Happy Halloween, Biscuit

Some of my favorite books to use with my preschoolers are the Biscuit books!  Don't you just love them?  They are so sweet and cute.  But they are also pretty great for vocabulary.  I know Halloween is almost over, but I thought I'd share anyway.

Here's how we use the Biscuit books in speech.  We typically target vocabulary, asking and answering wh-questions, and even simple inferencing.  

For vocabulary I print and cut out pictures of several items in the book.  Then I stick velcro on the backs of the pictures and the soft part of the velcro on the corresponding pictures in the book.  I gotta credit my coworker, Amy, for showing me the magic of velcro with books!

I stick all of the pictures on my velcro board and have the kids find the pictures as we go through the book.  They love matching and sticking them on.  This is especially good for my nonverbal kiddos.  

 After we read it once, I usually go through it a second time and ask wh questions.  I let the kids pull the pictures back off the page as we go {for some reason, this is their favorite part lol}.  

You can grab a free copy of the pictures and many of the wh-questions I use HERE.

There are lots more things we do with the Biscuit books, but this is my favorite.  I think I have a velcro picture Biscuit book made for every holiday!  :)  

Hope everyone has a happy Halloween!  I just might post fun costume pictures tomorrow.  I'm dressing up as a potato head! Haha.  The kids are going to crack up!  ;)

Thanksgiving Games & a Giveaway!!

I think the games I'm going to tell you about were the very first things I put in my TPT store almost a month ago.  I guess I just wanted Thanksgiving to come early this year lol. I know we can all use the break!

So, here are a couple more cutesie Thanksgiving speech games to add to the mix.  One targets articulation and the other targets fluency.  Check them out! 

Both games are played the same way and can be used alongside each other.  

With these games, you move cute little pilgrim and indian owls across a game board.  

Aren't the owls so cute?

It comes with a spinner that you can put together with a paper fastener.  If the wheel is hard to spin, my kids love just closing their eyes and moving it around until I say stop.

To play you spin the wheel and move your owl.  Draw a turkey card and say the word using the direction indicated on the space you landed.  For the fluency game, you answer a question using the strategy indicated on the space.  The first one to the finish line is the winner!

The artic game is fun because it lets kids practice their speech in different scenarios (i.e. say it 10 times, say it in a silly voice, say it with your eyes closed, etc.).  It includes turkey artic cards for /r, s, l, k, f/.

Artic Game

Fluency Game

And of course there are cute little owl wild cards to throw in there!

You can check out the articulation game at my TPT store HERE, and the fluency game HERE! 

Oh, and ThanksGIVing means a GIVEAWAY!!!  I'll choose 2 winners, one for each game!
Enter in the rafflecopter below, and I'll choose a winner on Monday night!  YAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Football Fluency Game :)

Down here in South Louisiana we have 4 seasons - hunting season, crawfish season, snowball season, and football season!  Don't believe me?  Check out this T-shirt from Storyville.  Haha.  No, but really we love us some football down here.  I think it's one of those cultural loves that's passed down from generation to generation.  The kids really get into it, even at a young age.  They get excited about anything LSU or Saints!

Thus, the inspiration for my latest download...Football Fluency!  My fluency kids always seem to get the shaft in my group sessions.  Not intentionally.  It just seems like I'm always having to adapt my artic games to work with their fluency goals.  It's still effective for the most part, but this time, I wanted to have a game that specifically targets their fluency skills.

Check it out!!  It comes with 2 different game boards to play with.

When I do fluency therapy, I mainly focus on teaching them strategies that they can use to try and increase their fluency.  The four fluency enhancing behaviors (FEBs) that I concentrated on for this game were slow rate, light contact, easy starts, and pausing.

For the game pieces, I like to let them use pennies.  The game even comes with a dice template for you to make your own dice!  :)










To play with the game board, the student will roll the dice and move the correct number of spaces.  Draw a helmet card and answer the question using the strategy indicated on the space.  Don't forget to add in the wild cards!  The first person to make it to the end is the winner.

To play with the football field, each student puts their game piece on the opposite edges of the field.  On each turn, move 10 yards and draw a helmet card.  Answer the question with the indicated strategy. Follow the directions on the wild cards.  The first person to make it to the opposite side is the winner!

Four types of responses are elicited with the helmet cards: "how" questions, "tell me"questions, conditional questions (if/then), and pretending questions.  Plus, I always like to include blank cards for you to write in your own questions.

For the wilds, we have "fumble" cards and field goal cards.

You can download this game at my TPT store HERE!

So what do y'all think?  How do y'all like to work on fluency??

DIY Speech Cave!

