In Spontaneous Speech

Happy Anniversary and Secret Circle Activity

6 Jul

July 6, 2015 Cindy 0

It is a year ago that I made the switch to a self hosted web site. I do not know why I waited so long. I have enjoyed having the freedom of decorating as I wish. There was definitely a learning curve, especially when I found it was hijacked at one point. Over all It has been worth it. I decided a free download was needed to celebrate. Continue on to find it.

For some reason containers hold a certain fascination for me. It seems like I am always collecting them and thinking about how I can use them for speech therapy. While drinking my morning orange juice, I got to thinking about the cover to the juice container. It would make a good tile for a hiding game. It is at least 2 inches in diameter, can hold a reasonable size card on top, and a small object underneath. I also drink enough juice to get a number of them in a reasonable amount of time. This led me to thinking about the game of Secret Square and Cariboo. It seemed like it could be made into a game adaptation for either game. The covers just need velcro dots to fasten pictures on top.

Do you remember the old therapy game called Secret Square? It was a game that had tiles with pictures on top. A chip is placed under one of the tiles. Students find it by asking questions about the pictured items and eliminating the pictures that do not correspond to the answers. Eventually the chip is found. Cariboo is similar in that it has pictures on doors that can be chosen to find a hidden balls that is used to open a treasure box. Both games are very versatile when addressing goals for describing, questioning, and synthesis of information to get the main idea. It can also address articulation and specific speech vocabulary such as prepositions with a switch of the cards. Students love the idea of finding the secret object and it keeps them motivated. Unfortunately Secret Square and Cariboo are no longer in production. They can be hard to find and a bit pricey if bought second hand on e-bay.

juice lids

Which brings me back to my orange juice container lids. I could see potential for making a game of “Secret Circle” and possibly even a Cariboo type game with items hidden under the lids. This could include pieces of a puzzles hidden under some of the lids. All I needed to do was drink 10 containers of juice to get 10 covers and place velcro dots on top. Pictures for the tops can range from articulation cards such as found on Mommy Speech Therapy to preposition cards such as found as a free product at my TPT store. I updated and revised my Preposition Penguins especially for this post. There are a number of Cariboo cards on Teachers Pay Teachers that would also work.

It is the Little Things That Count

22 May

May 22, 2015 Cindy 0

Many parts of the country have had their last days of school but we are still finishing up the last couple of weeks of our year. It is easy to feel defeated and wonder if the whole thing is just one big paper using, report making, operation. It is times like these that it is important to remember the things that made you smile through out the year. Some the following gave me a smile.

dog eating homework

The task cards I make for TPT are usually made for specific student goals. Some of my students have attention deficit disorders and I am always trying to find creative ways to keep their attention. I remembered when I was a child that my name never seemed to be in any stories. I thought that some of my students may feel the same way so I decided to use the names from one of my classes on the task cards. One of the boys saw his name and was thrilled. He had to take the card and show his teacher. They were also thrilled to find their teacher’s name. Such a simple thing to keep them enthused about task cards. It is one advantage to making your own materials.

My students with Downs and Autism make me smile a lot. They continue to show me the value of play and that a toy’s worth is determined best by it’s ability to spin. Tops can spin almost anywhere for preposition development. A box of happy meal toys is priceless for cause and effect. Do not decide the value of a toy by its cost. Free is sometimes the best.

Good Will was a gold mine this year. After a year of searching I almost fell over when I discovered a Cariboo game for $5.00. It was only missing the key which I replaced with a golf tee. My husband couldn’t quite figure out why I acted like it was Christmas. It is truly a great game for speech therapy so don’t give up on the search. When you least expect it the game shows up.

I have had an iPad with some game apps available for reinforcement. When given a choice my students were choosing a game off my shelf rather than the iPad. I have to smile when technology doesn’t always win over the old fashion games. I find this encouraging because I feel board games are still better when it comes to developing social communication. I know that many therapist are implementing 5 minute individual speech drill sessions and are foregoing the games. However, I have only a few students who see me only for articulation. They usually have a mix of language, articulation and social skill deficits. The games play an important part in therapy and give me a better idea of their skills then drill.

lessonplan dartboard

You may notice I have been playing around with the design of my Blog. I am not sure if I will ever be truly satisfied. It is something else that keeps me entertained. I fixed a few links lately that were not working. Sometimes updates throw things off. Please make a comment if you can’t get to something.

