Suessy Fun in My Speech Room

It's Dr. Seuss week at my school!  Love me some Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish!  Sharing these silly rhymes, crazy words, and funny pictures with my students just makes me happy.  Check out what we've been doing in my speech room this week.

On Monday, one of my very fabulous preschool teachers gave me this cute Cat in the Hat face to use.

She made it herself, and it turned out super cute!  I just attached it to a tissue box and was good to go!  She told me that she was inspired by this post, in case you wanted to try and make your own.

Well this was the cat who tried to eat everything...and he especially loved artic cards!  ;)  We hid the cards and fed them to the Cat in the Hat when we found them.







During Dr. Seuss week last year, I made this cute "find it" shaker.  I printed out a bunch of /r/ and /s/ words from the Cat in the Hat and filled the container with rice.  The kids have to shake up the bottle to find the words.  So fun.  Check out how to make them here.

For the kids' craftivity, we read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and made cutesy little fish bowls inspired by this post.  Look how cute they turned out.

I first made giant fishbowls out of legal sized card stock.  I got out some paintbrushes and washable kid paint and let the kids paint "water" on the fishbowl.

I made some fishy printables and printed them out on construction paper.  While we read a few pages of One Fish Two Fish, I had the kids write words with their speech sound on their fish.


With my preschoolers, we glued little pictures to the fish.  My non-verbal kid worked on big/little by sorting the fish onto the different sides of the fishbowl.

They loved painting and gluing all of their fishies to the bowl!

If you want to try it too, you can grab the printables I made HERE.  There is a colored template and line art template.




What fun Seussy activities are y'all doing in your speech rooms this week??

Don't Break the Ice Round-Up (with a new pack)!

So I took a little bloggy break last week, but I'm back!  I'm so excited to show you my latest download.  I've had several requests for it, so I'm hoping you'll love it too!  :)

Many of you have purchased my Don't Break the Ice Articulation pack.  I'm hoping your kids have had as much fun with it as mine.  :)  They ask to play it a lot!  From preK to 5th grade - they ALL ask.  Lol.  If you aren't familiar with how I adapted this game, please see this post.

Here is Don't Break the Ice - PreK style!!  It includes visuals for the early developing sounds.  Take a looksy!

The pictures are tiny because the ice cubes on the game are tiny.  They still work perfectly to me.  This packet includes pictures for the following sounds: /m, b, p, t, d, n, w, h, k, g, f/.   This pack would also benefit your early elementary kids who still need to work on these sounds.

I've also included a picture key for each sound at the bottom of the page.  This will be a great addition for my little bitty kiddies!

Articulation isn't the only thing you can work on with this game.  You can use these pictures to practice describing, vocabulary, categories, same/different, etc.  Sort them however you wish!  :)

I've also created a Sight Word edition for Don't Break the Ice.  Check it out!

It includes Dolche sight words for pre-primer, primer, first grade, second grade, and third grade.  This would be a great way to practice reading their sight words at home.

You can grab any of these three packs at my TPT store!  Click on the links to find them:  Articulation pack, PreK pack, Sight Word pack.

Some of you were also asking how I organize all of these little cards, since there are SO many.  :)

Weeelll, I get those small snack size ziplock bags and label each sound on the bag with a sharpie.  I separate all of the cards into each bag.  That way, I can quickly pull the sounds I need for that group.  Since the words are different colors based on sounds, the kids know which color is theirs, and they are responsible for putting all of their sounds back into the designated baggie before they leave speech.

I keep all of these bags in a large gallon size ziplock with the instructions inside.

What do y'all think?  Do you play this game in your speech rooms?

**I'm also ready to give a copy of ALL 3 packs to a follower to be chosen at random.  Just comment below to enter, and I'll pick a winner tomorrow!  :)  Good luck!

St. Patty's Day Worksheets & HW Packet!!

You ever finish a game or activity and find yourself with a several minutes to spare?  There's not enough time to start something new, but too much time to start wrapping it up.  At this point, my go-to is usually a worksheet.  I like having several on hand and ready to grab.  I like even better when they're generic, and I can quickly jot some artic words, sight words, or vocabulary words on their sheet.

Another good thing about worksheets is if they don't finish, I can send it home with them for homework.  Today, I have some of these fun worksheets for you.  You can use them for a therapy activity or just to send home for homework.  I'm hoping these will be motivating enough for them to actually do their homework!  Lol.

