Speech Christmas Tree

I reeeaaally wanted a Christmas tree in my speech room this year.  Since it's Christmastime and budgets are tight, I decided a makeshift paper tree would do just fine.  So, I cut one out of bulletin board paper and added a foam star.  Then I tacked it to the wall.  What do you think?

To be able to decorate it multiple ways, I taped paper clips to the paper and opened it up a little.  See below.

I wanted to be able to take things on and off of the tree.  Today, we decorated paper ornaments and made sentence chains.  The kids had lots of fun with it!  I had them write their speech words on the ornaments and write sentences on strips of paper.

Some wrote sentences with vocabulary words, some with spelling words, and some with their articulation words.













It's not quite finished yet, but here's what it looks like so far.  :)  I love it!!  And so do the kiddos!

What about you??  Do you have a tree up in your speech room?  I know some of you aren't allowed to do Christmasy things at school.  If you did happen to put up a tree, shoot me a picture of it at busybeespeech@gmail.com and I'll add it to the bottom of this post!  :)

1.  Joan's tree!

Here's what she says: "I've put this tree up for several years now, complete with lights and shatterproof ornaments that the students decorate with glitter. Awesome for following directions and sequence recall!! I have 7 colors of glitter set up on a table in aluminum pans, and a separate table for glue and paintbrushes. They put glue on for one color at a time: glitter it then go back for more glue.
The kids love to check out the tree with the lights off!!"

Don't Break the Ice ~ Articulation

Remember the game Don't Break the Ice from when you were little?  Well, it's still around.  I'll bet many of you even have one in your therapy closet.  I was at Walmart the other day and found one on sale for $4.88, so naturally I snagged it!  It just needed a little something extra to make it work for me.

Sooo I created this packet to accompany Don't Break the Ice.  This way you can play it articulation style!  Here's a little how-to for one of your very own.

The first thing to do is print out all of the squares onto card stock.  I'd laminate them too for durability (especially since they are going to be banged on!).  Then, cut them out.  I made them smaller than the actual ice cubes so they should fit fine.  Adjust by cutting them down if you need to.

Next, stick velcro to the tops of the ice cubes.  I used velcro stickers.  You can get these at Walmart or any craft store.






Stick the other side of the velcro to the backs of the squares.

Assemble the game as directed.  I put the cubes in before I attach the velcro together.  See below.

After you squeeze them all in there, attach whatever sound squares you need to target. Each sound is a different color, so you can mix and match what you need.

I used all /r/ sounds for this one.

There are several ways you can play this game.  Here are a few suggestions:

1.  Play the game as directed.  For each fallen ice cube, the student must say the word (you can have them say it 5 times, in a sentence, using their fluency strategy, etc.).

2.  The student has to say the word each time they tap the ice cube.

3.  Students can say "I went sledding and brought a..." and list the items on the ice cubes as they collect them.

4.  Let them make up silly stories or sentences with the words they collect.

This packet comes with ice cube toppers for the following sounds: /r, s, z, l, k, g, f, v, sh, ch, th, dz, r-blends, s-blends, l-blends/.

You can grab it at my TPT store here!  What do you think?  Do any of you have Don't Break the Ice??

I Spy Christmas Freebie!

How many of you play I spy or use the I Spy books in your speech room?  We love I Spy in my room! I've been trying to collect some of the books in the last couple of years, but they can be pretty pricey.  Since I mostly use it with my artic kids, sometimes it takes too long for them to try and find pictures with their sound in it.

Anyway,  I created my own {free!} Christmas version of I Spy that's broken up by sound.  There is a slide for each of these sounds: /s, s-blends/ /r, r-blends/ /l, l-blends/ /k, g/ /f, v/.

One thing I love about I Spy is that it can be played a million different ways.  I thought I'd share a few of my favorite ways to play, in case you may not have tried these.

  1.  Have the student who is working on a particular sound be the "spier" for that page.  The other kids can race to see who can find and touch the picture first.  

Since the pictures are spread out, it shouldn't take them too long to find the picture.  

   

2.  They can spy by describing the picture (i.e. "I spy something that's hot, or something that jingles").  One child can describe and the other child can guess.  Or the therapist can describe, and the kids have to see who can find it first.

   

  

   3.  Have the kids choose 5 (or however many) pictures from the page with their sound in it and write a sentence with each one.  

4.  Let the students make up a story using some of the pictures from their page.  See who can make up the silliest story.  

5.  Use the word lists and see who can say and find all their words first.  Time them and see if they can beat their time.

6.  Use all the pictures together and tell them to see how many of a certain picture they can find (i.e. "How many Santas can you find? How many presents can you find?").  

It's also great to reinforce that Christmas vocab!

You can print these on regular paper or cardstock, OR you can open it on your iPad and view as a slide show.  

Grab this FREEBIE from my TPT store {here}.