Free Sample; Unexpected and Expected Behavior Task Cards

29 Apr

April 29, 2015 Cindy 0

I use Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking® curriculum with many of my students. One of the concepts that is explored in this curriculum is “I have thoughts about you and you have thoughts about me.” In other words, people are always thinking about each other and they may have comfortable or uncomfortable thoughts depending on their actions. This may affect how they treat individuals in the future. People want to be with people they are comfortable with and have good thoughts about. They may avoid those that don’t make them feel comfortable. Therefore being able to tell the difference between what is expected behavior in given situations and what is unexpected can help us when making and keeping our friends. You can find more information on her concepts at http://www.socialthinking.com/

I needed a good set of task cards to review actions that students may do or observe others do. You may find them useful if you are teaching from this curriculum. They are double sided with an unexpected behavior on one side and a matching expected behavior on the other side.

I put the cards in a draw bag. The students reached in and drew a card out, and placed it on the table. They then decided if the side facing up was an expected behavior or unexpected. They talked about how the actions make them feel. If the unexpected is presented first, students can talk about what they think the expected behavior would be on the other side.

Students checked their answers by using the Top Secret UV light which I got at our book fair. I put a U or and E in the box for them to check. There is also a QR code for those who would prefer to use a scanner. My students find this motivating and they can self check if they are working in small table groups.

The draw bag is an easy thing to make. I took a sleeve off an old sweater and sewed across the bottom. The cuff makes a nice finished opening and the bag is stretchy. It has got to be the easiest bag I have ever made.

In my TPT packet, there are 28 expected cards and 28 matching unexpected cards side by side. They are meant to be printed on card stock, cut on the horizontal lines and folded back to make a double sided card. I put a box on each card so I could write with my UV light pen a U or E in the box. Students can light the answer up. I also put a QR code for those who like that option. The QR code is from http://www.qrstuff.com/. When scanned it will read expected or unexpected to correspond to the side it is on.

I am putting 2 pages of the cards below for you to review as a freebie. If you like them consider getting the full set at TPT. Just click on the cover page button at the top for a direct link to the product. Your patronage covers the cost of this website and keeps it advertisement free, except for me I suppose. I am trying to keep the commercial aspect down and provide resources. I know most of us are on really tight budgets.

Pool Noodle Fun for Speech Therapy

23 Apr

April 23, 2015 Cindy 0

It is always hard this time of the year to find activities for group therapy with my Life Skills groups. There are usually 5 students in each group and the abilities are really varied. I try to include some motor activity because this keeps their attention. Using objects for actions is more meaningful for them then paper tasks. However there are a few students who have motor difficulties which makes it difficult for them to do some tasks and work with the group.

My inspiration often comes from my closet. This is a picture of what I found. I decided to make a badminton type activity. They used the pool noodles to hit balloons through the hulu hoop and then over the jump rope stretched across two chairs. We encouraged two students to hit it back and forth to complete turn taking. I reinforced the prepositions of over, through, below, under, and above. My early language learners practiced phrases such as “Give it to me”, “Hit it”, “I want it”.

One of my students kept saying “there it is”. He was a student who we usually had trouble engaging and he blossomed with this activity. For a student with Downs he had amazing eye hand coordination. I hope he does badminton for Special Olympics.

I liked the pool noodles because they didn’t hurt if students hit each other and the balloons slowed down the process enough that all the students were able to hit them. I recommend having spare balloons. We had one student who couldn’t resist squeezing and popping them.

Butterfly Paper Folding / Bulletin Board

7 Apr

April 7, 2015 Cindy 0

It is Spring here in the Northwest. Many of the classes use butterflies for instruction on the cycle of life. They watch caterpillars form cocoons and develop into butterflies. I found directions for folding paper butterflies on Pinterest. They made a good activity for my bulletin board and a direction following activity. It also helped to reinforce what was happening in classrooms. Here is a picture of the bulletin board.

The directions were fairly simple and could be completed within a 20 minute time frame. I added pipe cleaner antennae. The students just bent a pipe cleaner in half and wrapped the ends around their fingers a couple of times. They then stapled it to the top.

These directions really reinforced the concept of half. We also talked about parts of a butterfly. I was surprised to find my students didn’t know what antennae were.

I couldn’t make better directions then what were already posted here. There are easy to follow directions on goorigami.com. I just put them up on my iPad.