This packet is super cute and St. Patty's Day themed!  Check it out!  I love that there is NO laminating or colored ink required!  :)

There are 12 generic worksheets and 5 worksheets for /r/ and 5 worksheets for /s/.  Aren't they fun?
Do-a-dot clover! :)

Color a clover pages!





Roll a sound rainbow and clovers!

What's under the hat cut and glue activity and color by speech sound worksheets.

I've filled in some of the worksheets with /r/ and /s/ sounds too.  All of these also come in blank as well.

Cut and glue activities for pot o'gold and feed the owl.

Tic-tac-toe Irish flags and roll-a-sound clover style!

You can grab this at my TPT store HERE!  What do you think?  What will you be sending home for homework next month?  

And don't forget about the President's Day sale!!  15% off my entire store all day long!  Grab what you need!  :)

Biscuit's Valentine's Day

My little ones and I are celebrating Valentine's Day with Biscuit this year.  You know how much I love that cute puppy.  In case you don't, you can check out how I used Biscuit books at Halloween and Christmas.

Today I've got a FREEBIE mini companion pack for you in case you need some last minute V-day ideas.  :) Here's how we're using Biscuit's Valentine's Day.

I print, laminated, and cut out the vocabulary pictures.  Then, I attached them to the matching places in the book using velcro.  

I set up all the pictures on my velcro mat and let the kids pull them off as we read the story.  

I love using these cards as props, discussing vocabulary, and retelling the story.  Another skill we work on is comprehension.  These cute little puppy cards will help with that!  I stuffed them all in this mini mailbox I snagged at Target's dollar spot.  One of the words they use in the story is "deliver," so I used the mailbox to talk about the word and explain how mailmen deliver mail.

We worked on sequencing using the chart below.  I had them draw pictures of the different parts of the story to show the order of what happened.  

There are also some open ended worksheets to use with any target skill.  :)

You can grab this freebie HERE!!  Hope this helps some of you who may be in a bind!  :)  Please leave a comment below if you download.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Language Empires App Review

It's hard to find a comprehensive app that targets the language concepts I need.  I love Language Empires because I can take it into classrooms with me and can usually gather some good data for whatever skill that teacher happens to be working on.  It's great not having to do a lot of prep.

I know there have already been several reviews of this app from SLP bloggers, but I'm excited to give you my 2 cents as well.  Though Smarty Ears was super generous to give me a copy of this app to review, all the opinions here are mine.

At first glance of seeing this app, I thought, "Oh man, this is gonna be complicated and aggravating to maneuver through."  But, in fact, it's super easy!!  And the kids love it because it's similar to a video game.

Click "Visit the City" to get started playing!  It will bring you to the screen below to decide which students you want to play.

Clicking the "settings" button will bring you to options for how you want the questions presented.

Once you choose the students, decide what skills you want to target for each person by dragging them to the different empires.  More than one student can be put on the same empire.

Students choose the appropriate response to each question given.  

If more than one student is playing, the person on the left should be the one responding to the question.

Clicking "done" will bring you to the results screen.  Tap a student to review their trophies or their reports.

Tap "quick play" if you just want to jump in and start with questions.  It'll take you directly to the empires page for you to choose your categories to target.

There won't be any certain player for the questions, just a generic figure.  Target as many areas and questions as you need.

Finally, the report tab will allow you to choose a student to review their reports.

You have the option of emailing it or transferring the data to Therapy Report Center (which I love!).

You can grab this app HERE in iTunes for $29.99.  However, it is ON SALE right now for $20.99!!  Yay :)

What I dig about this app:

• There are lots of language skills available to target.
• You can have multiple players at the same time, making it very group-friendly.
• The reporting data is clear and detailed, making it easy to share with parents.
• It looks like a video game, so kids are very motivated to use it.
• It is leveled and appropriate for many age groups.

What could make this app better:

• I'd love an option to read the responses to the questions aloud.  I had to read most of them to my students.
• I'd like to know what grades are appropriate for each level of the different skills.  I found myself having to guess for my students, then having to go back and change if the questions were too easy or difficult.
• The app is a little pricey...so for sure grab it while it's on sale.

Overall, love this app!  It's definitely an excellent addition to your language app repertoire.