BOO!

Happy Halloween everyone! Since the big candy-filled day is right around the corner we wanted to share some fun Halloween treats! The first treat is easy and cheap! Our fave combo! It is also a tradition for the speech ladies. Cindy has been making these for her kids for several years!

First get a bag of suckers (works best if the shape is round), orange yarn, and a box of tissues.

Next, wrap the tissue around the sucker and tie off with the orange yarn.

Then add a ghost face and you are good to go! It makes a super cute treat! I always make sure to hand these out at the END of speech, that way the kids are good and sugared up for the teacher and not in the middle of your therapy session. (let me tell you how much my teachers love THAT… ;)

The next idea came from Skip to My Lou. This website is full of creative handmade gifts!

BOO you friends and other teachers! Just fill up a pumpkin with goodies like ingredients to make caramel apples, hot chocolate, or yummy candy, drop it off on their door, ring and dash! If you are doing it for teacher friends just put it by their classroom door when they least expect it, then they suddenly have goodies to share with the class! (Again - teachers are SUPER pumped about students having extra sugar!) The idea is not to let anyone know who “BOOed” them. Whoever receives the BOO basket has to pass it on with new goodies the next day. Before you know it everyone has received a special treat from a secret friend! Make sure you print off the BOO poem here. To see the full tutorial click here.

Please share what you do for Halloween! Happy Halloween!

We All Scream For Ice Cream

Everybody loves ice cream, even if it is in the form of foam! My SLP friend Aftyn has this great ice cream game, but I wasn’t sure where she got it from so I decided to make my own! Keep reading to learn how to make a FUN AND EASY ice cream game to play with your kiddos!

Step 1: Print out this template and cut out all the ice cream parts.

Step 2: Then trace the cones and scoops on to foam paper. (Foam paper can be purchased at any craft store. I would suggest getting colors that look like ice cream flavors such as white for vanilla, brown for chocolate, etc.)



Step 3: Cut out your cones and scoops! We drew some lines on the cones to make them look a little better.  Also, you need to make more half scoops than cones or full scoops because this is what you will use the most in the game.



The full scoops will go on the cone first and the half scoops fit over them so you can keep stacking up your ice cream! And that’s all there is! Cut out as many scoops as you want on different colors! How easy was that?!

How to play: Each player gets one cone. After they say their word (or whatever task you wish) they get to roll the dice and that is how many scoops they can add to their cone. The person with the most scoops at the end wins! We usually use a dice that only has 1, 2, or 3 on each side. You will needs LOTS of scoops if you use a regular dice. This game is great because it is generic, you can use it for any phoneme or language activity. I love to use this to talk about flavors. I am always amazed at how the concept of flavors alludes so many of my kids!





Follow Us!

Follow us! The Speech Ladies have discovered social networking! You can follow us on Pintrest by clicking on the button to the right or go to Pintrest and search for The Speech Ladies! Our boards are new but we hope to fill them up with great practical ideas! We will be sure to follow you back! Also, feel free to pin anything from our site that catches your eye!

Follow us on twitter! Scroll down and you will find the follow button on the right hand side of this page. We are @TheSpeechLadies. We are new to Twitter so please be patient, but we hope to get the hang of it soon! We can’t wait to follow you back and hear what is happening in your speech room!

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We appreciate your support and LOVE your feedback! Tell us what you like, what is helpful, and what you want to see more of!

Happy social networking!

Zac Browser

Happy fall everyone! I hope that you are all enjoying football, pumpkin candles, and cooler weather!

If any the students on your caseload have autism, then you need to know about Zac Browser (Zone for Autistic Children)! It is a website that you can download to your computer and it was specifically designed with the autism spectrum in mind! On this site you can watch clips from tv and movies, listen to stories, play interactive games, draw on a virtual whiteboard and more! It is a safe environment and the best part is it’s FREE! I use this site as a learning tool and a reward! And typical children seem to really like it as well!

What is your favorite thing about this site?

The first video is about Zac Browser and the second video is a tutorial on how to navigate the site.

Book Club

MOST. FASCINATING. BOOK. EVER.

As an SLP we are continually learning even if we are no longer in a formal classroom. There are many books that are both entertaining and informative and this is one of them! My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. is a must read for any therapist who works with stroke patients.  (Well, really we think it is a must read for everyone everywhere but especially therapists!) In her book, Dr. Taylor recounts the experience of suffering a massive stroke and her recovery. Because she is a brain scientist, she is able to describe the happenings of the brain in a most descriptive and captivating way.  

Do not be deterred from reading this if you are not on top of your neurology terminology. The author is excellent at breaking down all the information.

We gained so many insights from this book that we are able to carry with us into the therapy room. To name a few:

·         Be responsible for the energy you bring!

·         The patient is inside there – we must find them!

·         Recovery is a process.

·         Visuals, visuals, visuals!

·         Even though we may have the same experience, we can have different perspectives.

This book also includes 10 assessment questions and Jill’s “Forty Things I Needed the Most” List. We seriously could not put this book down (one speech lady read this in less than 2 days!)

Below is a video of Dr. Taylor. The video is a little long, but so worth your time. 

Read this book and let us know what you learned from it!

Easy Artic Homework

We are always looking for new ideas for homework! You can only copy a page from a ‘Say and Do’ book so many times (but we do love those books). This is why we were excited about the website Puzzle Maker! It is so easy to make your own wordsearch or crossword puzzle.

And you get to decide which words go into the puzzle so you can target the words each individual student needs! Just print it out and remind the student to practice saying each word as they find it in the puzzle. Of course, this only works if your students can read. But we think it is a great way to change things up a bit! Check out the website and let us know what you think!

Storyline Online

I don’t know about you, but my students are a wiz at computers. Seriously, they can work one ten times better than I can. No need to call a tech guy, just grab a third grader! And they LOVE it when they get computer time during speech. So I am always looking for websites that I can incorporate into therapy.  This is why I wanted to share with you an awesome website called Storyline Online! It is a site produced by the Screen Actors Guild. Famous actors and actresses like Betty White, Amanda Bynes, James Earl Jones, Bradley Whitford and so many others read the stories.

 

Honestly, I love listening to the stories as much as the kids! Sometimes I use it as a reward, and other times I will pause the story so we can discuss the characters, setting, make predictions, talk about cause and effect, sequence, and ask WH questions. There are so many ways that you can use this site!

Have you ever used this site? If so, share how you incorporated it and if you liked it!