk Basketball (by VisualDreams) - Score as many points as you can; earn bonus points for various tricks. I'm terrible at this game, but I can't stop trying to beat my score.

 Slam Dunk King (by PikPok) - Earn points for as many slam dunks as you can get in the given time, while swatting away the bombs. Unlock new tricks to score more points.

Free Android Apps:

Basketball Shot (by Top Casual Games) - just like the arcade games

Basketball Shots 3D (by Creative Mobile Games) - pretty realistic looking; try to make baskets from designated spots on the court.

Books (ages 3-5):

My Basketball Book

Little Basketball

Slam Dunk!

Books (ages 5+):

The Best of Everything Basketball Book - learn facts and history about the sport through the years

Salt in His Shoes - written by Michael Jordan's mom and sister; the story tells how Michael Jordan dreamed of becoming a basketball star and overcame obstacles to do so. The illustrations are also great.

Jimmy's Boa and the Bungee Jump Slam Dunk - Jimmy's pet boa is at it again, this time on the basketball court.

J is for Jump Shot: A Basketball Alphabet - learn history, vocabulary, and facts about basketball as you read your way through the alphabet

Games and Toys:

Over-the-Door Hoop - great for a quick reward at the end of a session. Or incorporate goal practice in before they can take a shot.

Table-Top Basketball - this mini version is perfect for therapy on-the-go.

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I'm linking up with Speechie Freebies this week! Click on over to their blog and grab a whole lot of other free downloads. Enjoy!

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Abby learned that basketball was not the sport for her in 4th grade when she stole the ball from her own teammate without realizing it.