Gobbling up this activity!

It is my favorite time of year again! We have been doing Thanksgiving themed activities in the speech room and I am loving it! There are so many cute things on TPT and so many adorable books to read...I don't think I am going to have time to do all of the fall activities I have on my list before it is time to jump to winter/Christmas themed activities!!

Everyone knows I love to snack and today I am snacking on Froot Loops while we decorate our Turkey Talk worksheets and practice our speech sounds.

I actually found a ridiculously huge bag of "Tootie Fruities" at Walmart, so these aren't name brand Froot Loops and the bag is so gigantic that there is no way we will use them all. So, this weekend I plan to add to my Peachie Speechie Articulation Challenge collection with the Froot Loop Challenge! 

We may also have to make cereal necklaces with yarn, practice sorting colors with cereal, and maybe use these Tootie Fruities to make bird/squirrel feeders (would birds even eat this stuff??). I bought way too much cereal. I welcome any other suggestions for what to do with this stuff! 

Candy Corn Challenge!

My students are taking the Candy Corn Challenge this week! I created this activity to use with my articulation groups and it is pretty sweet. 

We have been enjoying a lot of Halloween and fall themed books in speech lately. But sometimes I want to skip the books and games and just do practice drills with my artic groups. In a fun way, of course. So, I am challenging my students to say their target sound 100 times. For each good production, they earn a candy corn to place on their Candy Corn Challenge mat: 

At the end of the session, we see who can eat all 100 of their candy corns the fastest. Just kidding!! I actually pass out ziplock bags and they take the candy home with them. I don't need anyone getting sick from excessive candy corn consumption in the speech room! 

Don't want to load your students up on sugar? No problem! They can still take on the challenge. I made a black and white version so instead of using real candy, you can just have them color a candy corn for each production. 

Fun fact: I actually made the little candy clip art myself this time! Ok, my husband helped a little. I figured candy corn would be a super easy first clip art project for me - how could I possibly mess up a little triangle with a smile, right?!

Download it FREE in my TPT store!

Welcome to the speech room, Spookley!

Spookley is visiting the speech room this week! I ordered a plush Spookley from "Books Are Fun" along with a copy of the book and my package arrived today!

The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano is a great story. The round pumpkins tease Spookley because of his odd shape until a terrible storm comes (and tosses the round pumpkins through a broken fence!) and teaches them that being different can be a good thing! I love the illustrations and the overall message of the story.

I have been reading this story to all of my K-3 groups. For the students with language goals, we do a book walk and make predictions about what the story will be about. Then, we read the story and I ask them comprehension questions. With a couple groups we made a story map on the white board. Then, I have them either draw or write what happens at the beginning, middle, and end of the story on a little worksheet. (I am required to keep work samples, so these were great to stick in their folders!). We did re-telling and discussed how Spookley felt at the beginning of the story vs. the end.

For my artic groups, I didn't do a book walk or anything. In fact, I didn't even read the book myself - I have the Spookley book app ($1.99 for iPad!) and I just let the iPad read it to them. After they heard the story I gave them a Speech with Spookley worksheet and had them practice their target sound 5 times before coloring a pumpkin.

After the first group, I made the Speech with Spookley worksheet a little smaller because the kids were taking a little longer than I'd like to color the pumpkins.

Download my Speech with Spookley and Spookley Beginning-Middle-End graphic organizer FREE in my TPT store! 

What books are you reading in your speech room this month?

Multiple Choice Articulation: App Review!

If you want to spice up your articulation therapy session with an activity that will make your students giggle and snort and practice their target sounds all at the same time - this is the app for you! I recently downloaded Multiple Choice Articulation by Erik X. Raj on my iPad. After using it in the speech room, I decided to write a review with the help of my students. 

The app was $4.99 and targets /s, z, r, l, sh, ch, th/ in all word positions, so SLPs will love it. It is full of hilarious questions, so kids will love it too. 

 Once you select the sound and word position to target, you are presented with a series of "would you rather" questions. The student can read the question out loud, or press a button to hear it read to them. 

I found that sometimes these questions make the student laugh so hard that it takes them a minute to regain composure and give their answer. This question in particular caused a couple of six year old boys to almost fall out of their chair laughing: 

As the student answers the questions, they can target their sounds while working on reasoning skills and conversational turn taking at the same time. The can also press the "hear an answer" button to hear an example answer to the question. 

