2017 SLP Holiday Gift List!

I can't believe the holidays are here! This is my favorite time of the year. But it can also be stressful. So much to do, so much to buy. Secret Santa gift exchanges, co worker treats, gifts for your own child's teachers and therapists. We always want to pick out the perfect gift, but it's often hard. So, I threw together a list of some of my favorite things to help you out! 

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One of my absolutely favorite things are comfy, soft graphic tees. I wear them just about everyday to work with jeans or scrub pants. My favorite tee shop is The Blue Envelope. I love this company because it's owned and ran by a fellow mom.  I have never been disappointed my purchases (I own at least 6 of her shirts!) and she ships orders out fast!! 

An Erin Condren Planner!! I am one of Erin Condren's biggest fans. I have been using her planners for years. They are colorful, durable, and can be customized. All SLPs need a good panner to keep track of their therapy sessions, meetings, due dates.... and life outside of work. This is a perfect gift for the new year! Use this link to get $10 off your first order!

A large, durable therapy bag. I have always been a big fan of 31 totes. My last therapy bag from 31 lasted me 5 years. But I recently ordered one from L.L.Bean and am in love! To call this thing sturdy would be an understatement. I ordered the large Boat and Tote and can fit everything I need it in. I am a traveling therapist... so that's a lot! 

Games! If the SLP you're shopping for works with children, he or she will be thrilled to receive the gift of games! Some of my current therapy favorites are: Yeti in my Spaghetti, Pop Up Pirate, The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel, and Pancake Pile-Up! And you can never go wrong with PlayDoh!

Speech Therapy Christmas Ornaments! The Peachie Speechie is known for her witty SLP apparel, and now she carries Christmas ornaments as well! You can check out all her goodies, here!

Office Supplies! I kid you not. I would be the happiest girl opening a box full of flair pens, Astrobrights paper, binder rings, rolls of velcro dots, and laminating sheets. All things I use on a daily basis!

Books! Books for therapy are great, but I am thinking more along the lines of book for the SLP. We are busy people by nature. We take on the weight of the world and have a hard time saying, "no!" I have found Emily Ley's books Grace Not Perfection and

  A Simplified Life to be just what I need. It's a fantastic reminder to slow down and simplify. And I always feel like she is talking right to me when I am reading! 

And if all else fails... there are always gift cards. You really can't go wrong with a gift card to his/her favorite Coffee shops, Amazon, Target, or iTunes!

But overall, it's the thought that counts! Have a wonderful holiday season!! If you have any more suggestions, please share them in the comments below.

St. Patrick's Day Craftivity

I've probably said it 1,000 times, but I love craftivities! I love using them in therapy because the kids are able to get creative and have some hands on learning. My latest craftivity was created just in time for St. Patrick's Day!

I've made this activity available for free in my Teacher's Pay Teacher's store. Click on any of the pictures to go directly to it. The download includes one black and white printable worksheet with a leprechaun and 10 clovers. It is purposely left open ended so you can use it to target almost any goal you are working on.

 Last week I used it to target articulation. I printed and cut out target words from the Mommy Speech Therapy website and had my students practice their target words or make up a sentence for the words before they glued them onto the clovers.

 This was a simple, low prep activity that was a lot of fun. These worksheets were also sent home for homework since the target words were already there and ready for practice!

Using the Elf to Promote Speech & Language Skills!

In our house, we absolutely love this time of year. One of my favorite holiday traditions is using the Elf on the Shelf with my kids. Before I had kids of my own, I used the elf in my classroom. If you're not familiar with the concept of the Elf on the Shelf,  the elf is supposed to help promote good behavior this time of year. Each night, he or she flies back to the North Pole and reports to Santa. With the overflow of sugar and excitement, there is no doubt that this little elf is helpful. However, I love using the elf for more than just behavior. This little guy is perfect to help promote speech and language skills!

In my book, anything that gets a child talking and using his/her language skills deserves a gold star. There are countless ways that you can use the elf to encourage your child's skills based on their interests, but I thought I would share a few of my favorites. 

Prepositions

Each night the elf moves to a new place in your home or classroom after she returns from her trip to the North Pole. That means, each day is an opportunity to work on a new preposition. Where is the elf today? Well, in our house she is sitting next to the bunch of bananas that look like minions! Yesterday she was inside the stocking and the day before she was on top of the reindeer. This is such a fun way to work on these skills. 

