Stellar Speech

I don't know about y'all but this week has just been crazy busy making up meetings and evaluations that have been missed due to snow days.  That being said, this week I have been running on survival mode (aka flying by the seat of my pants).  Usually I go into a week feeling prepared and have my theme for the week all laid out with fun activities for my kiddos. Don't get me wrong we have still been having fun in speech but it has been a plan as I go kind of week.  

This week's theme (if you can call it that) was Outer Space.  While we did many fun space themed things, I am leaving this week just thanking Jesus that I have survived. 

We worked on pronouns, verbs, and creating sentences with this activity from Crazy Speech World's Intergalactic Expressive Language Package (find it here)

We made our own solar system with our speech sounds written on the stars. 

We worked on Synonyms by matching stars to their synonyms in different constellations (activity can be found here).  

I am excited to have time this weekend to get ready for our Dr. Seuss week so I can feel ready to tackle the week head on.  

SLP Natalie

P.S. Have you taken advantage of the sale on Teachers Pay Teachers??  Not going to lie I went a little crazy but it could be worse... it could be drugs. 

2014 Speech Olympics... Cancelled due to Snow

Sadly the snowpocalypse is putting a serious damper on our speech Olympics... I had a full week of activities planned including art projects, games, and competitions for my speech kiddos to take part in/earn their gold medals.  The first two days of our Speech Olympics were a blast. We made Olympic torches, competed in table curling, and read about/watched videos of our favorite sports.  I am bummed that our Speech Olympics were cut short, but even sadder that this snow means we probably lost our Spring Break (#schoolSLPproblems).  I'm trying to find the positive in this situations which is more time to get ready for our Black History Month theme next week and get some other materials made.

A lot of my kiddos had no clue what the Winter Olympics entailed... 

to get ready for our Speech Olympics we watched this video to learn about the Winter Olympics.  We also worked on our regular and irregular past tense verbs by pausing the video and talking about what the athletes did.

The entrance to our Speech Olympics... on the back wall are all the kiddos flags we made last week.  Each one represents my kiddos just like each flag in the Olympics represents a country. 

Some of my kinders with their Olympic torches... we wrote our special sound words on each of the flames. 

We worked on creating grammatically correct statements and using adverbs

We read about some of our (and by our I mean my) favorite winter sports and filled out a graphic organizer about what we read. 

A lot of our Speech Olympic activities came from my Speech Olympic packet that can be found in my TpT store.

Our First Full Week of School!

We finally had our first full week of school!  I never thought I would be so excited to type those words but man these crazy snow days have really been throwing off my schedule as well as all my kiddos' schedule!  This week was a struggle for all of us as we acclimated to a full 5-day school week.  I also finally got to use all my materials for my winter themed week.  The one good thing about the snow days is I was able to collect actual snow for my kiddos.  I'm sure I looked like the crazy person in my apartment complex trying to collect snow off my car but it was totally worth it.  The kiddos loved using all our senses to describe snow.  We also used a ton of fun activities from some of my favorite SLPs on Teachers Pay Teachers.  All in all I would say our winter week was a winter wonderland of fun. 

Working on pronouns 

Describing snow using all our senses

Using all our sense to describe snow... the kids got a 

kick out of playing with the snow inside

Building Snowman Synonyms 

We worked on regular past tense verbs

I had my kiddos take turns drawing out cards 

and we would act them out then talk about what we did

This week we also started getting ready for our Speech Olympics which included each student making their own flag to represent themselves in the Speech Olympics.  I quickly discovered that my kiddos had no clue that the Olympics were upon us/had now clue what the Winter Olympics included.  So we had a crash course in one of Miss. K's favorite things.

Learning about all the winter sports we will see in the Winter Olympics

My reading kiddos read about and became the "expert" on different Winter sports 

and came up with four important facts about that sport to share with our group,

We worked on comprehension skills, correct grammar, and articulation skills.

This is part of the Speech Olympics pack.

My weekend project... getting Miss. K's speech room

ready for the speech Olympics

Let the Games Begin!

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