Frenzied SLPs: Thankful and Grateful Blog Hop

the Frenzied SLPs are thankful for our readers!

Halloween is over, and now it's time for my absolute most favorite holidays - Thanksgiving and Christmas! I adore the coziness of November and December, all the get-togethers and extra time with family, some time off from work, and of course the food! It's just an awesome time to pause and count your blessings. The Frenzied SLPs are doing just that, and this week we are passing our gratitude along to our wonderful readers:

Three lucky readers will each win a $10 gift card to Starbucks AND a $10 gift card to Teachers Pay Teachers! Here’s how you can participate:

1. Read through the cycle of Thankful and Grateful posts from the Frenzied SLPs.
2. On each post, collect the character at the bottom. Don’t forget to write down the characters in order to discover the secret phrase.
3. Enter the Rafflecopter at the end of any post by typing the secret phrase.
4. An extra entry can be found on The Frenzied SLPs Facebook page.
5. You have until 11/13/2015 to read all the blog posts and enter the Rafflecopter giveaway.

Here are the things I am so very very grateful for in my life:

T: Teachers Pay Teachers and Technology

Starting this blog 3 years ago and creating activities for Teachers Pay Teachers has been one of the best decisions I have ever made. Schoolhouse Talk gives me an opportunity to be creative and motivates me to keep my therapy interesting and fun. I have virtually “met” so many new and talented friends through the blogging world as well as on social media. If you’re not on Instagram, I highly suggest you join. Every single day I am inspired by the things my fellow SLPs all over the world are creating and sharing in that virtual community. Technology is amazing!

H: Housing and Health

These are things that are so easy to take for granted. My husband and I are so fortunate to be able to afford rent on a spacious townhome which is in a super convenient location in our city. And we have no health issues limiting our daily activities. Completely blessed.

A: All my students

This year I am grateful to be working with the grade levels I prefer. I get to have fun and make a difference in the lives of PreK – 5th grade students every time I go to work. They keep me creative, they make me laugh, they are hands down the best part of my job.

N: New pets

In September my husband and I adopted two kittens and they have been so nice to have around! I won’t go so far as to call them my “fur babies”, but Callie and Lucy have sure been fun and I love them ☺

K: Knowing I make a difference

Every time I go to work, I have the privilege of doing a job where I make a difference in the lives of my students. Talk about a blessing! As SLPs, we get to help students learn to communicate and interact with the world around them. It’s such an important job and I am so proud every time I get to tell someone I’m an SLP.

F: Family and Friends

I don’t want to brag here, but I really do have the best husband. Tony, you support me, keep me grounded, believe in me, and make life fun. They say laughing adds years to your life, so I’m sure I’ll live to be 129 years old with how much you make me laugh. You know what else? He came with fantastic in-laws! I also grew up with the best parents who raised me right, and am blessed with 5 sisters whom I am so glad to say are also my friends.

U: each and every one of U!

Wow, I cannot say enough how thankful I am for you, my readers. The fact that people believe in what I write and create enough to spend their own hard-earned money on those resources blows me away! I love connecting with the readers and supporters of Schoolhouse Talk. A million thanks to all of you for the blessings you are in my life!

L: Life

Well, as you can tell from all the items discussed above, I have so much to be thankful for! Writing this post has helped me see I have a pretty great life and should feel blessed every day. Thanks for reading along ☺.

Here is my letter for the secret phrase:

Trot along to the next post and keep collecting those letters for a chance to win one of our three prizes ☺

Once you have visited all 22 blog posts and collected the entire secret phrase, enter the giveaway using the Rafflecopter entry on any post. Thank you for reading, and have a blessed holiday season!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Triangles of Meaning {vocabulary activities)

a visual tool to make connections between word meanings

The majority of the students on my 3rd-8th grade caseload this year have an IEP goal related to vocabulary. We have spent a lot of time working on synonyms, antonyms, and multiple meaning words in an effort to help their speaking and writing skills become more advanced.

Visuals always seem to assist students to make sense of what we are talking about, and I found myself drawing this over and over again to show students a word might have more than one antonym:

This simple visual has really helped my students throughout this school year, so I decided to make something a little more permanent.

This packet contains 42 pages of hands-on activities to practice word relationships.

The Sorting Mats come in a variety of colors, and students use the Word Tiles to arrange sets of words on the mats so the relationships match the triangle. There are two levels of Word Tiles included.

Next, are the Task Cards! Again, two levels of difficulty are included. Students show understanding of word relationships by filling in the missing words on the triangles.

