Thursday, October 10, 2013

What's the Plan?


Planning, data, and organization are things every SLP can love and battle with all at once. We LOVE to have a functional system, but often struggle with how time consuming and effortful they can become. Today I thought I would share with you my planning binder and data collection system. For starters, I keep all of my student data in binders grouped by grade level. Each binder has a tab for the student’s name, an attendance log, a copy of their IEP goals,, data sheets (link below), and a folder pocket to store student materials/work. I keep all of my data on address labels so that I can quickly store the data after each session and also avoid having a million papers in front of me during therapy.

Now, for the planning. This is something I really struggled with my first year, got better at my second year, and now am actually enjoying this year. Here’s the cover of my planning binder:



Pretty simple. Just a little scrapbook paper and my schedule.  When you open the binder, you’ll see the lesson/activity pages. They look like this:


The format includes time, name, current goals for the quarter, and a place for me to write my plans/activities.  Like this:




This format gives me a quick way to reference current student objectives and also space for quick notes over what I’d like to cover during the session. I always keep the copy of the previous week’s plan in back to reference and a blank week of plans behind the current week. That way if I think of something that I want to cover the following week/session, I have a way to note and remember it.After my planning pages, I keep the following:

A folder pocket of blank labels



A folder pocket of  pre-made labels made for articulation students and preschool language group.  You can find the link to these at the bottom.




Upcoming plans for language group and grading/accuracy charts.




As far as data collection and data sheets go, I keep my data on address labels (the size that fits 30 labels per page). This allows me enough space to make a quick note of our activity and to keep tallies/pluses/dashes for accuracy.  My data sheets look like this:



I have templates for students that have one goal, two goals, and three goals, and the address labels will fit in each. I like this format because I am able to get a quick check over what has been targeted more frequently/recently and I can then balance out my therapy activities appropriately.  I also have an anecdotal data log that I can use when I feel I might need more space to jot notes.

The downside to this format is that it can use a bit more paper and the address labels are not always cost effective (I have my school secretary purchase them for a discounted price through an office supplier and use part of my school budget). However, I will say that this structure has worked extremely well for me in allowing me to be organized, efficient, and without shuffling many papers during a session.

I’ve included blank documents for you try and use. I hope you find them helpful!


Thursday, September 26, 2013

The Rules of Speech

In an earlier post, I mentioned that one of my goals was to develop a common social language in the speech room. After working with and teaching students who need social communication instruction, I realized that implementing social-based rules would benefit all of my students in the speech room. Here's what I came up with:

Using these rules as a foundation not only encourages better social thinking in my room, but also gives us a way to talk about social communication and the importance of it. I use the above five rules with most of my students, but I have a shortened rule list that I use with younger students. Here's what it looks like: 

When I'm teaching and reviewing these, I put them in a little chant/dance to help the kids get in to it and remember it. Each rule has a specific action to represent it, which I adapted from the idea of "Whole Brain Teaching". So far, my students have really responded well to this and I think it's helped define the expectations in my room even more this year! I attached the rules for you to use as you wish! 


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Theme Therapy

In my last post I mentioned that I was working from weekly themes in order to establish greater consistency for my students between sessions and also to ease up the planning process a bit. In my previous years, I used "seasonal" materials often, but found that I often needed some extra things to fill the space and time between the holiday and seasonal activities. My original inspiration for doing themes came from a post I saw here on Simply Speech. The post was written by Jenn Alcorn, the author of Crazy Speech World. Jenn also posted about her themes on her own blog here. I even used the free template Jenn offered to get my own theme plans going. Here's what mine looks like:

             
So far I am LOVING this! I keep my themed activities/books in a tub right next to my therapy table and I can not tell you how much stress and time it has saved me already! Plus, another bonus is that my students are really getting excited about things we are talking about. I am also finding that I am able to read to them so much more when I have related books right at my fingertips.

As you can see, so far in September we've been talking about Apples, If You Give A....books, and now Pets. To get myself started with finding activities, I created a Pinterest Board for each theme. You can follow me on Pinterest here. Below I've listed to some theme activities I've printed/purchased and also some books for each theme:

Apples:
Apples, Apples by Gail Gibbons
The Apple Pit Tree by Shari Halpern
Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Suess
http://letstalkslp.blogspot.com/2012/09/materials-monday-apple-articulation.html
http://letstalkslp.blogspot.com/2012/08/apple-theme-roll-and-cover.html
http://carriesspeechcorner.blogspot.com/2012/08/back-to-school-week-open-ended-wormy.html
http://crazyspeechworld.blogspot.com/2012/10/bananas-for-apples.html
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Antonym-Apples-A-Common-Core-Aligned-Activity-436628
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Auditory-Apples-310113
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Apple-Tree-ThanksgivingFall-Categories-for-Speech-Therapy-390382

If You Give A...:
Any of the books in the series by Laura Numeroff
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-You-Give-A-Dog-A-Donut-Speech-Language-Companion-Pack-654998
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-you-Give-A-Cat-A-Cupcake-Storybook-Companion-Pack-642706
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-You-Give-a-Moose-a-Muffin-Speech-and-Language-Companion-628290
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-You-Give-A-Mouse-A-Cookie-Preschool-Speech-Language-Book-Companion-593581
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-You-Give-a-Mouse-a-Cookie-Language-Activities-for-Preschool-498830
http://www.mousecookiebooks.com/mouseCookieBooks.html

Pets:
Top Cat by Lois Ehlert
Move Over, Rover! by Karen Beaumont
Pet Show by Ezra Jack Keats
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fun-with-Pets-Expressive-and-Receptive-Language-Activities-671000
http://letstalkspeechtherapy.blogspot.com/2012/09/dog-gone-cute-categroies.html
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Move-Over-ROVER-Speech-Language-Book-Companion-Pack-639489
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Puppy-Dog-Receptive-Language-Packet-for-Speech-Therapy-445136

I realize that using themes is going to dip in to my personal budget a bit, so I am really trying to find free activities whenever possible. I also gave my theme list to my librarian so she can not only help me find books I'm wanting, but also suggest some other great thematic books I may not have known about. Do you do themes in your speech rooms? How do you use and implement them if so?