I'm sure most of you have played Ned's Head, right?  In case you haven't, it's this hilarious game where kids pull gross objects out of this giant head.  They love it!  It's great for describing, word finding, or starting conversations.  You can even put card decks in there and let them pull the pictures out of his mouth and ears.

Unfortunately, I think I might be the only therapist in the world who doesn't own this game.  Last year, I was trying to think of something I could use instead of Ned...so the SPEECH CAVE was born!  :)

My kids absolutely LOVE this and ask to play it all the time.  Here is a tutorial to show you how to make one of your own! 

All the supplies you'll need are: a cardboard box, bulletin board paper, black construction paper, scissors, and tape.

1.  Start with the box.  Any old cardboard box will do.  Turn it upside down.  If it has flaps, just cut them off.

2.  Next, draw a semi-circle near the bottom middle edge of the box.  

3.  Cut along the semi-circle to make a half-moon shaped hole.  (see pic)

4.  Cover the the box with bulletin board paper.  I just used some scraps I had left over.  Tape it up like you are wrapping a present.  

5.  Then, take a sheet of black construction paper and cut strips about halfway to the top, depending on how big you drew your semi-circle.  Tape or glue the top and sides of the paper to the inside of the box behind the semi-circle.  You want the fringe to hang down where the opening is.

6.  You can decorate it however you want.  OR you can download a free copy of the graphics I used HERE.

Now for the fun part.  Before the kids come in the door, I tell them, "Oh, you really don't want to go into the speech room today.  It's much too scary.  There's a deep dark cave in there, and there could be oogly moogly monsters living in it!"  

The little ones laugh and tell me how brave they are and how they are not scared of the speech cave.  The older ones usually roll their eyes and tell me there are no such thing as monsters.  But, I know they all secretly love it...I can see it in their eyes.  Haha.

I like using the signs (like Beware and Keep Out) on the front for print awareness.  Plus, for some reason the kids get a kick out of doing something they "aren't supposed to."  

You can use the cave in a million ways.  This time, I put squishy snakes and bugs in there and had them pull them out and use it with the EET.  Oh, and yes, I write on my table with dry erase markers.  Don't worry, it comes right off. ;)

I also put articulation cards in there and have them try and find matches.  

They have a blast!

What do y'all think?  How else could you use the Speech Cave??

WH Question Pirates English & Spanish

A friend of mine's little girl in crazy about pirates!  I think this is too cute, since not many little girls I know are into them.  She had a pirate birthday party, dresses up like a pirate all the time, and even tries to talk like a pirate.  SO funny!

Even though there are lots of A-Mazing and fun speechie pirate activities floating around TPT and blogland, my new activity was made with my friend's daughter in mind.  Plus, a couple of my kids were talking about dressing up as pirates for Halloween, so I know this will be a big hit!  

A good amount of my students are working on WH questions.  They have difficulty answering questions appropriately as well as generating their own questions.  With common core, they are going to have to be able to question things they read and hear.  How can they do that if they can't even understand how to ask or answer basic questions appropriately and stay on topic?  

I needed to target this with my Spanish-speaking kids as well, so I made an English version and a Spanish version.  

Check them out! 

It comes with 60 question cards and 60 answer cards that target WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and WHY questions.  Aren't they so cute?  I love the parrots.  :)  I used a different picture for each type of question, so you can easily only use the questions you want to work on.

You can't have a game without wild cards, so we have a treasure chest and a pirate skull!

One thing I like about this game is that you can play it several different ways.  One way is to play it like memory and match the questions to the answers.  Add a couple wild cards in there to make it more fun!

Another way to play is by only using the question cards, and have the kids respond appropriately to the questions.  OR only use the answer cards, and have them generate their own questions.  The students can draw a card.  If they respond correctly, they keep the card.  If they respond incorrectly, another student gets a try.  Don't forget to add in the wild cards and follow the directions if one is drawn.  Whoever has the most cards when they run out is the winner.

You can find it at my TPT store HERE.

The Spanish version is exactly the same, except the questions and answers are in Spanish (obviously).  ;)

It uses all the same cute pictures and rules.

You can find the Spanish WH Question Pirates game at my TPT store HERE.

Hope these help y'all with your bilingual kiddos!

Conference Day & Parent Ed.

I kind of have a love/hate relationship with parent-teacher conference day.  On one hand, I like the idea of having a day without kids to close myself in my speech room and do paperwork or get things done.  However, this is never the case.  It seems like I'm always pulled here and there and everywhere to answer parents' questions, translate for a Spanish-speaking parent, or attend an IEP meeting (or 3!).

Today is bound to be one of those crazy-filled conference days.  I can feel it in my bones!  Haha.  