Finally, there are also Color by Relationship Mystery Patterns! Students read the pair of words in each box, decide how the words are related (synonyms, antonyms, or no relationship), then color the box according to the key to reveal the mystery pattern. There are five different patterns included, and each page provides 100 pairs of words to practice.

Download Triangles of Meaning in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop! Also, I'm giving away a copy to one of you! Enter in the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Abby had a fun Cinco de Mayo fiesta last night.

SLP Trading Post {giveaway}

a product review and giveaway from Small Talk SLP

This week I'm participating in a fun party hosted by Sounds Like Fun! Several SLPs signed up to trade an item from their Teachers Pay Teachers stores, review the product, then host a giveaway. We're calling it a Speech Trading Post!

I was paired up with  Small Talk SLP and she was generous enough to let me preview her Fast Pace Race for S & Z.

What attracted me to this packet was that it's aimed at students who are moving away from drill practice and are working on generalization of their target sounds into conversation.

What's Included:
Three different activities are included to help students practice carryover of their skills:

Warm-Up Tracks: students produce their target sounds as they move down the track. I really enjoyed the variety of tracks that were included in this level. There are multiple warm-up tracks for sounds in the initial, medial, and final positions of words. My students used these in plastic sleeves and marked off their words with dry erase markers. I also have sent these home with students for additional practice!

Qualifying Races: students say a series of words or phrases (multiple levels of difficulty included), racing to beat their previous time while still producing accurate sounds.

Fast Pace Races: students produce carrier phrase sentences, racing to beat their previous time while still producing accurate sounds. These were my favorite cards for my students since many of them are working on their sounds at the sentence level or while reading aloud.

Additional Features:

Game Cards: tell students which race to complete

Pit Stop Cards: can be used by students or SLPs to stop the race and try again.

Flat Tire Cards are presented to students if they produce errors during their races.

Game Cards: a random pick from these cards tells students which race to complete

Prize Cards: trophy and ribbon cards to award students after their races are over

Things to Note:
- I printed about half of these pages in black and white to save on paper. I printed the cover pages for the decks in color, and also the prize cards. The Pit Stop and Flat Tire cards printed well in black and white on colored paper.

- Many of the elements of Fast Pace Race can be used with other phonemes or goal areas. For example, I used the Flat Tire cards with a 5th grade student who was working on her spelling words. If she didn't produce accurate Rs while conversing, the Flat Tire cards served as an excellent visual prompt to correct her sounds.

- Qualifying Race and Fast Pace Race cards were also excellent practice for students who are working on reading and fluency skills.

- I used the Warm-Up Tracks with some language students. They had to make a grammatically correct sentence using whichever word they landed on. Then we worked on expanding their sentences to include more details.

- You can choose to play this game as designed or just pick and choose the elements that will be most helpful to your students. That's the beauty of this packet - it's soooo versatile!

Overall Thoughts:
This was such a creative and original packet! The multiple levels and activities are so very well thought out making this packet useful for students no matter which level of difficulty they are working on. My students were insanely motivated to try and beat their previous race records, and came into my therapy room asking if they could play "that racing game" again! I can't wait for other versions of this set to come out! In fact, I request a rush order on the vocalic R set please!!

Want to win your own Fast Pace Race set? You know you do! Just enter the giveaway below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't want to wait until Friday to see if you've won? Snatch up your own copy here. And check out the TH version while you're at it.

One more thing!! Small Talk SLP is hosting a review and giveaway of my Fun in the Sun packet. Go check it out!

"S...Peachy" Feedback {linky party}

rewarding people for leaving great feedback on Teachers Pay Teachers

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Someone is going to get LUCKY today if they left great feedback in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop! This feedback linky party is hosted by Nicole at Allison's Speech Peeps. Click on over her way to see who else is giving away freebies.

I really enjoy reading each and every bit of feedback that is left on product pages. Truly great feedback helps me learn what my buyers like, which activities are useful, and even ideas to help me improve the activities I make. So make sure you leave detailed feedback, even on free items.

This month, I'm thanking two people for their kind feedback: one on a paid product, and one on a free product.

#1: Story Grammar Prompts - I'm so grateful for all the kind words Speech Universe had to say about the usefulness of my Story Grammar Prompts.

 

#2: Progress Report Templates - I'm so thrilled Vickye L. is getting great use from my Progress Report Templates for Speech Therapy.

Speech Universe and Vickye L, thank you so much for your wonderful feedback! Please email me at schoolhousetalkslp@gmail.com with your choice of a product from my Teachers Pay Teachers shop. Congratulations!

