2015 Speech Therapy Room Tour (Part 2)

a tour of my second therapy room this year

While one of my therapy rooms is full of soft muted colors, the room at my other school is bright, bright, bright! This is a classroom that I share with the special education teacher at this school. We work together with students in Kindergarten through 5th grade. The room can get pretty hectic with students, teachers, paraeducators, and the occasional student needing to visit the reset room, but it's fun! Take a look around:

This is the view as you walk into the room. As you can see, we are blessed to share a full-size classroom. The special education teacher works on the right side (with the blue rug and kidney table), and I work on the left side (by the windows). My roommate took the lead with the decorating, and I followed suit using the same color scheme. I love the bright green and black!

This is a close-up picture of my work area. I mainly work with students at the small rectangular table, but we sometimes overflow onto the round table. The game board under the window that says "We are stars!" is my reinforcement system. Students all colored their own stars, and each time they come to speech/language they get a chance to move their star one spot closer to the coveted prize space.

My desk area contains binders of printables used most often. The four file trays near the front allow me to keep materials I need for that week ready to go near the therapy table.

Behind the green curtain is where I keep all my therapy games, and the doors under the windows slide open for additional storage for articulation cards, etc. I made my own bulletin board between the windows by stapling bulletin board paper/border and nailing thumbtacks into the wall to store task cards and materials on binder rings. You can also see one of my all-time most often used therapy items - Articulation Cans (LOVE them!).

Finally, the view towards the back of the room. We arranged a bunch of file cabinets to have a little break area in between (you can see this area in the first picture - it's full of cushions and visuals to calm down), but that left me with a big blank file cabinet to stare at. So I taped up some fabric and created another "bulletin board". This one is magnetic! I keep a "Mystery Object" of the week up there, and sometimes attach articulation pictures on the bottom half for target practice. The blue curtain in the back of the room hides a reset room, and a bathroom :D

That's it! Let me know if you have any questions or comments below. Thanks for reading!

Frenzied SLPs: Favorite Organization Tips

start the second half of the school year off with revamping your organization

I'll admit it. Organization is not my strong suit. In my home life I live in what I'll call "organized chaos". There are usually a few piles of mail on my kitchen counter, a craft project might sit out for a few days before I put it away, and I usually don't have all my clean laundry in the closet before it's time to wash another load. But the good thing is that I typically know where things are when I need them. I've learned to accept this and love me for me.

At work, however, I operate a little differently. I'm a spontaneous SLP - meaning I typically don't plan out a day's or week's lessons in advance, but there are little tricks I use to help me stay organized and on top of things while splitting my time between two different buildings.

1) Clean up after myself.

At the end of each day, take a few minutes to put away your materials from the day, and clean anything "extra" off your desk. Sometimes this means I'll still make a pile of things that need to be immediately addressed the next day, but if they're there in plain view for me, I'm more likely to remember to get them completed. And it's so nice to arrive to a clean desk in the morning.

2) Keep supplies handy.

I keep a three-shelf cart of my most-used supplies right next to my therapy table. The cart carries markers/pencils/dry erase, magnetic chips, dry-erase sleeves, game tokens/dice, and student learning goals. That way, I don't have to get up to collect these small items in the middle of a therapy session, and since they are things I use multiple times per day I don't have to spend time taking them out and putting them away again.

3) Write everything down.

My memory is terrible. Really awful. I can't rely solely on my Google calendar to keep every due date and meeting and task in mind. I need to see things written down in front of me to remember. My Post-It Note lists were getting out of control, so I created a Sticky Note Command Center that is on top of my desk at both of my schools. It is a life saver to help me prioritize my to-do list and remember the important things each day/week. Download yours for free here.

I'm so excited to read through the organizational tips from the other Frenzied SLPs! We'd love it if you'd share your tips in the comments, or add a blog post to the linky below. Thanks for hosting this week Speech2U!

An InLinkz Link-up

2015 Speech Therapy Room Tour (Part 1)

come see how I set up one of two therapy rooms I share this year

The new school year brought a lot of changes to my assignment this year. Instead of working full-time in one building, my assignment is now split between two buildings within my district. I spend 40% of my time (2 days per week) at the same school I was at last year, but I moved from 3rd-8th grades down to Preschool and Kindergarten. I had to change rooms, and this meant going from a full-size classroom all by myself, to sharing a room with the occupational therapist. Come see how it's turned out!

This is the view when you walk into the room. The OT has all her stuff on the other half. (The bookcase with the pinwheels is the divider.) I chose teal, apple green, and pink as the main colors, with snippets of orange throughout.

To the left of the doorway there is a narrow storage area. Two 2-door cupboards, a bookshelf, and this shelf set with paper cubbies. I keep handouts and homework pages for each speech sound and many other therapy targets stored there. It makes grabbing practice sheets quick and easy for this last-minute-planner.

Continuing around the room, there is a bookshelf where I keep therapy books. I also have a small whiteboard in this corner.

In the center of the room is an interactive white board. I added some positive quotes around it to try and cover up the green chalkboard peeking out. Did it work?

My one bulletin board is brightly decorated, but holds minimal items at the present time (including FREE Speech Sound Banners!). I was planning on hanging a bunch of my materials that are on rings, but they were too heavy and I couldn't get them to stay hanging on the bulletin board! Any ideas? Underneath the bulletin board I have milk crates holding all my picture books, pockets with artic cards, and my precious laminator.

On the other side of the room are file cabinets full of student files, testing materials, and themed/seasonal therapy materials. Three bookcases full of goodies also help form the divider between my half of the room and the OT's side. You can see her therapy balls peeking out behind the tallest bookshelf. I sewed a curtain for the shelf that held the games, but I think I need to add a second curtain to cover the tallest bookshelf too. All those fun toys are right at eye level for my 3-year-olds! By the way, I bought a clearance set of sheets from Target and used that for the curtain material. Yards and yards of material for $8!

I. love. having. windows! The sun shines in during the morning and it's so cozy. The windows look out onto a small courtyard that is between two wings of the building. It's been nice to see the leaves changing! A simple fabric garland and leftover wedding lanterns decorate the windows. I also crafted up some pinwheels and a banner for my desk. Plants are also something I love having in my therapy room. They just seem to make things a little more homey.

Desk organization: student working folders on the left, office supplies in front, sticky note command center next to my chair. Don't forget family photos on your desk!

That's it! Any questions?

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!)

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.