In Spontaneous Speech

A Little Black Crow Project for Following Directions

17 Oct

October 17, 2015 Cindy 0

I found a pattern for these darling little black crows on Pinterest and adapted them as a project for my speech therapy students. Crows and sunflowers just seem to naturally go together and I am all for getting as much use of my bulletin board as I can without completely redoing it.

This project met my requirements for a speech therapy project. The directions were fairly easy and the project could be completed within a 20 minute time frame. I could expand the project to include multiple speech goals. Most of the materials were available from our school materials closet and were easy to obtain.

Preparation was minimal. I used the die cut to cut out black circles and yellow triangles from construction paper. I have younger students who have a lot of trouble cutting and this consumes more time than I have. You could have students trace circles around a cover and cut them out. I had left over googly eyes from the dollar store and already had paper fasteners in the store room. A hole punch and glue sticks were other things I already had. Making the circles and triangles were the only thing that took preparation time.

I expanded this project to include most of my students. Incorporating the free app Storykit opens up a lot of possibilities. My language groups worked on sequencing the directions. They took the pictures to make a logical sequence and wrote some of the instructions. This also took some communication and collaboration as students agreed on what pictures to take, how to place the materials and what the direction should be 1st and 2nd etc.

My groups working on sounds in spontaneous speech created the verbal directions to go with the pictures. They listened to their recordings and decided if they needed to record again to improve their production. The school confidentiality regulations didn’t allow me to keep their recordings for publishing so you ended up with my lovely voice instead. My students listening enjoyed figuring out who was speaking when they were listening to the directions.

My younger students who are working on following directions and positional vocabulary followed the directions to create their crow. Concept words included whole/half, center, top, and through. It was interesting to see which students followed the directions for the fasteners or tried to use the glue stick instead. My students really loved the idea of the movable wings and posed them for the bulletin board. I had some students who could not part with their bird, so they didn’t end up on the board. Hopefully they took them home and explained how they were made to someone in their family.

The directions were published on Storykit. Click on the bird button below and you will see them. When you use this app the directions are made in a storybook format. When it is published it comes into your email like a story board. The app can be found at storkit@childrenlibrary.org. I did not find it through the app store.

Booby Trap Adaption for Speech Therapy

11 Sep

September 11, 2015 Cindy 0

Many years ago when I was elementary school age, too long ago to mention, I received a game call Booby Trap as a gift. It survived my childhood and my mother handed it back to me when she cleaned out a closet. I added it to my therapy game collection and it became a good standby. The game was out of circulation for quite a few years so my students were often not familiar with it. Lately I noticed the game is back as a remake from the past and you can find some old ones on Ebay. It comes in a plastic versions and a wooden one. One of my students told me the plastic version is not as good because the pieces fly out easily. I will let you figure that part out for yourself. If you are looking for therapy games this is a good one and the wooden one has lasted my teaching career.

The game is easy to learn. Basically students remove circular pieces that are held tight by a spring bar. If the wrong piece is chosen the bar will spring forward. Players pay a penalty for setting it off by returning pieces. Players choose from 3 sizes of pieces. The larger the piece the more points a students earns.

This game is enjoyed across age levels to include high school level. It is sometimes hard to find games that are age appropriate for the older students who receive special education services. It works well for general reinforcement and for language learners with a communication board added. I use it to develop basic statements such as “I have…”, “I take/took……” “your turn” and “my turn”. It is also good for developing statements with attributes such as colors, size, and amount.

This is a copy of the board I use for my language learners.

It’s Good to Be Back Bulletin Board

31 Aug

August 31, 2015 Cindy 0

School is finally starting in the Pacific Northwest. We have a late start here compared to other regions of the United States.. I am returning to my main school from last year and adding a new charter school as well. The charter school has middle school students so I may get a little more variety this year with the age range. I have had middle school students in the past and enjoy working with this age group. It is always fun to hear about the latest fads.

I needed a new bulletin board for back to school night and the start of school. I decided to make something that would be able to switch to the Fall season. That happens pretty quickly so back to school doesn’t stay up very long. The bee is our school mascot so I have handy bee note papers. I decided the slogan “It’s good to be back” would be a nice play on words. Bees go with flowers and sunflowers are a common Fall flower. That all led me to this video on how to make sunflowers. It turned out to be a fairly simple flower to make. You can click on the title to get the directions.

Sunflower How to Vdeo

Sometimes dog walks give you a good appreciation of nature and nature gives free material for crafts. On a dog walk I noticed that the back end of pine cones look similar to the center of the sunflower. I clipped off the end of some pine cones and glued them to the center of my flowers. Mine turned out to look like this.