Predicting

Where do you think the elf will be tomorrow? What do you think he will tell Santa tonight? Making predictions is a skill that many kids have trouble with. They have to think abstractly and about the future. After a few days of seeing the elf move to a new place and learning there is a pattern, your child may have an easier time using his/her prediction skills. 

Vocabulary
The elf can give you plenty of opportunities to teach new vocabulary. Where you place your elf and what you place around her gives you the perfect chance to introduce new words. You can use pictures (my favorite is to make it look like the elf is drawing pictures of target words) or put actual items next to her- hey there's another preposition opportunity!  Working in a school? Use your students vocabulary or spelling words for the week.  Working with articulation students? Place some arctic cards next to her. The kids will have no problem telling you what words the elf has set out for them that day.

Expressive Language

I found an elf template on Pinterest a few years ago that I used with my students. They got to color and decorate their own elf. Then they used their creativity and wrote all about their own elf. They named their elf, told me how old the elf was, what he/she loved to eat (most answers were sugar filled!), and what he/she did for fun. I loved hearing their responses and the kids all got so excited about this activity. You can check out my blog post about this activity and find the free download here.

Language comes out when kids are excited. Use the elf collaboratively with things your child loves. For example, if he loves trucks, have your elf drive a big rig! If she loves princesses, set up an elf and princess tea party. In my experience, the sillier the activity, the more language I see.
I hope you have a wonderful, language filled holiday!

Our First Week with the Elf!

Has the famous elf made her or her appearance in your house this year? I have had an elf for 6 years now. She used to visit my students but now that Kenzie is old enough, she visits our home. I have been so excited for Kenzie to be old enough to enjoy the elf, and the year has finally come!

 The day after Thanksgiving, our sweet little elf made her appearance. Of course she didn't come empty handed… Christmas jammies for all! After we read the story, Kenzie decided to name her Belle (which is an improvement from the name she insisted on last year… Pizza!) Belle is here to stay for a while!

 The next day we found her getting to know Kenzie's toy friends and reading them all a story.

 I was super happy to see that Belle was getting into the spirit of Giving Tuesday! She encouraged Kenzie to pack a bag of toys to donate. To my surprise, Kenzie willingly gave 3 big bags of toys away. So proud of my girl!

 Tuesday Belle came in like a wrecking ball!

 Then it was time for a stroll with a reindeer.

 Belle overheard Kenzie asking for fruit snacks for Christmas, so she brought her a little treat.

 I let Kevin be in charge of the elf the other night since he was home (he works nights so it's usually my job to move the elf each night) This is what he came up with. If you can't see, Sheriff Callie is helping Belle get to the Love Troll with her lasso. I love his creativity!

We are having so much with all of these new Christmas traditions! Stay tuned to see what kind of trouble we stir up with Belle this week :)

If You Take a Mouse to the Movies… Holiday Craft & a Freebie!

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Speech and crafts, they just seem to go together, don't they? I was so excited last week when I found glittery christmas trees and foam sticker ornaments on clearance at Joann's! Not that I needed an excuse to tie a Christmas craft into therapy, but this just went perfectly with the story,

 If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff

In the story, the mouse wants to create ornaments for his christmas tree out of paper, glue, and glitter. He completely covers the tree in ornaments- so much that the top of the tree is tipped over! So the kids and I had a blast seeing how many ornaments we could fit on the tree, making it look just like the one in the story!

The craft worked perfect for all of my speech & language students. I was able to target: prepositions, requesting, labeling, sequencing, following directions, turn taking, and articulation goals with this activity. Check out some of our masterpieces!

 I also created a story sequencing activity to go with the book. You can download it for free in my TpT store by clicking the picture below.

Bringing Speech & Language into Your Own Home- Letting Mom (or Dad) be the SLP!

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I absolutely love using thematic units. I wish I could find a career where my entire job was to plan thematic units for kids. I'm talking a story that goes along with a lesson or skill. Then, a fun correlating activity. Or maybe if things get a little crazy, a matching snack and a movie. I love it. Thematic units are fun and they give the kids multiple exposures to vocabulary and skills you may be working on. Lucky for me, I do get to plan thematic units that go along with my students' speech and language goals. And guess what- this is something super easy, fun, and educational for parents to do at home with their kids, too. 

