Thank You Notes Freebie

It's November and that means it's a time to be thankful. One of the things I'm very appreciative of is that my parents taught me to always write thank you notes for things that I received. In this age of technology, it might be a lost art. I think it's important to teach kids to write thank you notes, so I created a freebie just for that!

 There is a sample thank you note with indicator arrows for important pieces to include:

There are writing prompts:

There are also social language questions that can promote discussion:

Plus, a blank template to write a note:

Click the picture up at the top of the post to be taken to the freebie!! Enjoy and be thankful!

Wordless Picture Books

Graphics: KG Fonts, PrettyGrafikDesign

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included for your convenience.

Using wordless picture books in speech therapy is a common way to elicit a lot of different language skills. Here are the links to some posts done by fellow SLP bloggers:

Smart Speech Therapy

Playing With Words 365

Let's Grow Speech

Miss V's Speech World has a list of wordless picture books on TpT

Why should we use these types of books?

-great for a range of ages, from the very young on up

-gives insight into a client's narrative abilities

-allows you to look at grammatical structures, sentence structure and overall vocabulary skills

-you can use the same book over and over again

-they can be great ways to help a child learn how to expand utterance length

-parents can use them at home

Amazon does have some, including the following:

 

The latest product to hit my store is one that I'm super pumped about. I've had the idea brewing for awhile, but it took a little bit to figure out how to best approach it. It is an expanding packet of short wordless picture mini-books. What does expanding mean? It means that if you purchase now, you get to download any additional updates for free! With each addition, the price will increase though.

Click below to be taken to the listing:

So, let's take a closer look. Right now, there are 4 stories included. They range from 10-12 half pages (to save on ink and lamination). The backgrounds are white, mainly because I didn't want to send my printer to an early death (haha) with really intricate backgrounds. I kept graphics simple and uncluttered because a lot of my kids get distracted if a scene is too "busy." Plus, I wanted to leave it as open-ended as possible. Additionally, there is a one page "pre-made" story that you can use if you wish to. They also are aligned to many common core standards!

The 4 stories right now are: 

1. The Sticky Spider Webs.

2. What Pet Shall I Get?

3. When I Grow Up!

4. My Community

Below are examples of what the pages look like:

The "pre-made" story is a full page. I used repetitive, but detailed, complex sentences because a lot of my kids struggle to formulate these types of sentences. Again, the use of the story is completely up to you. 

Enjoy!

S.A.L.L. for ALL: Fall [giveaway]

Did you see it? The latest thing to hit my store? I'm quite excited about it because I'm hoping it'll make planning much easier for fall. Perhaps another season might follow if people are interested!

It's 110+ pages FULL of fall themed material that is broken down by 4 themes: apples, pumpkins, leaves, and football. Did I mention it's CCSS aligned? There are activities that should work with K-5th grade students. Individual activities within each theme vary; however, in each theme there are nonfiction passages, 2 stories (one for K-2, one for 3rd-5th), and open-ended articulation activity, and a simple craft activity. 

The following CCSS are targeted in this packet:

K.L 1b. Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs

K.L 5c. Identify real life connections between words and their use

1.SL 6. Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation

K.L 1f. Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities

1.RL 1. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text

1.L 4a. Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase

K.SL 6. Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly

2.L 4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple meaning words and phrases

K.L 5a. Sort common objects into categories to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent

2.3.L 1b. Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns

1.RL 9. Compare and contrast the adventure and experiences of characters of character in stories

K.L 1e. Use the most frequently occurring prepositions

3.L 5a. Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases 

K.L 5b. Demonstrate understanding of frequently occurring verbs and adjectives by relating them to their opposites

K.L 5d. Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs describing the same general action by acting out the meanings

2.3.L 1d. Form and use the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs

You can see all the different activities in the TpT listing and by downloading the preview. Here are a couple more pictures to give you more of an idea:

This is an idiom matching game, you can also choose to play without the answer choices:

These helmets are for comparing/contrasting:

These leaves are for irregular plurals:

Roll a die and cross off an antonym (synonym page also included):

You can win a copy by entering below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ice Cream-y Cones

The summer is flying by much too quickly for my liking. Some of you might even be back in school. I have until the end of August before I go back, but am just beginning to get a taste of actual summer vacation now since I worked ESY. Today, I'm sharing a freebie that has an ice cream theme - it screams summer!

