One Lovely Blog

I have kindly been nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award by my fellow blogger and SLP, Renee. Her posts are thorough and clear, I love her writing. Check out her lovely blog here: 

Keeping Speech Simple

The rules for accepting the award are:
1. Thank and link back to the person who nominated you. Check!
2. Share 7 things about yourself. Check!
3. Nominate 15 other bloggers and comment on their blogs (usually on their about page or contact directly if necessary) to let them know. Check!

Here we go! 7 things about me:

*Disclaimer: You may some repeat facts about me from my Liebster Award post. It was kinda hard to come up with new facts!

1. I volunteered at a summer camp as a teen for kids with speech/language impairments and/or hearing loss. It is called Camp Hapitok and has been running for 44years. Due to recent changes in financing, they are having a crowd funding campaign. Check it out here if you would like to help.
I later became a speech therapist at that same camp after I graduated from college. I will be working there this summer as an SLP. Fun!
2. I was a Deaf Studies major as a freshman in college and planned on being a DHH classroom teacher. I changed my mind and took the SLP track instead. I know (some) sign language.
3. I ran my first half marathon in March, and am running my second this weekend. I don't even really like running that much. 

4. I recently began Crossfit. It is hard, but really fun and effective.

5. I presented at ASHA when I was in graduate school with my professor. 

6. I am a Michelle Garcia Winner addict. I own every product she publishes and/or endorses. She is totally "speech famous."

7. Reading is my favorite. I read all. The. Time. The problem is that my Kindle is near death, but Mother's Day is coming. Hint! Hint!

Now it is my turn to nominate some bloggers. There may be some repeat nominations from other bloggers, but these are the blogs I just really like, so I want to honor them!

*Disclaimer #2: Please don't think I am a weirdo when I comment on all of your blogs. It felt a little bit stalker-ish to be honest...

1.  A View Into my Classroom: Kelly is a DHH teacher and personal friend. Here blog is great, and so is she!


2. The Peachie Speechie: Not sure what I love more, her blog posts or her shop!


3. Crazy Speech World: This veteran blogger, Jen, is someone I have followed for-ev-er! Check her out, she is awesome!

4. Speech Room News: You all know Jenna, right? Great posts, and great idea. 

5. Speech Room Style: This is a great blog that features cool speech rooms. Additionally, Kathryn sends out weekly emails with links to SLPs on TPT. I get a ton of great materials each week thanks to this newsletter. You can sign up too on her blog!

6. The Dabbling Speechie: Felice is the author of a blog that has a lot of great ideas for all ages, especially Junior High. We all could use a little help there!


7. Speech to the Core: Lyndsey has an awesome series on her blog entitled "A Day in the Life" that features SLPs from all over the place. I love reading this feature each week to see the wide variety of what we all do!

8. SLP Chelsea: Chelsea has the most adorable blog, plus a lot of great ideas for therapy. 

9. Speech Peeps: This is another blog that I have been following for, like, ever. Nicole Allison has a great line of TPT products that I have a collection of!

10. SLP Natalie Snyders: Natalie will provide you with something to do TODAY in speech, she is awesome.

11. Speech Therapy Fun: Jennifer hosts another adorable blog. So creative, so cute, so informative.

12. Beautiful Speech: Love this grad student and SLPA. Kristen really "gets it," a lot more than I did in grad school!

13. Smart Mouth SLP: Heidi has great activities, especially for pragmatics. 

14. Consonantly Speaking: Here is a place to find a TON of ideas for therapy. It is a gold mine!

15.  Bright Ideas SLP: Whitney has great style, as is reflected in her blog design. Totally up my ally! 


Check em' out, and see you back here soon!

Tiny Objects

A fresh and fun activity that I have been doing in speech therapy is called Tiny Objects for Articulation. This is an activity that targets articulation development. Basically, each phoneme has a set of miniatures to use for articulation practice.

 

Although I created this activity for articulation therapy, I have also used it to practice fluency/stuttering strategies, syntax, categories, and EET. This game is flexible!

 

I have been putting together this activity for a while. I wanted to ensure that there were enough miniatures to make therapy sessions productive!  I had a storage container with small drawers that I found at a thrift store. But, these containers can be purchased at any hardware store. They are usually used to organize and store screws, nails, etc. Mine was a bit dingy, but some orange spray paint took care of that! 

 

Next, I used sticker letters from my scrapbooking stash on the front of each drawer to designate a space for the phonemes, and some blends. I then collected little things for each phoneme to store in these drawers. The objects are from Lego, Playmobile, bead shops, doll house websites, and our family toy collection. I always keep an eye out when I am shopping for things that will not only fit in the drawers, but also suit my needs for this activity.

These are the most popular items that the students love.

 

In (sort of) order: gumball machine, hippo, soldier, Batman, Ugg, fortune cookie, feather, cheese, swan, blow fish, mustard, plunger, Chinese food, french fries, train, Chinese checkers, chips, gingerbread house, sushi, dragon, flamingo, jar, cup, snail, clock, roller skate, scissors, teapot, bubbles, rose, orange juice, smoothie, Hello Kitty, princess, mermaid

Here is how I use it in therapy. Students are given a drawer with their target sound. During their turn, the student says each word so many times, or in a sentence, or a silly sentence with two words, etc. Then the next student goes. We go around and around until all the miniatures from the drawer are used for practice. This is a favorite in speech class! 

A goal that can be targeted during this activity might look like this:

By DATE, STUDENT will correctly produce PHONEME in the THERAPY/CLASSROOM/ETC setting at the WORD/PHRASE/CONVERSATIONAL/ETC level with 80% accuracy in 4/5 trials as measured by observation and data collection. CCSS ELA SL GRADE.1

or, with real words:

By 12/1/2015, Christy will correctly produce /s/ in the therapy setting at the word level with 80% accuracy in 4/5 trials as measured by observation and data collection. CCSS ELA SL 2.1

I hope you enjoy this idea!