When parents do ask questions about their child's progress, the most common one I seem to get is, "What can I do at home to help him?"  This is my FAVORITE question!  :)  It usually means that they are willing to put some time and effort into reinforcing what we work on at school.  And, as therapists, we know that we can make any time therapy time.  

I do like to have something tangible to give to parents that ask about this (and to parents who don't ask), so that they have something they can refer back to.  

HERE are a few of my go-to parent handouts ((FREE!)).  

These lists are compiled from information I've gathered from the internet over the years, tips picked up from co-workers, and things I've thought of myself.  They don't come from any one particular source.  Honestly, I don't remember which tips were from which types of sources.  So, if some of the wording looks familiar and you can name the source, please share!  

Hope this helps some of you!  Leave a comment and let me know what you think.  :)

Angry Birds Teach Main Idea: Lesson & Game!

Ok, I am all about keeping my students motivated to learn new concepts.  Sometimes it feels like the only way to keep their attention is to sing and dance and stand on your head...and then that only works once.  Haha.  I've also found that using things that are interesting to them is a very helpful tool to keep them engaged.

So, what are all my kids interested in right now?  Angry Birds!!  They love this game.  Every time I get out my iPad they ask me to play it.  I guess I can't blame them...it is a really fun game.  I knew I needed to find a way to incorporate Angry Birds into my classroom therapy.  

This week, several of my grade levels are working on finding the main idea of a passage.  So, I created a lesson using Angry Birds to co-teach the concept of main idea with the classroom teacher.  Check it out.  :)

The first slide is their learning target or "I can" statement.  This helps the kids to know what they will be able to do once we are finished.

This lesson has fun definitions, tips, and 5 examples that have to do with angry birds.  The examples start out easy and get more complex.  

You can save this lesson in iBooks and view it as an ebook or display it on your regular computer or projector.  This definitely makes it easy for me to modify for the classroom.

I also made a freebie game to go along with the lesson.  This game uses 18 angry bird story cards.  The kids have to try and come up with their own main idea of the passages.  

But watch out for the pigs!  There are 6 green pig cards.
Three lose a turn cards and three extra turn
cards.

Unfortunately, I decided to remove access to this lesson and game because of copyright.  I just didn't want to get in trouble!  Lol.  If you have any questions you can email me at busybeespeech@gmail.com. :)  

TPT Winner!

A big THANK YOU to everyone who participated in the TPT giveaway!!  

Congratulations to Tammy H.!  You win anything you would like from my TPT store!

More fun contests to come.  Check back here tomorrow for a new FREEBIE!  

Halloween Following Directions & Reinforcement

Put down your mouse...step away from your computer...and head over to Target dollar spot!  They have the cutest Halloween and Thanksgiving goodies right now.  Look at these adorable boxes that I snagged!

Cute right?!  I'm using them as containers to go with my latest TPT game: Halloween Following Directions/Reinforcement.  :)  I love it when I can do multiple things with one game or activity.  This game lets kids use sweet little cupcakes, cats, owls, and pumpkins to practice following directions.  I am obsessed with this clipart!

The first thing you need to do is print and cut out all the Halloween circles.  You could also use a 2.5 inch circle cut to speed up the process.  I used my 3 inch scalloped circle cut to make them fancy.

To play the following directions game, turn all the cards face down.  On their turn, each student chooses a card (or 2 or 3 cards for multi-step) and completes the direction written on the card.  The cards include concepts like colors, shapes, quantity, right/left, etc. along with more simple tasks.  If they do the direction correctly, they get to keep the card.  My kids put them in the super-cute Halloween containers!  If they don't complete it correctly, another student gets to try for the card.  The person with the most cards when they all run out is the winner.

But watch out for the SPOOKED cards! 

If you draw one, you must put all your cards back.

Haha.  I love those vampire owls!

You can also use this game as a reinforcer to go with ANY card deck!!  To play, put all the cards face down.  If the student says their sound/uses their fluency strategy/answers their question correctly, they get to pick a Halloween card and follow the fun direction.  Once their turn is completed, they keep the card.  If they draw a spooked card, they have to put all their cards back.  The person with the most cards when they all run out is the winner.

You can download this game from my TPT store HERE.  If you do, pretty please leave a review to let me know what you think!

Hope your kids enjoy it as much as mine.  :)

P.S.  Don't forget to enter the TPT store giveaway!!  You could win this game or any other one you like.  It ends at midnight!  Check it out here.

Facebook and TPT Giveaway!!

Get ready!  Busy Bee Speech is now on Facebook!  "Like" it to keep up with blog posts, ideas, and contests.  Speaking of which, we now have our very first giveaway!!

