I was Part of a Blog Hop Last Week

Thank you for participating in the Hopping Into Spring Newbie Blog Hop. I got a ton of visits to my blog, as well as a bunch of downloads of my freebie. 

So I want to give a big THANK YOU!

Did you miss the Blog Hop? Here is a list of all of the SLPs that participated. You can click on a name to go directly to their blog. Have fun!

1) Jennifer

From Speech Therapy Fun 

2) Chelsea

From SLP Chelsea 

3) Amy 

From Speechasaurus

4) Kristin

From Beautiful Speech 

5) Kim

From School SLP 

6) Noralyssia

From Yo Amo Speech 

7) Tami

From TLC Talk Shop 

8) Gabriella

From Middle School SLP

9) Lyndsey

From Speech to the Core

10) Me, you are here!

11) Renee

From Keeping Speech Simple 

12) Heidi

From Smart Mouth SLP

13) Keri

From My Speech Party 

14) Elizabeth

From  The Speech Owl

Camp Hapitok

 

Camp Hapitok is what it sounds like. If you close your eyes , say "Camp Hapitok," and listen to yourself: Camp Happy Talk. 

Some of you may know about Camp Hapitok. Some may not. But, for everyone out there who loves kids, camp life, and miracles, you already have a bit of the Hapitok spirit inside of you. 

I volunteered at this camp as a teenager, and later returned as a speech therapist. Camp Hapitok was founded in 1970 in San Luis Obispo, CA and serves children with speech/language disorders. Each camper is paired 1:1 with a specially trained teen volunteer (what I did almost 20 years ago) for 4 weeks of summer camp. I loved babysitting and working with kids, so camp was a perfect way for me to spend my summers. During camp, the teen volunteers and campers do everything thing together in a traditional summer camp environment - but the teen volunteer is always focused on their campers speech/language goals. Campers also get 30 minutes of intensive small group speech therapy each day, which is the job I did a few summers ago. 

Camp Hapitok runs one 4-week session each summer, and during those 4 weeks most campers meet or exceed their goals. It  was so amazing to see how fast campers met annual IEP goals using this model. In four weeks these campers meets a goal that was written for a year. It felt like I was witnessing miracles.  

And guess what else? It is completely free for campers to attend. Free room. Free board. Free supervision. Free speech therapy. 

Free camp life. 

So awesome. 

Heading into the 45th year, partnership with their lead sponsor - the County Office of Education - has changed, and Hapitok is in need of YOUR help to #SaveCampHapitok. Camp is a bit short on moo-la to sustain, not only for this summer, but future summers. How short? 55k. 

So, on behalf of The Old Indian (Hapitok alumni know that guy), I am asking for help. 

Dig deep for some camp spirit. I know all you former campers, parents of campers, camp counselors, and camp directors have camp spirit down in your heart. Down in your heart (remember that song?). Whatever camp you were a part of, that place gave you some spirit. I know it. 

Please help to give a whole new crop of campers, counselors, and staff a chance to have what we have.

Camp spirit.

There is a crowd funding campaign at Indiegogo. If you are willing and able, please go here to help #SaveCampHapitok

March in the Speech Room

Okay, so it is the last full week of March. But, this is what was happening in the speech room! Soon it will be April, so things will be a bit different. In fact, I am making some changes to the overall layout and design of my room. Check back soon for pictures!

Anyway, back to March.

Did you know that March 2nd is Dr. Seuss' birthday? And that it is also Read Across America Day? Think that is a coincidence? I think not!

I scoured Pinterest and got a lot of inspiration for my bulletin boards this month. The first features our old friend the Lorax with his beloved Truffula trees. 

Next was the bulletin board that alluded most of my students. I heard a lot of "What does 'Do you like and ham mean?'"

I mean really!

I thought this was pretty clever and obvious! "Do you Like Green Eggs and Ham?"

To go with the green egg theme, I picked up these foam eggs from Target to make synonym/antonym pairs. A couple of my speech groups found the matches to the broken eggs and put them on the board. The synonyms have straight cuts, and the antonyms have zig-zag cuts.

To round out the Dr. Seuss theme, we made hats and graphed goldfish crackers. 

The hats were used to target a variety of goals, such as feelings, articulation, categories, and adjectives. I furiously wrote on tiny pieces of paper while they practiced their goal. Then, they glued the little red bits onto the hat to make stripes. They look great in my window!

The tastiest part of the past few weeks (if you like goldfish) was graphing colorful goldfish crackers for this "One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" activity. I found the worksheet here for free from Kteachertaggart. The students placed their colorful goldfish crackers on the drawings of fish. We then filled out the bar graph with the corresponding information. I made label stickers for each student to further describe the graph with words such as: most, least, top, bottom, equal, same, longest, shortest, top, bottom, favorite. When we were done with all that work, they got to eat the crackers while they colored the the fish on their page to match the graph. 

It has been a fun month, but I am looking forward to the changes I have planned for my room. Hope to see you back here soon!

Welcome to the Spring Newbie Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Hopping into Spring Newbie Blog Hop. I am so happy that you are here to see my blog and check out a freebie in my TPT shop! I appreciate that you made all the stops on the hop to get here.  
 
I am an SLP working with elementary aged kids in sunny California. I have been blogging for about a year and love to connect with other SLPs on the web, especially through blogs, Instagram, and Pinterest. You can follow me on those social media sites too, just click on the links housed in my sidebar. 


The intention of the blog hop is for some new-to-blogging SLPs get their names out into the blogging world. We also want to help you get to know us and some of the products we offer in our TPT shops. We thought that a cool way to present the quality of our products would be to offer an exclusive freebie made especially for our Hopping into Spring Newbie Blog Hop. 

To celebrate my introduction to the blog world, I am giving you a spring themed speech therapy freebie. It is called Spring Pronoun Card Game. I made this game especially for our Hopping into Spring Newbie Blog Hop. It is a fun and easy card game that targets pronouns.


 

With 42 stimulus cards and 24 lose your cards (and get another turn) cards, students have the opportunity to learn and practice pronouns. This activity will help them to improve syntax skills as well as build their grammar knowledge. Here is a preview of some cards that will come with your free game.


 
 

 

 

Additionally, pronoun description cards are provided and can be used for direct instruction before the game begins. They can also provide a visual reminder to students as to how they are supposed to respond on their turn, whether it be he, she, it, or they.

 

This game will look best in color, but is still fun when printed in grayscale. Print and cut out cards on cardstock. Next, laminate everything. 

 
A variety of games can be played with your Spring Pronoun Card Game:

1. Cards can be used for an open-ended task (where students draw one card at a time and fill in the blank with the correct pronoun).

2. Cards can be placed in the center of the table. Each player takes a turn drawing a card. They provide the pronoun and keep the card. If they pull a cracked egg card, they must put all of their cards back in the pile. If they pull an Easter bunny card, they get an extra turn. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game is the winner.

Download your copy of my Spring Pronoun Card Game here. 

Also, check out all of my other products in my TPT store here.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Next up in the blog hop is Renee at Keeping Speech Simple. Check her out here. Or, click the Hop to the Next Blog button below. 

If you are a bit lost, you can start at the beginning with Jennifer at Speech Therapy Fun. Click here or on the Hop to the Beginning button below. 

I would like to give a special thank you to Jennifer and Chelsea for organizing our newbie blog hop! You gals are awesome!

Thanks for coming, and I hope you come back soon!