I added some green construction paper leaves. There you have a sunflower bulletin board that didn’t take long to make at all. I am sure students would enjoy making the sunflowers. It may be worthy of a nature walk if you have trees with pine cones nearby.

Another Calming Tool for the Toolbox

18 Aug

August 18, 2015 Cindy 0

I was recently browsing through Pinterest looking for calming down tools. Many of my students with special needs get stressed at the beginning of the year with new teachers, new students and new schedules. Teachers come to me pretty quickly looking for tools to add to a calming center. The students really benefit from an activity that is calming and gets them to refocus when they are upset. I thought I would be proactive this year and have some things ready to go.

On Pinterest several Preschool teachers were posting about calming bottles or glitter jars. Basically glitter and glue or glitter glue are added to water in a bottle and shook up. The glitter swirls in the water very slowly until it settles to the bottom. If a child is upset they usually settled down by the time the glitter has reached the bottom. The swirling glitter distracts them.

This looked like an ideal activity for a calming center for my elementary students. In fact it is so relaxing I might use it on occasion myself. The picture really doesn’t do the swirling glitter justice. It is quite mesmerizing watching glitter swirl.

Preschool Inspiration has directions for 6 Ways to Make a Calm Down Bottle using materials from craft stores or a dollar store. I can’t really improve on her directions so made a link from her blog name, just click on it. For my bottles, I used glitter glue from the dollar store, sequins, and glitter stars. It took a bit of experimenting to get it right. I found round clear bottles work the best. I tried a shower soap bottle that was flat, but the water didn’t swirl as well so the glitter didn’t remain suspended. You may also want to put a little food coloring in. I found out that a little drop goes a long way. My green bottle actually started out too dark. After you get it working the way you want it, make sure to hot glue the cover on tight. You wouldn’t want the bottle to be opened.

Blogs, Therapy Materials, and TPT Store Oh My!

2 Aug

August 2, 2015 Cindy 0

It’s a Sale- click on banner for direct link

It’s a Sale at Teachers Pay Teachers. Sorry, but I have to get my spiel in here first. Teacher’s Pay Teacher’s is having the annual back to school sale and there are some really good deals there. You can’t really beat the prices when you compare products to the commercial products. A lot of the stores have 20% off with an additional 8% if the code BTS15 is used at checkout. This makes for some significant savings when buying bundles. So if you haven’t discovered it yet, you should make a visit.

I would love it if you came and took a look at my store and “followed” me even if you choose not to buy anything. By following me you get updates on any changes or new products. If you click on the image at the top of the page, it will take you directly to my store. You can also click on any of the slides on the slide show on the sidebar if you want more information on a particular item.

There are so many new stores with clever clipart I am beginning to feel outclassed. I decided mine really needed to get an uplift. I spent a lot of time this summer putting new covers on and updating some of my older products. The content has remained mostly the same however some have larger print, more clipart, and numbers added. If you have purchased products in the last couple of years you may want to get the updated versions. You can download them again for free because the system will have record of your previous purchase in your account. I also created two bundles that will be included in the sale so will be 28% off the listed price.

These bundles include the task card sets pictured on the covers. You can click on the images for more specific information.

As I was going through my materials, trying to see what needed updating, I was marveling how many changes have occurred with therapy materials over the years. When I first started working in the schools we used something called a ditto machine. You would write or type on carbons which then went on a roller that you would crank and make multiple copies. Don’t laugh, but I actually have a few articulation worksheets made from carbons stuck in my files. The print is usually blue and a yellow plastic page protector can make it possible to copy it in a copier. I bet you don’t need to know that trick though. Back to the ditto machine. You could tell the teachers who spent too much time with the ditto machine because they would have a glazed look from the fumes and purple fingers. There were no concerns for toxic environment then.

I never liked the ditto machine or the copy machine. It always seemed to wait for me to jam up. Some things don’t change I guess because it still seems to jam up or there is a long line. I started using task cards pretty early on. I found task cards were the easiest to work with groups of students with varied needs and I didn’t need to visit any version of a copier machine. Most of my task cards started out as handwritten notes on index cards. I have revised them through the years as some of our objects become obsolete. It was in about 1995 that I actually used a computer that made it practical to save them in files. This led to placing them on the blog for easy download no matter what school I was at. The last 5 years I have added clipart to the cards. I like the clipart to be part of the visual cue for the written material so I avoid the repetitive cutesy stuff. I also like to save on using colored ink which can be a problem at many schools.

The blog downloads have saved me many times when I have lost materials or forgotten them. I have downloaded and brought them up on my iPad on occasion. So there you have the progression from ditto machine to iPad in one career. That is quite a jump. I wonder what the new SLPs will have 30 yrs. from now.