Speech Room Makeover

I was finally able to get into my room yesterday! In one of my previous posts I mentioned that my room was potentially going to be converted to a kindergarten classroom - GOOD NEWS - I got to keep it and I am so thankful. 

Check it out! I'm in love - slanted ceilings, exposed brick, adorable windows.. Just love it.

The bulk of my room! The cabinet on the left is storage for games. The shelves in the back are for books and testing materials. I also have four tables and three student desks.. not sure what I'll do with them just yet! On this side of the room I have 2 bulletin boards, a chalk board, and a white board with a projector. There's also two bathrooms (it was a kinder classroom once upon a time), but one is used for storage. 

Here's another look at the therapy space. Not sure what to do with all of these tables!

Here's the space between the two doors in the first picture - my desk! I have two more bulletin boards plus two filing cabinets for IEPs and materials.

As excited as I was to finally get in my room, I was overwhelmed by the space! All I accomplished my first day was taking down the previous bulletin board decorations, which was quite a tedious task. Today I was ready to tackle a bit more - I redid my bulletin boards. Stay tuned for updates and watch me transform this space! 

Books and Activities for PreK-2nd

I found another great book at my local thrift shop that I think will be perfect for my younger groups. I started looking for crafts and found so many that I had to post! 

Pigs in the House by Steven Kroll 

I love this book for rhyme awareness! It follows three little pigs who escape from their pen and find their way inside the farmers house. I'm going to have the kiddos identify the words that rhyme on each page. It's a bit longer, so I will definitely split it up between two sessions. I found some fun piggy crafts on Pinterest to pair with this book. Some of my favorites include:

I love this "P" craft found here. This would definitely be a hit with my younger kiddos (PreK - 2nd). Add in following directions for assembly.

This fun craft would also be fun and great for following directions! 

There's always a good paper plate craft! This little piggy was made out of tissue paper cut outs and has awesome googley eyes! I scored some packets of googley eyes ranging in size from the Dollar Spot at Target - can't wait to use them. 

Lesson Planning: Thematic Units

As promised, I'm back with a peak into my lesson planning process. I've already decided that I am going to do monthly thematic units with corresponding books, crafts, and games. I snatched some great books at a local thrift shop, so I thought I'd highlight a few of my favorites along with potential crafts and games. 

Weather Thematic Unit

Sun Snow Stars Sky, by Catherine and Laurence Anholt

This book is my favorite find from this trip! It goes through each of the seasons and highlights things people and animals do, clothes we wear, things we see/hear/smell, etc. At the end of each season, it asks the reader what he/she does during that season. 

           

           

Along with the built in wh- questions, there are many opportunities for targeting verb tenses (regular and irregular). As for articulation, /s/ and s-blends are a-plenty! Also f-blends, /l/ and l-blends, /k,g/ and k- and g-blends. I absolutely loved this book and can't wait to use it in therapy! I was thinking for older, more advanced, groups it would be neat for them to select their favorite season and create a picture explaining why. Encourage them to find ways to incorporate their target sounds (e.g., sun for "Summer") or create full sentences for language kiddos. For younger groups, it would be neat to create something similar to this craft (found on Pinterest). 

Seasonal/Fall Thematic Unit

Although we don't experience much change in leaves here in Southern Arizona, I'm excited to use a fall theme around October! One of the books I'll be using is Leaf Trouble by Jonathan Emmett. It's an adorable story about Pip, a young squirrel experiencing seasonal changes for the first time. 

This book is great for kiddos working on /s/ and s-blends and velars/velar-blends. There are also multiple uses of regular past tense. The first few pages are dedicated to Pip trying to figure out what has changed about his favorite tree, so it provides great opportunities for making inferences and predictions. I found SO many cute crafts to pair with this book - the options are endless! I really like this one:

Hand print trees with dot leaves found here. Each time the kiddos say their target sounds they can add a dot (or dots) to their tree. 

One of my favorite games to play with the kids is Sneaky Snacky Squirrel. They absolutely love it - plus look at all of the s-blends in the title! I'll use this game on a day off from reading and crafting. Perfect! 

I'll be back with some more of my favorites soon! Hope you enjoyed this post and find the ideas useful! If you have any other great ideas, please comment!

Super Speech Room

When I visited my new school in May, the SLP had her own classroom. I repeat - an entire classroom all to herself! I fell in love with the space and immediately began thinking of ways I could make it my own, but then she broke the news that it might be converted to a kindergarten classroom for this school year. I can officially move into my space on Monday, so fingers crossed I'll get to keep the amazing classroom I saw!

My school is doing a Super Hero theme, and our principal has encouraged us to incorporate the theme in our classrooms. I'm waiting until I see the space to really go crazy with decorating, but I have some ideas! So far, I've created individual alphabet letters and numbers to laminate and hang in the classroom. They look like this:

You can download your own copy here for free.

Since literacy is the center of my lessons, I plan on dedicating one of my bulletin boards to "Super Readers." I've created five "I can" reader statements. They look like this:

I uploaded this file as a PDF since the document contains a font I downloaded from the web. If you'd like an editable version, just let me know! You can download your own copy here for free.

I'll post pictures once the room is complete!

Summer Time Shopping!

On my first day of summer post-graduation celebrations I took a 3 hour nap and caught up on all of the TV shows I'd been neglecting throughout my last semester of grad school. Since then, I've binge-watched the second season of Orange Is The New Black and both seasons of House of Cards. I also read all three books in the Divergent series and took countless other naps. Needless to say, I didn't exactly know what to do with all of my new found relaxation time!

Itching to be productive and get back into the swing of things, I decided to start building my therapy collection - books and games galore! I purchased most of my games at Goodwill and ordered some of my favorite books online at half.com. Here's what I have purchased so far:

Some of the books I ordered online include: Sleepy Bear, Buster Goes to Cowboy Camp, Go to Sleep Groundhog, The Super Hungry Dinosaur, Baby Bear Isn't Hungy, Bear Wants More, What Will You Be, Grandma?, Cluck O'Clock, and Pete The Cat: I Love My White Shoes. 

Some games I'm hoping to still add to my collection include: Pop the Pig, Pop Up Pirate, Who Shook Hook, and Sneaky Snacky Squirels. 

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I also received two AWESOME gift baskets as a graduation present, which included Headbandz, Guess Who, Memory, and so many other neat things! 

I'd say it's a pretty great start, right?!

What are my plans for all of these awesome materials? Read on.

 I was placed at an elementary school during my last semester of grad school, where I provided therapy for kiddos PreK - 2nd mostly (some 4th graders) twice weekly. My supervisor chose to create weekly themes, which she paired with a book and a craft/game. I thought this method was very successful - it exposed the kids to literacy (great vocab learning) and created a simple way to target artic and language at the same time for mixed groups. I plan on adopting this method, with a slight modification. I always felt as though I wanted more time to go back through the book - target story sequencing and retell, etc. So, I may select a monthly theme with two books that I use throughout the month to target goals. I'm still tweaking my plans a bit - stay tuned for a later post! :)