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Long time, no see (or type rather)!


Hey hey hey! Look who decided to re-join the blogging world after a whirlwind summer and start to the school year! THIS GIRL! I am excited to be back and already have some ideas about some speech room happenings a want to share with you this Fall. Here are some updates on my life:

-       I did summer school this year at one of the preschool sites this summer. I LOVED it even more than I did last summer and had a great time doing my language group lessons with a different bunch of kiddos.

-       I got a PUPPY! I am the proud puppy momma of a black and white fur nugget I named Darla. Here’s a picture of her that I took after I found her climbing in her toy box:
-       

-       Upon returning to school in the August, I had to wait a bit to get in to my room as my school was still under construction from a renovation started last spring (big ugh). However, I now have a BRAND NEW speech room and I LOVE IT! I will post pictures once I feel like it’s at a good point for sharing!

The summer was a great time for me to relax, but also a time for me to reflect and set some goals for the current school year. Here’s what I came up with:

1.     Have more consistency across sessions for my students. I’m planning on improving this by revising my planning binder and also implementing themes this year.
2.     Develop a common social language in the speech room. I’m planning on improving this by incorporating social language concepts in to our speech rules.
3.     Incorporate more opportunities for movement. Now that I have a bigger room with enough space to move around in, I want to use it to my advantage!

Those are my main focuses for the year. Do you find yourself doing this between school years too? What kind of goals have you set for the year?

As I mentioned in my first goal, I’m implementing themes this year in order to ease up planning and provide consistency. Look for some info in my next post about what I’m doing for thematic units! 

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Birthday Fun!

Any of my friends, coworkers, or family members would tell you that I just love a good birthday! Seeing as how my birthday was last week, I got to thinking about what I could do to help my students celebrate their birthdays when in my room. And then, the idea for a birthday game was born! I wanted to make this game a general reinforcer so that it could be fit for a student with any goal who may be celebrating in speech. Here's what the game looks like:


The cupcake cards guide the game and tell players how many candles they should to their cake. The objective is to try and get the most candles!

I created a "birthday cake" out of a styrofoam circle, ribbon, and puffy paint. I used the tip of a screwdriver to make holes for the candles in the styrofoam and then purchased some candles at Wal-Mart.  I think it turned out pretty cute! Of course, you could make your own variation of a cake on paper or out of a small box. Make it fun!

I hope you use this as a fun way to celebrate your students (and yourself) when the occasion arises!

Birthday Game

Clipart for this activity was purchased from Scrappin' Doodles.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Whoa! Time flies!

So I kept telling myself...you need to do a post this week, you need to do a post this week.....a few weeks later, here I am! I'm sure if you work in a school, you really know how time can get away from you this time of year! Yikes!

So now that I'm back in action, I have two materials I want to share with you this week.

First of all, this is the wonderful time of year where all of these fantastic, eager, tiny people come to school for kindergarten round-up. I love watching how excited they are to see their soon-to-be school! Along with this, I am usually asked to speak to our incoming parents about speech and language skills and kindergarten. This is a great time for me to get some information out about speech/language development and also a time for me to ease any parent worries about "My child does not have their /r/ sound yet...Is that okay?". I attached a handout for you to help with some of these questions. Along with this handout I also include a speech milestone chart. The one I attach is used by our district, so I'm not sure how/if I can distribute that. It looks something like this one I found on the Stavish Clan blog. I also attach an article from the Reading Rockets webpage on dialogic reading (find it here). The last thing I include with the information is a bookmark to remind parents the steps/components of dialogic reading. I print this double-sided so they have all of the information on one paper!

Second of all, I like to give my early-childhood parents a helpful reminder of ways they can encourage and help develop language skills at home with their children. I like to give this handout at conferences or following an initial eval, too. The blog/website www.playingwithwords365.com has some great information on this, if you're interested. The handout I give is short and to the point, but I feel it helps remind parents of how important talking and playing with their children really are.

Both handouts are attached for you to use below. What are some things you do this time of year (or in general) to educate the families of your students?

Speech, Language, and Kindergarten

Dialogic Reading Bookmark

8 Ways to Encourage Language

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Conversation for Articulation and Social Practice



Hey all!

Today I thought I would post a free download with questions and topics for eliciting conversation. I use these ALL THE TIME in my therapy room for artic carry-over and working on conversational skills. The download has 36 cards with open-ended topics/questions. Sometimes when working at the conversational level, my students decide to switch from their excessive hallway talking to four-word answers. Anybody else have this happen to them?!?! Anyways, I've found that some of these cards really help to get my kids thinking and cut down on the need for me to say "tell me more about that" all the time. I hope you enjoy them too!

I'm pretty short and sweet today, as it is SPRING BREAK here! The attachement is below for you to use. What are some tools you use to elicit conversation?

Conversation Questions and Topics