101 Ways to Praise a Child

I don’t know about you, but I find myself praising my children by saying “good” 2 billion times a day. It is just an automatic response. But I am so tired of saying “good” when they get something right!

I recently ran across 101 Ways to Praise a Child. It is a list that Mom gave me when I was in undergrad. Moms always know what you need, even before you need it! So I tweaked it a little bit and wanted to share it with you! Unfortunately, neither of us know where it originated from or else we would be giving BIG props to that person! So for the new year I am challenging myself to be more creative when I praise my students for a job well done!

See 101 Ways to Praise a Child HERE.



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Some of My Favorite People

Today, I am taking a moment to brag on some of my favorite people. My fellow classmates! I just love those girls! Since I have graduated (woo hoo!) I can’t say I will miss going to class, but I will definitely miss them!

Sometimes grad school makes you feel like you are losing your mind, but my sweet friends were always there to encourage me and help me find my sanity! One of our final classes is Research Methodology, and let me tell you, this class is a doozie for many reasons! We take the semester to replicate a single subject study and then for the final, we present our findings. Below you will see some pictures from our poster board presentation night. (I know the girls are going to kill me for putting these pictures up, but they worked so hard that I wanted to share it with you!)

My Board

I hate I didn’t get pictures of everyone with their boards!

Our amazing professors had a holiday buffet ready for us! Yum!

The whole class. Congrats girls!

Grinch Pills

Grinch Pills!

Have you seen these yet? Not positive where I ran across these (probably Pinterest), but they are super cute and will make great stocking stuffers or teacher gifts!

What you will need:

Just print off the poem and glue to a box of green Tic Tacs! You can print the poem off in a Tic Tac ready size here. (Sorry I don't know who origianlly came up with this, so I can't give credit to them.) I have already given some of these out and they are big hits!

Here is the full poem:

Merry Christmas!

Feeling kinda grouchy?
Holiday spirit can't be found?
Just try these little "Grinch Pills".
They're the best medicine around.
Whether eating a whole handful,
Or munching one or two,
These tasty little "pills"
Take the "Grinch" right out of you!

So the Grinch stole your Christmas,
Well this should gelp you out.
Little green Grinch pills
Will take out the pout.
You can eat a handful
or just one or two,
And before you know it,
you'll be a smiling fool.

Ornament Wreath

Have we mentioned our obsession with Pinterest? Oh my, how time flies when you are on that website! We have been inspired to get crafty and actually create some of the things we pinned! If you are not already following us on Pinterest just go to the right hand side of this page and click follow us on Pinterest!

No doubt if you are on Pinterest you have seen the ornament wreath. We made one and wanted to share it with you! Here is a quick tutorial for how we made ours!

Materials:

·         Styrofoam wreath

·         LOTS of ornaments (it’s nice to have varying sizes)

·         Hot glue gun and glue sticks

·         Ribbon

This project is so simple! First, wrap your wreath with the ribbon (this is a step that we did not initially do, but after we started we realized it looks best if you do this first). If you want a bow on top of your wreath, go ahead and loop your ribbon through and add the bow to the wreath since this will be difficult to do once the ornaments are on.

Then hot glue your ornaments on! For us it worked best if you did it in 3 layers. For the first layer glue the ornaments on the middle of the wreath, the second layer on the inside circle, and the third layer on the outside of the wreath. It is great to have smaller ornaments and then you can go in and fill in any big holes throughout the wreath.

Beware: this takes LOTS of ornaments and glue sticks! We used about 56 ornaments (which we lucked up on at Goodwill for a fabulous price) and 12 glue sticks.

Then hang up and enjoy!

What time is it?

Awhile back a wonderful autism specialist came to my school. She was there to help some teachers and me serve a precious little boy with autism in a way that was best for him.

While she was there she told me about a neat watch that changed colors throughout the day according to the time. She said it had been a lifesaver for older students who could not tell time. We all know that many people on the spectrum are very schedule oriented. And in elementary school we can make lots of great picture schedules to help them understand what to expect throughout the day. But let’s face it, once these students hit Jr. High a picture schedule may cause these students to stand out even more.

Enter the Noon watch! This invention allows students to have a sense of a schedule without making them stick out among their peers. They learn what activities are associated with the colors position on the watch.

While I am sure that there are several brands of watches that do the same basic thing, this just happens to be the one I saw in real life. The pictures are from watchizmo.com. (Watches are available there as well.) The colors change as the hands of the watch move. Your student may not be able to know that it is 2:45, but they can understand that when a certain area of the watch turns blue (or whatever color you like) it means school is almost over. It is also a great alternative to a timer. Timers work miracles for younger students, but once again it is not so cool once you hit the 10^th grade.

These little babies can be expensive, but with sales on every corner, this is the best time of year to get one!

Have any of you ever used anything like this? If so, did you like it? What other products have been beneficial for your older students?

The Mystery Box

We love DIY projects around here! So here is an easy one that you can pull out time and time again. The mystery box! This is something I made back in undergrad, and I am still using it!

To make this, I wrapped a box with the underneath side (not the side with the pretty pattern, but the white side) of wrapping paper and filled it with packing peanuts. Then I painted on some question marks and glued foam letters to the box. Yep, it was that easy! No doubt that all of you crafty people can come up with some awesome ways to decorate your box! And if you expecting Santa to send a package your way, then this is a great time to make this!

There are so many ways to use it in therapy! You can put artic cards in the box and have the students say the word as they pull the card out. Or you can put objects in the box and have the student name the object and its function as they pull it out of the box.

If you are working with adjectives it is fun to put an object in the box, have the child find the object and describe what it feels like before they pull it out of the box! The kids love getting to dive into the box!

Any other ideas on how to use the mystery box in theapy?

Website of the Week

The holidays are here! We hope everyone is getting into the Christmas spirit!

Today we wanted to take just a minute to say a BIG thank you to Jourdan over at Future SLPs for making us the website of the week! So hop on over and take a look at her awesome collection of resources!

And check in with us soon because we have a lot of fun things coming your way!