The winner will receive their item of choice from my TPT Store!  Just enter in the rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks!

Monster Mash Artic

So how many of you played Monster Mash when you were little?  I definitely did!  If you need a refresher, check out THIS not-so-great quality commercial from the 80s.  Haha.  It was a bunch of matching, slapping, monster fun!

When I came across this adorable monster clipart, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it... make an articulation version of Monster Mash!  And it turned out so cute!  Have a peek:

First, you'll need to print and cut out the monster mats, "find me" cards, and target sound monster cards.  The fabulous paraprofessionals who work on my hall were SO sweet to cut and laminate everything for me!  I just had to give them a shout-out!  :)  

Next, give each child a monster mat and the 24 monster cards for their target sound.  Then spread out all their monsters face-up in front of them.  The therapist keeps the 12 find me cards.

To play, the therapist holds up a find me card.  The kids have to find a matching monster from their pile and SLAP it!  They can do it with their hand or fly swatters.  Whoever slaps theirs first gets to keep the card on their monster mat.  Continue holding up find me cards until you have shown all the monsters twice.  The person with the most monsters on their mat is the winner.

If you have kids that work on the same sound, they can share the cards and race to slap the match.  My students had a blast!

This is a 23 page packet.  It comes with 4 monster mats, 12 "find me" cards, and 24 cards each for /r, s, sh, ch, f, l/ sounds.  You can download a copy at my TPT store.  Just click HERE.

Since making this, I've found more fun speechie monster activities across blogland.  Check 'em out!

1.  Social Candy Monsters (Crazy Speech World)
2.  Back Pocket Monsters (Speech Room News)
3.  Monster Topic Maintenance (Speech Time Fun)

Enjoy!

Blog Love & Tracking Progress

I've had so much fun this week trying out this new blog thing!  Hopefully, a couple of you were a little encouraged, or inspired, or at least found something you could actually use in therapy.  I can't wait to share more ideas with y'all!  There are so many things swimming around in my brain that I want to try, mostly thanks to all of you fabulous bloggers and pinners.

Besides blogging and scoping out Pinterest and TPT, it was pretty crazy at work this week too.  The end of the 9 weeks meant I had to do progress reports.  Boooo...not my favorite thing.  Fortunately, it wasn't too terrible since I've started keeping a lot of data on my iPad.  Here are a couple of apps I use for tracking data:

• Articulation Station Pro

Now, I know this is not an app just for tracking data (and it's pretty pricey).  It's just so easy to use, and my kids love it.  I just record their responses and save the data to their name.  Then, I can either email it to myself or copy their percentages straight from the iPad.

• Super Duper Data Tracker 

I'm sure most of you are familiar with this one.  I like using it if I need to target a specific language skill.  It's helpful while we are playing a game or doing an assignment in class.  It's also pretty good to use as a fluency counter.  Just click the check for fluent syllables and the X for syllables stuttered.  

Unfortunately, there is no one app out there that I feel I can use for all my kiddos.  It'd be great to have everything in one spot, and I'd love to go paperless with their tally sheets.  Have any of you found any helpful data tracking apps?  Or any good word processing apps for that matter?

Anyway, thanks for reading! :)

    

Spanish Articulation Screener

¿Sabían ustedes que puedo hablar en español?  Yes, I can speak some Spanish.  I actually teach Spanish classes as a side job.  Well, when the higher ups at work found out, I was delegated as the official Spanish tester of all our sweet hispanic kiddos with communication concerns.  So sometimes I get to go to different schools and screen them, discuss their cases, and evaluate if needed.

Unfortunately, there are NO screening instruments out there that I've found.  If anybody knows of a formal artic OR language screening tool, please share!   In the meantime, I did some research and made my own a couple years ago.  It just got a little makeover.  

Check it out...

The first page has space to write the student's identifying information as well as comments and recommendations.

How to use this screener:

• Show each picture to the student and ask "Qué es esto?" which means "What is this?" 

• Using the response form, record the student's errors on the space next to the sound being targeted.  Put a check if correct and write the error the child produced if incorrect.  There is also space to write notes and observations.

• Compare the errors with the age of mastery to determine if further evaluation is needed.

You may notice that there are no final consonants targeted.  In Spanish, there are only a few consonants that are produced at the ends of words.  The majority of Spanish words end in a vowel.  I've also included a page of Spanish developmental norms...just as FYI.  :)  

If you want a copy of the screener, you can get it HERE at my TPT store.  It's FREE for the weekend!!  Just because I have Fall Break!  Woo Hoo today is my Friday!

Hope this helps some of you out there!  

How do y'all handle your bilingual kids with speech concerns?