I call this activity Ice Cream-y Cones and it targets story retell, by helping students pick out the character, setting, problem, and solution of a short story. They can then use the completed cones as visual cues to retell the story. There are 5 stories and ice cream scoops with character, setting, problem, and solution to match with the correct cone. 

Grab your copy here!

The story page indicates the color cone that matches each story:

Hope you enjoy this freebie!

Take A Trip To The Speech & Language Zoo [giveaway]

I haven't posted about any new activities in quite awhile, but I'm super excited about this one! It's time to take a trip to the zoo, but this zoo is a little different than your typical zoo. First, you print out a zoo map (2 pages) for each student. Tell your student to circle the animals he/she will be visiting based on his/her goals. 

You can print the ticket page and give each student a ticket for answering correctly or print the whole page and have them color in a ticket each time they answer correctly:

Below is a description of what skill each animal targets:

-Giraffes: Articulation (pg. 7-11): Use with any articulation deck or app. Each card has a task. All cards are designed for word level, but can be altered for phrase/sentence level.

-Alligators: Synonyms & Antonyms (pg. 12-18): Some cards have a pair of words (decide if they are syn/ant) and some cards have one word and the student lists either a syn/ant.

-Elephants: Categories (pg. 19-23): Some cards have a category; students should name items that fit. Some cards have items; students should name the category.

-Flamingos: Idioms (pg. 24-28): Each card has an idiom in context; students discuss the meaning.

-Gorillas: Inferences (pg. 29-33): Each card features a short description and a question that requires inferring.

-Hippos: Similarities & Differences (pg. 34-38): Each card features 2 items; students state similarities and differences between them.

-Kangaroos: Attributes (pg. 39-43) Each card features an item; students name a set number of attributes.

-Koalas: Past Tense Verbs (pg. 44-50): Each card features a verb; students should make up a sentence using the past tense of the verb. Regular and irregular verbs are included.

-Lions: What Doesn’t Belong (pg. 51-55): Each card features 4 items; student should state what doesn’t belong and why.

-Monkeys: Main Idea (pg. 56-60): Each card features a short story; students should state the main idea.

-Pandas: Prepositions (pg. 61-64): Each card features a panda in various locations; students should state the preposition (4 each for on, in, under, above, between, in front, behind).

-Parrots: Plurals (pg. 65-68): Each card features a picture of items; student should state the plural form of the item. Includes regular and irregular plurals.

-Peacocks: Was/Were (pg. 69-74): Each card features a sentence; student should fill in was or were. Visual included to remind students when to use each form. 

-Penguins: Is/Are (pg. 75-80): Each card features a sentence; student should fill in is or are. Visual included to remind students when to use each form. 

-Walruses: WH Questions (pg. 81-85): : Each card features a WH question; student should answer the question.

-Turtles: Recalling Details (pg. 86-90): Each card features a sentence to read aloud and a question that requires the student to recall details. 

-Tigers: Analogies (pg. 86-90): Each card features an analogy; students should explain their answer.

-Rhinos: Create A Sentence (pg. 96-100): Each card features 2-3 words; students should create a sentence using all words on the card. 

-Snakes: Social Skills (pg. 101-105): Each card features a question that focuses on social skills. Student should role play or answer the question. Some are zoo related, others are not.

-Lizards: Nonfiction Passages (pg. 106-108): Each card contains information about a zoo animal. Use these to answer questions related to the information, summarize, or recall details. 

-Frogs: Problem Solving (pg. 109-113): Each card contains a situation with a problem; students should discuss how to solve the problem.

