That Time a Snow Day Turned Into A Snow Week

Not sure how it is where you are at, but here in North Carolina we have been suffering from a constant state of cold weather/snow for the past two weeks.  This being said we have been in school 2.5 out of 7 days.  I had a great winter themed week in store for my kiddos including a lot of fun activities including this fun multi-goal penguin activity from Crazy Speech World.  Only a couple of my kiddos have gotten to make penguins so I am thinking of modifying next week into winter themed activities while getting ready for our Speech Olympics (more to come on that soon!).  This weather needs to get gone soon because I would really love to see my kiddos more than twice this month.  

Playing Don't Break the Ice with my Artic Group

Learning all about Penguins

Constructing our Penguin Talk Craftivity
Thanks Crazy Speech World!

SLP Natalie

No Way Words

My kiddos have been increasingly negative as we have been progressing through the year.  I have been hearing a lot of "I can't" and "I don't know" which is driving me bananas. I am hoping that a visual will help remind my kids that it's ok not to know but it's not ok to not try. 

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Hopefully this will help keep my kiddos motivated to keep up the good work and try their best.  

If your speech room needs a little motivation you can find this at my Teachers Pay Teachers store here. 

Happy Friday Y'all!  

Hopefully you can get to enjoy this long weekend! 

SLP Natalie 

I Have A Dream

Next Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day so this week in speech we have been learning all about Dr. King.  This week we have been watching videos about MLK and watching the ever popular Kid President's take on dreams.  I am trying out a new schedule with different groupings of kiddos so it's been interesting trying to mix and match activities to meet various goals.  Here are some of the activities we have done so far...

We made our own protest signs with our speech words on it... not the most creative but my kiddos love taking things home to show their families

We read about Martin Luther King Jr and filled out graphic organizers about problem and solutions

We talked about words that describe Dr. King and then created synonyms for our descriptive words.

We drew or wrote about our dreams and then used our good speech skills to share our dreams with our group members.

Miss K's dream is to live in Disney World... not visit... live

We picked out important details from our stories 

And answered wh- comprehension questions about what we read

Our "I have a dream" wall

All of these activities can be found in my Martin Luther King Jr. packet in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here.  So far all the activities have been a hit and a great way to balance multiple goals within a group.

SLP Natalie

Welcome To My Speech Room(s)

As a first year SLP I have heard horror stories about what schools consider usable speech rooms (tiny closets, sharing tiny rooms, or having no room at all to call your own).  Knowing that this a reality for some of y'all let me start off my stating how much I love my little shoe box of a room.  I am very lucky to have a room to call me own in my base school and rooms that we make work at my other two schools.  I figure I would take you on a little tour of my corner of the world...  "Keep you hands, arms, and legs inside the train at all times.  Hold on to your hats and glasses, cause this here is the wildest ride in the wilderness!" (an extra gold start sticker to anyone who knows where that is from). 

First up is my base school room.  This is where I spend Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  It's a tight squeeze, especially with my bigger groups, but we make it work.  I have materials hidden in every nook and cranny but I think I have finally figured out how to make my space work for me and my kiddos.  The game closet is everyone's favorite place and I would like to say it is usually more organized but let's be real, ain't nobody got time for that. 

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I travel between two schools... I share my room at my other elementary school with another SLP (we alternate days were are at school)... This room I had no role in decorating but it works for me and kiddos so I've got nothing to complain about, plus it has a SMARTboard... can't beat that!

I refer to my space at my middle school as the fishbowl/detention room.  It's pretty much just a space that all the different therapists can use when they work at the school.  My kids don't really care what the room looks like but spending that much time surrounded by 4 white walls and one window that all the kids look in as they pass can drive someone crazy.  But you know what, I really can't complain because I have a space I can see kiddos with limited distractions which is more than some can say. 

So there it is the grand tour, all in all I know I am very lucky SLP to have the spaces that I have.  Hope you enjoyed the tour.

SLP Natalie

Guess Who's Back... Back Again... Miss. K is back... Tell a Friend

Remember that time I started this blog and was bound and determined to blog about my experiences as an SLP and thought to myself I'm going to have so much time now that I am not in grad school so I'm going to start a blog... yeah about that.... I swear sometimes being a speech therapist in their Clinical Fellowship Year is way more work than grad school! (never thought I would say that!).  Between figuring out a whole new IEP system, managing a caseload or 50 students, and creating new materials my life has been crazy busy.  But enough whining.  As I start into the new year it is one of my resolutions to add to this blog at least once a week.  I have recently opened a Teachers Pay Teachers store as well.  I figure why not help other SLPs build their material collection and make a little money at the same time.  You can find my site here.

So here we go again, Lord help me.  I'm going to take another stab at this blogging thing with slightly lower expectations than before.

SLP Natalie