Holiday Freebie Linky Party

For all of you holiday fanatics like me, we can thank Busy Bee Speech for one of the most awesome ideas I've ever heard of... A Holiday Freebie Linky Party!

From 11/16-11/23, the linky party will be open giving us lots of awesome links to help us plan for the holiday season from some great bloggers!

Yay for the holidays!

Invitation to Busy Bee Speech's Linky Party!

All About Articulation!

R. S. L. Th. Th. V. F. G. K. Sh. Ch. Blends...The list goes on. and on.

Day in and day out. 

Artic. Arctic. Artic.

So what are some go to games that I use?

There's the all-time Artic games (usually thanks to Super Duper!) that I think every SLP has on hand....

- Chipper Chat

- Go Fish

- Match

- Bingo

- Etc.

However, there is also several games that every SLP has on hand that I need reminded sometimes to drag out! 

Here are a few that I use as reinforcement: (Say 5 of your syllables/words/sentences/etc. to take a turn)

- Connect 4

- Candy Land 

- Jenga

- Kerplunk

- Guess Who

Here are a few that I attach words to:

- Bowling (great idea by ConstantlySpeaking)

- Jenga (great idea by Constantly Speaking)

- Dominoes

- Checkers (great idea by SpeechTimeFun)

Thanks to Pinterest and blogs, there are unlimited resources out there for printable games and homemade activities!! Here are a few that I have printed. Yay for inexpensive therapy materials! I am attaching the links to a few:

Homemade Activities:

Trash Talk

Artic Pocket Game

Arctic Crafts

Pot of Gold

Printable Games/ Activities:

Artic Battleship

Help me fix my Arrrghs!

Soaring Into Space

A Few Free Printables

Touchdown!

Articul-Golf

Articulation Bugs
Articulation Bugs 2

What are your go-to games??

P.S. Happy Halloween!! After a day full of pumpkin making, I'm ready for tomorrow-- looking forward to Thanksgiving turkeys :) 

Easy Breezy, Lemon...I'm a Little Queasy??

Well.. I've been slacking on my blogging lately..I must apologize! Between the million referrals for Kindergarteners and some exciting news in our family, my brain has been in a million places!

So.. what's the big news?! Well.. our 8 month old keeps us hopping! But obviously not enough... we have another little bundle of joy on the way! We are so excited! However, this means than I now have pregnancy brain AND baby brain! Hence... the absence of enough collected thoughts to blog lately!

Bear with me for the next several months, and hopefully I won't skip out too terribly much!

Also.. any and all prayers appreciated as we grow from learning to be a family of 3 to a soon to be family of 4!

A Few Helpful Freebies!

Between the million referrals, IEP folders, data collection sheets, homework sheets, lesson plans and behavior charts floating around my room, there is a NEED to be organized. Otherwise... my crazy brain would keep up with... nothing!

I decided I would share a few of the ways that I keep up with all of the madness going on around me!

First thing is first--ARTICULATION Data Collection sheets! Since the large majority of my caseload is articulation, it is important that this is just the way I need it. What are some important things for my artic data sheets? 1-Easy recording! Because our IEP goal sheets are on a % system, I need to be able to easily reference what level each child has reached. 2-I need to know what homework I sent home and if it was returned 3- I need to know what level the child as working at for a particular target (isolation, syllable, word, phrase, sentence, structured speech, spontaneous conversation) 4- I need a notes section to jot down any correspondence with parents, behavior issues, and of course- REACHED GOALS! At progress report time, it sure does make transferring data easy breezy! Here is what I have compiled:

The next form I keep in my binder is my Form Log. I keep track of all Initial Evaluation invitations, Local survey meeting invitations, IEP meeting invitations, etc. Because we have time restrictions that all evaluations and meetings must take place in, this log keeps me from missing any deadlines!

Sometimes simple is better in my book. I have been through multiple daily lesson plans, but this one is as simple as can be! I enjoy posting this everyday right by my clock. I know who I've seen, what activity is next, and it helps me keep my day in 30 minute increments! 

If you would like any of these documents in PDF format, leave a comment or send me an email at tiffani.powell@rcsd.ms. I will be glad to e-mail them to you! I hope you find them beneficial! 

The Grand Tour...

As a SLP in the school setting, you never know where your space will be! Although, yes, I still am a little envious of SLPs with full sized classrooms (or even partial classrooms...and MOST DEFINITELY a WINDOW!), I have learned to improvise. Yes.. I am in a book room...which means I share half of my million shelved walls with other teachers! (They are so kind to gather all of there supplies before or after school hours so they don't interrupt therapy!)

Let's take a walk through Mrs. Powell's Speech Room... Welcome!!

Open the door.... And this is what you find- a small closet with tons of shelves!! I am waiting on someone to paint me a gorgeous ocean scene to put behind my curtains! (Any takers!?)

I worried a lot at first about all of the "visual noise" that comes along with having all of these shelves! I tried covering them with curtains, but there was not a great practical way to cover that many shelves without a large budget! The teachers were also concerned about having to constantly search for things behind curtains. So... open shelves it it!

I add chairs for my larger groups, but I try to keep it as basic as possible for the most part!

What have I discovered? It doesn't effect MOST of my kids! The colorful table usually keeps most of my students focused at me and whatever we have going on that day! For the kids that have a hard time focusing... We often take "field trips" to different places in the school to have therapy so things will always be lively! Outside, the cafeteria, the library, and occasionally, the floor in my room have turned out to be perfect for therapy for my wandering minds!

I have divided my shelves: homework shelf, articulation games, phonological processes, oral motor, fluency, literacy, etc. You can't see all my shelves in the pictures (I know some of you are jealous of my abundance of storage!), but you get the point!

I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Behavior Management

Every SLP has to deal with the B word every now and again... "B"ehavior!

What the Teacher Wants has come up with a great system! I adapted it a little to fit in the realm of what I expect in my room, but I LOVE the punch card system! They can be printed for girls and boys on her blog!  I allow my students to earn a trip to the small prize box once they make it to the corner spaces. Once they make it to 20, they take a trip to the TREASURE CHEST!!

This is the slip I made to send home to parents after 3 days without a sticker on their behavior chart:

I hope all your kids are behaving wonderfully! This is just a way to motivate, encourage and reward great behavior!

Wh Questions AND Story Retelling!

WHat child doesn't like to watch TV these days?? My kids working on WH questions love this idea!

I got this awesome idea from Speech Room News, who used America's Funniest Home Video. Because my kids are younger, I am using shows like Dora the Explorer. Use what your kids love!

Click here to get some clips from your kids favorite NickJr. episodes.

You can make sheets like this with BoardMaker:

Cut them into strips. For smaller kids, I have printed out items and let them paste it beside the question. For example: What did Dora want? (Child pastes picture of dog beside "What?")

                                    


It's a great way to let the children learn from something they love!

Happy Friday :)