Inside Out Pragmatics and Langauge

I have good news. I finally posted some new materials in my TPT shop to meet many of your social language and general language therapy needs. For 4-bucks, each set can be yours! 

Get your Inside Out Language Therapy Pack here. Here are some of the activities and worksheets that come with your set.

Also available is my Inside Out Pragmatic Language Set. Lots of activities for those students who need some instruction in emotions and feelings.  Here are some of the worksheets that are included.

I am so excited to get this stuff up in TPT. I hope you like these activities!

In case you missed it, I also have an Inside Out Puzzle Freebie in my TPT shop. Get it here.

Have a great day! And thanks for reading =)

Inside Out Puzzle Freebie

I have a great freebie for you in my TPT store. I have been working hard getting some activities created for my Inside Out theme this fall. My classroom is pretty much done (more on that later) and so are all of the activities. But, I am so excited about this stuff, I had to get something posted onto TPT! 

This quick feelings match game is perfect for those last few minutes of therapy. You can use it to target pragmatics and emotions, or to build vocabulary with synonyms.
Print onto cardstock in color or gray-scale. Both are provided to make my product more printer friendly! Cut out the puzzle pieces to create this fun matching game. Laminate to make your game last a bit longer.

Please download and enjoy this Inside Out Feelings Puzzle Freebie!

Check back soon for more Inside Out activities!

My Friend has 100 Followers!!!

This is Kelly from A View into my Classroom. She is so AWESOME!!! Not only is she an amazing teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, but she is my dear friend. And, she has some amazing news!

 

She has 100 followers on her blog! To celebrate this accomplishment, Kelly is doing a giveaway that you can access here. By following my site, you get an extra entry into the raffle! There are lots of fun prizes, including my Super Guys Mini Pronoun Book and Princess Mini Pronoun Book.

                        

And that's not all, you will also win some more TPT products from other awesome sellers, $15 to Mrs. Nelson's TPT store, $20 to Rockin' & Lovin' Learning's TPT store, a $25 Target gift card, and 2 products from Kelly's TPT shop!!! 

          

What are you waiting for??? You have until Thursday, September 3rd to enter. Go here now!

Welcome Back 2015/2016 SLPs!

 Hello! I am off and running this year and excited to share my new themes and ideas. I want to give you a small preview of what I have goin' on in the speech room. 

Have you seen Inside Out? This movie is absolutely amaze-balls and perfect for SLPs! I am using this as my theme to get the year started and talk about feelings. This is what I have on my bulletin boards so far:

These mini posters will soon be in my TPT shop!

This set goes with the Zones of Regulation curriculum and is a freebie from Jill Kuzma. Check it out here.

What's on your mind?

To go with this fun theme, I am also working on a social language pack for my students, as well as my TPT store. I am setting a goal for  myself to make it live by Friday! Here is a preview:

Check back tomorrow for an exciting celebration for my friend and colleague over at A View into my Classroom. It is going to be fun, with an awesome giveaway!
 

Follow me on Bloglovin'

Follow my blog with Bloglovin. It is an awesome way to keep up to date on the latest at The Modern SLP. Try it, you'll like it!
           

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!

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!