This is Halloween

As I have mentioned before it's pretty crazy around here during the month of October. I have some easy and fun Halloween ideas though. Since simplicity is key...they are really low on the preparation and expense scale so do with them what you will :)

Masking tape mummies for articulation

We used these to practice our artic words. They got an extra piece after they did repetitions or made a sentence.

Spiders and spider webs for following directions



Students had to follow oral directions to make hand print spiders and "webs" which are just wonkily drawn snowflakes that they got to cut out and pretend were web-esk :)

Room on the Broom listening activity that to work on active listening skills and comprehension which you can find here

Room on the Broom articulation activity

This activity was used to target /r/ and /w/ sound discrimination and identifying /r/ sounds for using a story. The students would raise their hand when they heard and /r/ word and sometimes I would give examples of two different words (ie wag and rag) from the story and they could identify the sounds that they heard.

And finally some cards for my nonverbal kiddos to exchange during Trick-Or-Treat. They really enjoyed practicing knocking, exchanging the card, getting some candy and saying thank you. You can find free copies of the cards  here .

Sorry this is a brief and disjointed post. Just wanted to get some activities out there for Halloween!
Have a spooky one!

 

Narratives and Retell's as a tool for the SLP

A couple Friday's ago, I was lucky enough to get to go to a professional development lecture by Sandra Gilliam of Utah State University. She has done tons of research about story retells and oral discourse and how it effects students learning and developed a great tool called SKILL (Supporting Knowledge In Language and Literacy). It was a great lecture and it gave some guidance about how the SLP can effectively improve student language skills and help them to achieve common core standards for their grade levels. I was amazed at the number of standards an SLP can effect by working on oral discourse and story retell per grade level!


This is just Kindergarten, but it gives you an idea. The common core standards build upon these skills as the student progresses through out their educational career. The following standards are from the website for common core state standards.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.2 With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.K.2 With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.K.3 With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.K.3 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.K.5 With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.K.6 Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1b Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1c Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/ (e.g., dog, dogs; wish, wishes).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1e Use the most frequently occurring prepositions (e.g., to, from, in, out, on, off, for, of, by, with).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1f Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.

SS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.6 Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts.
 Other reasons I particularly liked the SKILL approach is because it allows the SLP to work with the students language as a whole instead of just answering and asking questions, you can work on grammar and vocabulary. Since the SKILL approach also focuses on the character's emotional response to events and how those response lead to other events you can work on perspective taking. It's a very well thought out and interesting approach.  If you would like more information about SKILL (Supporting Knowledge In Language and Literacy) you can visit the Utah State University Works page.
As a school SLP, I think it is vital that we address educationally relevant modes of communication. For our kids this is taking the form of writing their own stories and retelling stories they have heard to show comprehension of topics outside of langauge arts.

Raking up some good times in the speech room!

October is quiet possibly the craziest month in special education in my district. We have all our IEP's this month!  So it was definitely a great time for an easy game that could apply to lots of students. I made a raking game using paint stir sticks. I know there has been a paint chip crafting craze on Pintrest lately, however the paint stir stick is a handy crafting object and they are free too! I did not use magnets but I think that putting a magnet on each leaf and rake to help the students get their leaves. It works pretty well with out it though.
Have students describe using as many attributes as possible! It is a great way to make sentences to work on grammar as well as vocabulary!

Anyway here is a free copy of Rake it up! fall vocabulary for you at my TPT store

Have a great week!

Are you ready for some football?!?!

To answer...no, I'm not. The only thing I understand about football is how to eat chicken wings and honestly I am a little to good at that . However, football  is a theme next week at school so I made some fun printables on Mayer-Johnson's Boardmaker program that target vocabulary skills.
The football feild game is to be used as an add on for the Expanding Expressions Tool (EET) Kit developed by Sarah Smith, MS CCC/SLP which you can find here. 

Touch Down EET Expansion

                                                      

To play the game, move from the ten yard line, have each student choose one picture .Use the dice in your tool kit to help the students describe pictures on the field. Step down includes having the student expressively identify the picture or receptively identify the picture. The students can roll one die or two dice to increase difficulty.
 After describing their picture they can spin to see how many yards they get to move their football up to their next picture.  First person to the touch down wins! (and then obviously does their touchdown dance...which is the best part :) )
 I used this with students for vocabulary, as well as grammar and articulation. My words were football themed to match the classroom theme, however, you can make your pictures match any theme you want. You can even print it out blank, laminate it and write your own words or tape different pictures on to change it up for each group. Make your football field template and spinner match the needs of your students!  

Have a great week!