This app is motivating and engaging and absolutely hilarious! It sparked conversation and debates in the speech room while also sneaking in many productions of target sounds. 

Just take a look at what some of my students are saying about Multiple Choice Articulation: 

"Rats don't take baths in root beer! They take baths in puddles!" -1st Grade Student

"I had a raisin in my nose once." -2nd Grade Student 

"Can we play this again tomorrow?" -2nd Grade Student 

"These questions are silly!" -3rd Grade Student (said with a perfect /s/ sound!) 

Clearly, this app is a winner!

Flashcard Eating Monsters!

I have a couple of monsters in the speech room today! I found these precious snack cups over the weekend and bought them for my 16 month old to eat his snacks out of. Unfortunately, the silicone teeth are pretty tough and once my son stuck his hand in, he was not able to pull it back out! But of course I see opportunities for speech games in everything so instead of returning these monster cups, I brought them to live in the speech room where they can feast on Webber cards instead of my son's hand.

Here is how we played this game:

1. Stuff each monster cup with flashcards
2. Tell the students "Oh no! Monsters moved into the speech room and are eating your practice cards! Carefully pull one card out at a time and say your words as you go. If you do it very carefully, the monsters won't notice and they won't bite your hand".

My students loved the monsters! It was a quick and easy way to make regular old flashcard drills fun.

5W's Nonfiction Story Cards: Product Review

I am always looking for good listening comprehension activities for my students. Of course, I love reading books with them and asking comprehension questions but sometimes I don't want a whole book. Sometimes I just want a little passage with a few questions. Short passages mean I can get through several mini stories in one session or use them in RtI groups. At the beginning of the year I ordered 5W's Nonfiction Story Cards and so far I absolutely love them! 

The package comes with 20 different nonfiction stories with 3 copies of each story inside so you can pass them out and students can follow along as you read. Each story also has 5 WH questions to check for comprehension and 5 additional questions on the back targeting main idea, vocabulary, and identifying facts vs. opinions. 

One of my favorite things about these cards are the "find out more" questions. Each story has a question that requires the students to do some research of their own. For example, one of the stories is about a hippo and the "find out more" question is "How do hippos keep from getting sunburned?". This is a great opportunity to target predicting and reasoning skills. My students use the iPad to look up answers to these questions after everyone has shared their predictions. 

I have had such a great experience with these cards that I am ordering the fiction version too!

If anyone else has a listening comprehension activity that they are loving this year, tell me about it in the comments! 

When SLPs lose their voice...

What do you do if you are an SLP but you can't talk?! 

Working with kids in a public school, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I caught something. This year, it took five weeks. I got a little cold on Wednesday and by Thursday morning my voice was GONE. I put myself on vocal rest. I didn't feel bad enough to take a sick day. I had lots to do at work. I just couldn't talk!

But what about therapy? What about meetings? How does a school based SLP go about her day and do her job when she can't talk?

It caught me by surprise. I hadn't been talking too much. I wasn't that sick. I don't usually get so hoarse with a cold. So I had to scrap the lesson plans for the day and come up with something I could do with the kids that didn't involve much talking but still targeted their objectives.

While I was thinking of what to do, I wrote this message on my white board:

"Oh No! Mrs. Avren lost her  voice! We will be doing a quiet craft today"

I pulled out my stack of magazines, some scissors, glue, and construction paper. I decided I would have students cut out pictures of things that had their speech sound and take their projects home for weekend speech sound practice with their parents. 

I modified the activity slightly for the students with language goals. Some of them wrote down adjectives to describe their pictures. Some of them said a sentence about each picture using past tense verbs. My fluency students made sentences about each picture using easy onset. 

(note: The students that just couldn't do this activity were penciled in for make-up sessions next week)

I quickly typed up a little cover sheet and made an example for the kids to look at: 

Fortunately, I had just purchased a bunch of little dry erase boards at the Target dollar spot! I carried one of these around all day to communicate. (I was going to download an AAC device to my iPad and use it just for fun but I didn't have time!) 

However, many of my students cannot read. So, I used a lot of nonverbal communication as well. :) 

Overall, things went pretty smoothly! The kids loved the craft. 

I did have two IEP meetings, but I typed up a bunch of information before hand for the general education teacher to say for me as we discussed speech present levels and goals. 

I drank tea with honey throughout the day and plan on getting a lot of rest this weekend!