With winter break right around the corner, this is the perfect time to educate your students' parents on how to tie speech, language, and educational opportunities into their daily lives. I know that many parents are busy with a full schedule and full time jobs (trust me, I am one of them), but this doesn't have to be something that happens daily. When you have a free evening or a free afternoon, set some time aside for some fun, hands on learning. I am going to share an example below.

I always say, start off with a story. Last week, we read the story, Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
This is a great holiday story that kids just love. Books give us an amazing opportunity to make predictions, use descriptive words, ask and answer WH-questions, practice reading skills, practice reading skills while using good speech, etc. Kids love reading with their parents, it's a great bonding time.

After you read a story, find a fun activity that is related to the same topic as the story. Moms and dads that are reading this- finding activities to go along with stories is much easier than you may think. Search Google, Pinterest, and Teachers Pay Teachers for some great, printable educational materials. For example, Whitney Smith, from Let's Talk, has a great story companion that goes along with Gingerbread Baby. After we read the story, we played a synonym matching game then compared and contrasted a gingerbread man vs. a gingerbread house. These are all great language opportunities.
Next comes the best part- the snack! What is a better snack when reading this story than decorating a gingerbread man?! Hands on, crafty activities can spark a lot of language in kids. In addition to their excitement, it's a great chance to work on requesting, vocabulary, descriptive words, story telling, sequencing, etc.
The picture below if of my daughter decorating a gingerbread man with her daddy. If you check craft stores around this time of year, everything holiday related is on sale.

This is just one example, there is so much out there that parents can do with their kids at home. Any opportunity to spend time with your children while working on speech and language skills is time well spent. Fun weekend or evening games, stories, and activities are things that your kids will remember forever. Why not have some fun and try out your best SLP skills at the same time? You may surprise yourself!

I Known an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie

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Thanksgiving is quickly approaching! I love the holiday season and how festive these few months are. The only thing that stinks about November is that there are only a few weeks between Halloween & Thanksgiving. That means that I only have a few short weeks to squeeze my favorite Thanksgiving books into therapy! So needless to say, as soon as Halloween was over, I quickly retrieved my Thanksgiving books out of storage and got them into my students' hands! First up on our list… 

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie!

I love using all of the old lady books in therapy because I can target so many goals with them. Of course it goes without saying that the kids adore these books, too. This story in particular always gets the best comments. The kids always comment on how this lady is "so rude!" and how "she needs to stop eating all that food!" If you're looking for a good laugh, ask your students what they would do or say to the lady if she came to their house on Thanksgiving and ate all their food!?

I created a story companion with 11 different activities to help target my students' speech & language goals. This packet targets vocabulary, sequencing, following directions, categories, plurals, compare/contrast, articulation, and more. There's also some open ended activities that you can use to target goals that may not be included in the packet. 

The kiddos and I had so much fun with the old lady last week that I want to give a copy of this packet away to one of you!

You can also download a copy of this activity from my Teachers Pay Teachers store here!

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Our Week With the Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves

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Pumpkin candles are burning. There is a cool breeze in the air. The pumpkin patches are open... fall is here! Fall is also in full swing in my speech sessions. Thematic therapy plans are always more fun and engaging for students. That old lady always make therapy more fun, too. This week we read and had some fun with the story, 

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves!

I love this book because it is festive but not about Halloween. Many schools don't allow Halloween stories and activities. Since I am now a private therapist, I have to be mindful of the family I am visiting, their culture, and their beliefs. In those cases, this is a fun, fall book that is safe to use in school and at home. After we read the story, we completed activities out of my speech & language story companion. 

We covered the dots as we practiced target articulation words. I use the chips and magnetic wand (we call it a magic wand) from Super Duper's Chipper Chat. You could also use small erasers or even candy!

We practiced good listing skills as we followed directions using story vocabulary.

We went on a story scavenger hunt as we searched for words containing our target sounds in the story. These pages were then kept at home for practice. 

We completed a color, cut, and glue story sequencing activity to practice our retelling skills. This is also a great way to tie in vocabulary and articulation goals. 

This packet includes more activities then I was able to take pictures of this week. The kids and I had such a blast that I want to share all of these fun activities with you! You can download a copy of my story companion here or try to win a copy below! The winner will be announced Wednesday, October 15!

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