If you didn't win here, you may be the lucky one at a different blog. But you HAVE TO leave helpful feedback on TpT to be considered. Now enjoy your St. Patrick's Day!

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Abby is feeling lucky to be on Spring Break today!

The Wolf's Chicken Stew {book companion + giveaway}

a book companion to accompany one of my favorite picture books

What's the one food you enjoy more than anything? I used to say creamy pasta, but I am really loving pizza all the time now. I'm pretty sure I could eat it multiple times a week. Every week. In The Wolf's Chicken Stew, the wolf loves to eat more than anything. And one day he gets a hardcore craving for chicken stew. This book is adorable, has a simple plot, and really hits all the story grammar elements really well. Come see what I came up with to help use this book with my students!

A large chunk of this book companion is dedicated to story comprehension. Question cards are included to check comprehension with picture prompts, and another sheet has questions without prompts:

       

I'm a big proponent of boosting story retell skills and identifying story grammar elements. This packet has it all! A rebus story for joint story retell:

Large pictures for sequencing events in the story and for story retell activities:

A mini-book for students to color, take home, and practice telling others the story of The Wolf's Chicken Stew:

Story grammar elements and story retell can also be addressed through these story maps and elements cube:

    

This packet also has lots of vocabulary activities, including a matching game, quick vocab check, compare/contrast graphic organizers, and a vocabulary web:

    

      

Articulation skills are also addressed through a cut-and-paste activity targeting /s/ blends! Students add the /s/ blend pictures into their Silly Stew!

      

There's even more in this packet that isn't pictured here: word webs, writing prompts, and open-ended game board! I'm really excited about the way this packet turned out - I think it's my favorite book companion yet! 

You can enter to win the packet using the rafflecopter below! If you don't want to wait and see if you win, you can take advantage of the Teachers Pay Teachers sale going on now and buy the packet here! Don't forget your promo code: TPT3

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Abby never was much of a soup eater until she married her husband. <3

Bugs and Kisses {and giveaway}

a preview of Bugs and Kisses preschool articulation packet

Hellloooooo February!! Is it just me, or was January a reallllly long month?? A few too many "polar vortexes" (vortices?) for one month. I mean, it was so cold one morning, the banana I was eating in the car steamed when I peeled it. I am not joking.

Now that February is here, we have a lot to look forward to: the Super Bowl, all things love, the end of winter in sight, Spring Break! Let's get the party started with some new speech materials!

My newest labor of love is a preschool articulation activity packet! This baby has a sweet Love Bug theme and targets the following phonemes: P, B, T, D, K, G, F, M, N, and it includes bonus practice pages for S. Here's a sample of what's inside:

1) CVC Words in Increasingly Complex Contexts: These cards help students move towards using their phonemes in more complex contexts. They can practice their target phonemes in single words, then phrases, then short sentences. Pictures are included to help our non-readers with the words. (4 cards per phoneme, 40 cards total)

2) Final Consonant Deletion Cards: A lot of my preschoolers are working on eliminating final consonant deletion. These broken hearts will help highlight the final consonant in their target words. Help your students say the first part of the word, then point out the final consonant on the other half of the broken heart. Pictures are included to help our non-readers with the words. (6 cards per phoneme, 60 cards total)

3) Roll, Say, and Cover Games: I love these roll and cover games. This one is meant to be a head-to-head competition! Each player recieves a different color marker or bingo chip. Roll a letter die and a number die (use the Make Dice app if you don't have access to a letter die!), then find the word coordinating with that dice combo. Students practice that word before covering it with their marker. The student with the most words covered in the end is the winner. Two pages are included for each phoneme - one with the phoneme in the initial position of words, and one in the final position of words.

4) 'SWEET' Token Boards: This is a reinforcement game to reward students as they complete their therapy practice. Collect your designated Love Bug and all the letters to spell 'SWEET' before anyone else and you will be the winner! Mats are included as visual aids to help students collect their cards.

5) Color by Number Pages: Roll the dice, practice a word paired with that number, then color the space according to the color by number key. This activity practices target phonemes in the initial position of words.

6) Love Bug Cootie Catcher: This is an open-ended fortune teller hand game which can be used to target any phoneme! Folding and Playing instructions are included.

7) Love Bug Dot Reinforcement: Another open-ended page with the cutest little love bug! He can be used to target any speech goal and is great to send home for home practice.

Bugs and Kisses is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store and will be 50% off for the next 24 hours (until 9:30 am central time 02/02/14). I'm also going to give away a copy to a lucky reader! Enter the rafflecopter below for your chance to win :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Abby is wearing her new stocking hat knit by her sister along with fleece-lined leggings to stay warm.