How else do you play I Spy?  I'd LOVE to hear some of your ideas!  Please leave a comment if you download.  :)  Enjoy!

Apraxia Packet for Early Sounds

I am so excited about this packet!  It's taken me a while to put together, but it's finally finished!  After completing the Apraxia Packet for Later Sounds, I got some great feedback from several therapists as to how they address apraxia in younger students.  I also had some awesome proofers for this packet that gave me some great suggestions (ahem Jenna!).  Check it out!

Here's what's included in the packet:

• 9 Game boards to practice syllable and vowel combinations as well as rate of speech.  They target bilabials as well as alveolars.

• Functional vocabulary cards for bilabials, alveolars, and multisyllabic words.

These cards can be used with the blank game board enclosed or using just the cards themselves.

• There are also some wild cards that will make you put all your cards back!

• Motor planning cards for the deletion of initial or final consonant cards targeting /p, b, m, t, d, n, f, l/.  These are phrases in which the first word ends with the same sound the next word begins with, making it easier to motor plan.  

• Vowel/syllable drill cards

• Carrier phrases to be used with the fish cards, helping with the planning of connected speech.

• Pacing strips to give visual support to rate of speech.  My apraxic student tends to mumble a lot.  Having a visual really helps him with slowing his rate down.

Hope this packets helps some of your apraxic and severe articulation kids!  You can grab it at my TPT store HERE.   

What kind of goals do you target with your apraxic students?

PS: I'll give a free copy of this packet to the first 2 blog followers that comment with their email!  You can press the "join this site" button on the righthand side of my blog to become a follower.   :)

Too Many Tamales Sequencing & More

Have any of you read the book Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto?  It's such a cute book to read with your kiddos.  I usually communicatively read through it with my 2nd - 5th graders to work on those higher level language targets.

Here's why I <3 this book:

• It's great to show how another culture celebrates Christmas.  I like to get my hispanic students to explain to the other kids what tamales are and how they celebrate Christmas with their family.
• A variety of skills can be targeted when reading through it.  It's perfect for sequencing, inferencing, predicting, and cause/effect.
• You see many different emotions in it - happy, excited, shame, sadness, shock, etc.  Love this for my pragmatic kids.
• The illustrations are clear and expressive.
• It provides opportunity for lots of new vocabulary.

Today, my 3rd graders were working on sequencing.  I saw {this} post on pinterest last year and made my own sequencing road out of bulletin board paper.  Here's how it turned out:

The kids had so much fun with this.  While we read the story, I asked inferencing/predicting questions and had the kids write down words with their articulation sounds in them.  

Then, we sequenced the story using the road. 

I then had them go back and discuss the story elements.  They loved being able to get up and move around.  It was a lot more motivating for them.

Cute, right?  I made a packet to accompany Too Many Tamales that includes some graphic organizers for predicting and cause/effect as well as inferencing questions with answers.  There is also the "I can find my speech sound" tamale worksheets.  HERE is the link to the freebie!

What else could you do with a sequencing road OR the book Too Many Tamales??

Cause and Effect Arcade

I'm taking a little break from the fun Christmas activities (by "little" I mean tiny!) to do a cause and effect game for my 4th graders.  I needed some type of game that I could bring into the classroom, but that also would give them a variety of practice.

To make it a little more motivating for them, it's arcade-themed!  I'm loving these graphics.  :)

Kids move across a game board of tickets by rolling the dice and answering the questions on the cards.

Their cause and effect skills are targeted by 3 types of question cards:

1.  Ball pit cards - students identify whether the underlined portion of the sentence is the cause or the effect.

2.  Skee-ball cards - students answer a cause or effect question about a paragraph.

3. Toy claw cards - students come up with their own cause or effect for a situation.











The game also has wild cards, blank cards, an answer key, and cause/effect strategy cards with key words.

Grab this at my TPT store HERE!  Enjoy!!  :)

Clipart by: JWIllustrations

A Thank You Freebie!!!

I can't really put into words how thankful I am for all the TPT support over the past couple of days.  It is such a blessing to see your sweet comments on all of my products.  I really appreciate each and every sale.

Ok...enough with the mushy stuff.  HERE is a brand new freebie as a big fat THANK YOU from me!  It's an open-ended reinforcement game that can be used with any card deck.  And it is made to be played with REAL marshmallows!  Yumm!

Give each student a hot cocoa mat.  On their turn, students answer a question (or say their word or use their fluency strategy).  If they respond correctly, they choose a marshmallow card.

The number on the marshmallow tells them how many marshmallows they can put on their cocoa mat.  But watch out for the angry whip cards!  If they draw one, they have to give a marshmallow to a friend.

The person with the most marshmallows on their cup after all the cards run out is the winner.

Grab this freebie at my TPT store HERE!!  Please leave a comment below if you download.  :)

Have fun!  Eat marshmallows!

My kids had so much fun with this today!!

Graphics are by MareeTrueLove.