January in the Speech Room

January is almost over. My winter bulletin boards will come down on Friday to get ready for February. But, I wanted to share what we did this month. I went with a snowy theme, even though we were enjoying 75+degree weather. Yes, a heatwave. Not a real surprise here in California. Our best weather is usually in January. Summers can be pretty foggy. 

Anyway, I digress. Let's get back to business!

One of my bulletin boards displayed a hot cocoa survey and mugs. I was inspired by these ideas: link and link. I asked (almost) all of the speech kids if they like hot cocoa, and added their name to either "yes" or "no" column. The two students who said "no" don't like hot cocoa, just warm cocoa.

The kids with articulation goals made hot cocoa. I have to admit, they were all a little disappointed that it wasn't real hot chocolate. 

For the small mugs, I found an image online shaped like a mug, printed it on blue paper, and made marshmallows with typed target words. Next, we did the same thing we always do: they practiced the words on the marshmallows, and glued them onto the hot chocolate.

Yum!

My winter scene bulletin board, Talking in a Winter Wonderland, features mittens and snow globes. Here is before:

And here is now:

The mittens are synonym pairs that the students matched and hung with tiny clothespins on the board. I found the idea here and made my own set with the die-cut machine at our school.

Next up: Snow Globes. These have been the talk of the school. Pretty cute. I found similar ideas here and here and here, and adapted them to work with my supplies. I ordered all of the winter stickers, gems, and snowflakes from Oriental Trading Company. Here are the links: stickers (sold out), gems, snowflakes (sold out).  I had the hardest time finding clear plastic plates. The plates are from Amazon and are 6inches around. An affiliate link is provided for your convenience on my side bar.  The snowy balls are from the Dollar Tree.

  
Here are the steps!

Step 1: Find a cute kid to come to therapy. After each therapeutic turn, the student can add a winter sticker, gem, or snowflake.

Step 2: Pour snowballs in the plate.

Step 3: Put a lot of glue on the edge.

Like this

Step 4: Flip the snow globe over so that it is upside down and the snowy scene will show through the plate.

Step 5: Set the snow globe on the plate.

Step 6: Gently press the snow globe to the plate. Ensure that the glue is on the entire circumference of the globe.

Step 7: Let the snow globe dry overnight.

Step 8: Hang and enjoy!

Do you want to build a snowman? I can't stop singing that song. Luckily for my students, I am singing in my head. I got this freebie from That Fun Reading Teacher on TPT here. I modified the activity a little bit to expand on adjectives and comparatives/superlatives. We talked about all the different ways we could describe the sizes of the snowballs that made the snowman. Then, they chose which words they wanted to use to describe their snowman. Add a little color, and Ta Da! A snowman!

Last month we did some scratch and reveal pages that I found on Oriental Trading Company. You can read about that activity here. It was super popular, so I decided to do it again to go with the winter theme this month. I found these at Oriental Trading Company but they are sold out. Sorry! 

I feel like I am repeating myself, but this is how we roll. Students completed their turn on whatever they are working on, and got to scratch off one portion of the picture. Something great about this activity is that it takes a little bit of time to scratch off a portion of the picture. So, I get a lot of time during each turn to practice with a student in the group while the other student is scratching and revealing their picture. A happy accident!

Happy winter, see you soon for more activity updates and February bulletin boards!