-Cheetahs: Asking Questions (pg. 114-118): Each card contains a prompt; students should ask an appropriate question.

-My Favorite Zoo Animal worksheet (pg. 119): Use this worksheet to have students write about their favorite animal. Look up facts or use some of the facts on the lizard cards.

-What Did You Do At the Zoo? Fill In Mini-Book (pg. 120-121): Use this mini-book to write about what animals you visited and why. Print the cover page (pg. 120) for each student and as many animal pages (pg. 121) as each student needs. Cut and staple the mini-book together. 

All the cards are the same size. I recommend printing, laminating, and putting each set on a ring for easy grab and go! Examples of cards:

There is a mini-book that your students can complete which will reinforce what they learned:

This is a HUGE 120 page packet. While the price tag may seem a bit steep, it's something that you can use year round and over multiple sessions, which will make planning much easier!

Click the picture below to be taken to the item:

I'm so excited about this product that I want to giveaway a copy to a lucky follower! 

Enter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Daily Lang-Tic Tasks: 180 Tasks to Enhance Language and Articulation

This year in my speech room, I want to have a quick language and/or articulation task that students complete at the beginning or end of the session. Why? This should allow me time to quickly check over homework, while simultaneously fostering independence in my students and giving them more practice with their speech/language skills. 

I realize this might need tweaking throughout the year and won't always happen, but that's ok.

Introducing Daily Lang-Tic Tasks:

(click the picture to be taken to the TPT link)

The concept is simple. There are 180 pages that look like the picture below:

Red pictures frames have a language task, while blue picture frames have an articulation task. 

Display these somewhere in your room. You can print all pages and display one each day OR download and pull one on up on your iPad each day.

Language tasks include: comparing/contrasting, describing, unscrambling sentences, grammar, WH and how questions, inferences, prediction, categories, social skills, multiple meaning words, problem solving, and object functions.  

Articulation tasks require access to articulation decks. There are repeats of these tasks, only because it's difficult to come up with 180 different articulation tasks. The goal of these cards was to get more trials! There is a blank page included for your to add your own. 

I realize that for some students the task of the day might not exactly hit one of their goals/objectives. I tried to make the language tasks broad in nature and tasks that would generate language. You can have your students do the tasks out loud so you can hear them, write them down (language task), or maybe have them record themselves so you can listen later. 

What do you think? Is this something you'd utilize and how?

{Review} Spring Monsters Inferencing Pack

I am excited to do another product review swap! This time it is with Lindsey of WordNerdSpeechTeach. I am reviewing her Spring Monsters Inferencing Pack. It seems I usually have several students working on these skills and her packet offers a ton of different kinds of activities. They all feature cute, spring monsters too, which my students loved!

I have not even tried out all the activities yet because there are so many great ones! So far, I have used the "what will happen next? cards, the "what am I?" cards, the "who am I?" cards, and the "what am I missing?" cards. 

Examples of each type of card are below:

What Could Happen Next?:

 Read My Emotions:

 Emotion Charades:

What Am I?: 

Who Am I?:

What Am I Missing?

How Do You Know?:

I've used some of these activities with a variety of students and ages. The youngest was 7, the oldest was 17. Making inferences is such a hard skill for a lot of my students. The nice thing about these cards is that you can use them for vocabulary development, auditory processing, social skills, etc. This makes the packet go a long way! A lot of my students really need visuals or choices, so I simply provided them when I could. 

Pros: 

-I love the ability to use this with multiple ages and skill levels

-I love that there's some blank cards to create my own

-The graphics are adorable

-There are so many different activities, I haven't even used them all yet!

What I Altered:

-I printed these using the multiple page option. The cards were still readable and I saved some ink. Score!

-A LOT of my students require visuals and/or choices, so I needed to provided these for most of my students

Definitely a versatile packet to grab if you need to target inferences! Thanks to Lindsey for doing a product review swap!